10 Cool Products For An Open-Source World

Several vendors are working with the LiMo Foundation, an open-source mobility consortium, to bring Linux into the wonderful world of mobile computing. Panasonic Mobile Communications jumped on the bandwagon with its FOMA 906i handset, which features a 5.1-megapixel camera that is equipped with face detection, autofocus and auto-exposure. Pricing was not available.

If you're deploying a high-performance database, you just might need a Violin 1010 Memory Appliance. The appliance, which supports major Linux releases and distributions, OpenSolaris and Microsoft Windows, offers both DRAM and NAND Flash or a mixture of the two. That gives it the ability to provide both scalable memory and high-performance storage, the company says. The first release supports up to 504 GB of DRAM in a 2U chassis. A starter kit is priced at less than $40,000.

Pivot3 recently introduced what it's calling "serverless computing," a platform that uses storage virtualization technology to enable consolidation of application servers. To remove the servers from the equation, Pivot3 is combining x86-based storage nodes with the Xen open-source hypervisor, creating a storage platform that incorporates server functionality and can eliminate the need for stand-alone servers. As a result, customers can reduce the complexity of their infrastructures, save on utilities and generally be more "green." Pricing was not available.

Vyatta is breaking into the network infrastructure market with its Linux-based routers, including the new Vyatta 2501. The company bills it as a midrange system built to meet the connectivity and security demands of medium and large enterprises. It includes two integrated Gigabit Ethernet ports and two expansion slots. Features include integrated BGP, OSPF and RIP routing, stateful firewall, IPsec and PPTP VPNs, quality of service, WAN load balancing and support for a variety of LAN and WAN interfaces. Pricing starts at $2,347.

3Com teamed with Digium, progenitor of the open-source Asterisk VoIP platform, to offer the 3Com Asterisk Appliance IP telephony system for small businesses. The platform includes hardware and a graphical user interface designed for easy configuration. It is priced at $1,595.

Fonality's PBXtra turnkey unified communications platform builds on the Asterisk open-source VoIP platform and includes features such as its HUD desktop application for communications management, Microsoft Outlook integration and voice-mail-to-e-mail capabilities. Fonality also offers Trixbox, a software-only version of the product designed for solution providers that want to offer custom configurations. Pricing for PBXtra starts at $995.

Barracuda's Message Archiver 850 was built to store and index e-mail for up to 4,000 users, making it a powerful tool to help customers achieve regulatory compliance. It offers dual-redundant power supplies and hot-swappable RAID arrays. The vendor's appliances are Linux-based. Pricing for Message Archiver 850 is $29,999.

Songbird is a free music player offered by Pioneers of the Inevitable, a group of open-source designers and developers. The player runs on Linux, Microsoft Windows and Apple Mac. It supports formats including MP3, FLAC and Vorbis on all platforms; WMA and WMA DRM on Microsoft Windows; and AAC and Fairplay on Windows and Mac. Recently added features include Smart Playlists to dynamically create song lists based on user settings, and Concert Tickets, which shows listings for upcoming concerts by artists in a user's playlists.

If you're in the market for free office productivity software, give IBM Lotus Symphony a whirl. The suite enables users to create documents, presentations and spreadsheets. It is based on OpenOffice.org Technology and supports the Open Document Format.

For customers that need both Microsoft Windows and Linux applications on the same desktop environment, Ulteo offers its Virtual Desktop. The free software promises to bring Linux applications to the Windows platform without the need to reboot.