Well, it definitely *feels* like Christmas in July. There is no less than 3 major software releases I’ve been hanging out for which are scheduled for release this month, these include:
- VMWare server: released yesterday. Simply amazing software. I cannot recommend this software enough. Virtualise your server management, run multiple operating systems on the same server, simultaneously. Brilliant software and perhaps the most innovative software this decade?
- SUSE Enterprise Desktop 10 & SUSE Enterprise Server 10: due for release any day now. The beta has been out for a while now and is pretty solid. I’ve been KDE-man but with what Novell have done to the Gnome desktop, I may just switch! The great thing about Linux is that no matter what desktop environment I use - everything will just keep working.
- Lotus Notes for Linux running on Eclipse: this one was a complete surprise announcement. I’m still a bit stunned by the way IBM have kept this one quiet for so long and then announced the release date with only two weeks notice - July 24th is apparently the date that Lotus Notes will run on a Linux desktop. I’ve been hanging out for this for a long time and in fact I’d all but given up.
In other news, we’ve all been pretty busy at Agileware. We landed a number of big projects and new clients which have been occupying our time. Hence, we’ve been pretty quiet on the Blog, apologies but work demands y’know.
Our focus has been to deliver a range of open source solutions to our customers. This has been met with amazing success, huge cost-benefits to the customer and incredibly reduced time-to-delivery. Here are some of the FOSS we have been working with:
- Asterisk: VOIP PABX
- BackupPC: Backup software for Linux. Backup laptops, servers, desktops, remote servers etc. Diff backups, comparison, data restore, Web-UI.
- iFolder: Data synchronisation.
- LAMP: Linux, Apache, MySQL, PHP
- Zimbra: Enterprise-grade Email & Calendaring for Linux, Windows & Mac.
- SME Server: Point-click-go Linux services.
- Drupal: Web-based community framework & content management system. We’ve been deliverying training, public websites, custom web applications and Intranets. More about this later.
- Linux server rollouts. An equal mixture of replacing existing Linux servers, installing new servers or retiring Windows servers.
- Desktop Linux: Ubuntu, Kubuntu and OpenSUSE
- And of course, integrating combinations of the above to deliver some really kick-arse solutions!
As you can see this is a diverse range of software.
In the pipe-line we’ve got:
- A SUSE Enterprise Desktop 10 update coming up.The customer is already on SUSE Desktop 9. SUSE 10 will really kick butt. Windows Vista looks old and slow in comparison, my the tables have turned in such a short time.
- A few more Zimbra & iFolder roll-outs. This combination really suits mobile workers who just want there data to be accessible where-ever they are, no matter what desktop they are using.
- Probably a SUSE Enterprise Server 10 rollout replacing a group of Windows Servers.
- I expect we’ll be doing some custom Linux workshops for a few customers.
- Looks like Lotus Notes development is picking up again somewhat as a few of the local customers have finally upgraded to Domino R6.5 from Domino R5. It is however, also sad to note that a lot of the local industry has migrated off away from Lotus Notes. Oh well.
- Oh yeah, and of course lots more Drupal work. We love Drupal
Seems that the IBM developerWorks team agrees too!
As part of our work with FOSS, we are increasingly giving back to the FOSS community. Although we are a pretty small team, our contributions, no matter how small will benefit someone, somewhere else in the world. And that’s the whole point.
So we have been contributing back Drupal patches and even a custom module - Signwriter. With further modules on the way, contributing to the overall value of the Drupal project.
In addition, we have been developing a Drupal Training Workshop for end users (strictly non-technical users). The workshop has been run 3 times now for our customers. Feedback from attendees has been positive and encouraging. Everyone leaves the workshop fired up about what they can do with their new Drupal system. So that’s great affirmation. There is a dire need for Drupal training materials for end users, so we will also contribute this back to the community soon too.
Podcasts (and Videocasts to some extent too) have really taken off at Agileware and we’ve been listening to a diverse range of sources. My personal favourites being:
We plan on making some big changes to the public Agileware website and getting back into the groove of regular blogging. Our company has come a long way in the last 6 to 8 months, in fact almost a complete transformation. So as a consequence it will be time to change our website to do justice to our capabilities and talk more about what real solutions are being delivered using FOSS.
BLUG is firmly on my list of things to kick-off (OK, so it’s been 4 months from idea to action). There is a need and an interest in having a regular meet-up of BLUG-type people. So I’ll be sending emails and making calls to get this going soon. Can’t wait!
Signing off, Justin
