O'Reilly to resell Mandrake Linux

Linux vendor Mandrake has signed a deal with publisher O'Reilly to ship its product in the US and Canada. The deal is significant for Paris-based Mandrake - well respected both for being one of the easiest to use and one of the quickest to market with the latest Linux technologies - as it gives the distro a leg up to compete with Linux giants Red Hat and Novell on their home turf. (Although Novell's Linux is SUSE, which is based in Germany). ...more

Microsoft pledges not to charge double for dual-core chips

Microsoft has promised that it will continue to licence its server products on a 'per processor' basis rather than 'per core'. The announcement applies to all Microsoft products that are currently licenced per processor including SQL Server and BizTalk. Multi-core processors are seen by the industry as a way of continuing to increase the performance of new designs without having to increase the clock speed with all the associated problems of overheating. ...more

Adobe cuts the price of education

Adobe is offering a huge education discount on six of its Web and print publishing applications. Comprising InDesign, Acrobat, Photoshop, Illustrator, GoLive and LiveMotion, the 'Education Print-to-Web promotion' costs ?315 and is aimed at students, teachers and lecturers. Adobe UK's marketing director Mark Floisand said that the offer, 'aims to ensure that when students leave college they are equipped to develop professional creative content, using professional tools. ...more

Joint venture pushes forward digital cinema age

While "Star Wars: episode II" is filmed solely using digital technology, Mr Lucas must be wondering how the masses will see the film as it is meant to be seen, in a digital theatre. A joint venture between Qualcomm and Technicolor is set to allay these fears as it will underwrite part of the $150,000 estimated cost of converting celluloid cinemas to digital dens. Mobile communications company Qualcomm and film processor Technicolor, a division of Thomson, have formed a joint venture called Technicolor Digital Cinema is offering to pay for installing and maintaining the digital projection systems in return for a 12. ...more

Compaq finds Microsoft's companionship

Compaq has launched a cut-down, 'free' variation of its iPaq PC. The PC-like device, which runs MSN-based software and provides access to (you guessed it) MSN Internet services, is the second such machine to come from Compaq. It joins eMachine's model, launched last month, in providing special pricing and rebates which effectively make it free. ...more