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If Linux users are the wacko fringe of IT, what’s this?

By Tony Bradley for ZDNet Australia

The Linux Foundation's newly-announced annual Linux.conf event is to be held in Sydney, Australia in June next year. The conference will be held at the Regent Hotel on Macquarie Street and will run from June 14 to 17.

This could be seen as a big deal in a country like Australia, given Linux’s early adoption and popularity in the continent. But it’s yet to happen. “There’s very little awareness about the conference among people who are running large-scale Linux systems in their enterprises,” says Tim Veenstra, the vice president of communications and outreach for the Linux Foundation.

That could change in a big way when the conference takes place. “I do think it will be well-attended,” he says.

Veenstra adds that the conference will provide a mix of speakers, from both industry and community figures. There will be talks on issues such as cloud computing, enterprise management and the emergence of the containerised application platform.

Another key addition to this year’s conference is the participation of the Debian project. It will be represented in a number of panels and will also hold its very first developer summit.

“This is the first of many events that are to be sponsored by and in collaboration with the Debian Project,” Veenstra says.

“The Debian Project will present, in addition to the main conference programme, an introduction to packaging and developing in the Debian way.”

The conference will be free of charge to attend, and will offer both conference and tutorial tracks.

Veenstra says: “While Linux is still the underdog to many enterprises, the reality is that the market is shifting and it is becoming more of an enterprise play, in large part due to the rise of mobile and cloud. If the Linux Foundation is truly listening to the needs of our membership base, then this event is one that should be in Sydney.

“This is the first of many events that are to be sponsored by and in collaboration with the Debian Project.”

“With only a few weeks to go before the conference is due to start, I would expect it to be standing room only and a must-attend event for the Linux ecosystem.”

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Windows 7's end of support date is nearly upon us. How will Windows 10 change the enterprise experience?

Image: Flickr/Michele Spagnuolo

In the IT marketplace, Windows 10 is a hot topic.

What will Microsoft offer that’s attractive to enterprise users? Will this version of Windows bring the promise of Windows 7 and the stability and support of Windows 8.1? How much will Windows 10 have in common with Windows 7 and Windows 8.1?

Microsoft hopes Windows 10 will address these and other questions.

“We know that for a lot of users, Windows 10 will be the first new Windows in years,” says David Jones, senior product manager for Windows.

“What I would say to our users is, make sure you give it a try, and we are not just launching Windows 10. This is the first major version in the Windows 10 series. We’re launching one Windows 10, which will be supported through both Windows Update and Microsoft security updates, for as long as there is active Windows 10 usage.”

However, Windows 10 won’t be released to the market just yet. It’s expected to launch in late summer or early autumn next year.

It will be the first major version of Windows in years, and one which Microsoft hopes will win back the hearts of enterprise users. While consumers might be happy to download the operating system and use it immediately, the same might not be true for many enterprise users.

Those waiting until late next year will miss out on some advanced features. “We’re still tweaking the features, but we’re looking at features that will be in Windows 10 for the desktop,” Jones says. “Microsoft Office 2016 is definitely one of them.”

The final version of Office will not be delivered with Windows 10, but an Office Runtime component will be bundled into the release.

So, what will customers get when they install Windows 10? As is the case with Windows 8.1, some elements of the operating system will be familiar to users. That includes the Start menu, for instance, which will remain largely unchanged.

One of the biggest changes, though, will come with Windows 10’s new version of Internet Explorer 11. The rendering engine for the browser will be more advanced, better supporting mobile devices.

“With Windows 10, we’ve re-architected the platform and the browser,” Jones says. “We did this to ensure that it would be future-proofed and continue to be a platform that’s on the forefront of web technology.”

In other words, Microsoft is hoping that it can get the best of both the world of desktop apps and the world of the web. And this new version of IE is part of that strategy.

“Internet Explorer 11, we’re calling it Windows 10’s flagship app,” Jones says. “In the past, Internet Explorer has been kind of like an app where we’ve focused on making it good for the web, but it had some shortcomings.

“Internet Explorer 11 is a full app, so we’re also focused on making it accessible for enterprise users and mobile users.”

And the final version of Office will bring some new features, such as a “modern” experience in Word, Excel and PowerPoint.

“We’ve made some pretty significant investments into the platform and the platform team for building Office for the modern experience,” Jones says. “People will notice that Office is more fluid, less reliant on a mouse or touchpad and more on gestures.”

But it’s not all good news for Windows 7 users. Microsoft isn’t going to make Windows 7 available in its latest operating system. In fact, there won’t be a separate download of Windows 7 any more.

Instead, Windows 7 will be delivered in a way that’s similar to Windows 8.1. Microsoft is offering support for Windows 7 through “extended support” until 2020.

With the introduction of Windows 8.1, Microsoft began to move away from the traditional model of supporting Windows in an enterprise context.

The next step, as Jones explains, is to move to a much more simplified approach. The new Windows 10 will not have a traditional distribution model, he says.

“We will not distribute a traditional edition of Windows 10,” Jones says. “If you don’t have the right edition of Windows, you won’t get the features of Windows 10.”

Jones says: “This is not a situation that we want to repeat with Windows 7. What we will do is continue to offer it as an option for those users who want to use a traditional Windows 7 experience.

“If you want to get features, if you want to get access to certain security features that may be available through future versions, there will be a standalone service that will allow those users to do that.”

Jones adds: “In the case of Windows 7, we won’t make that offer. Instead, we will make it available as a standalone option for those who want to stick with the classic desktop.”

While Windows 10 is the focus of enterprise users, Jones says that the operating system will find its way into all types of computer.