Stories by: Paul Kallender

The use of open-source operating systems in enterprise servers is growing in Japan, with companies citing low introduction costs as the main factor for adoption, according to a recent report by the Japanese government.

The South Korean government is moving forward with a program to roll out servers running the Linux operating system that will handle student data for 10,000 of the nation's schools by 2006, the Korea IT Industry Promotion Agency (KIPA) said Monday.

NTT DoCoMo, Japan's biggest mobile communications carrier, has successfully tested 1G-bps (bits per second) transmission speeds using 4G (fourth-generation) technology in outdoor experiments, taking 4G a step nearer to use in mobile phones, the company said Friday.

Google is preparing to launch an online payment system that might compete with eBay's PayPal electronic payment system, according to newspaper reports.

Two years ago, Japanese Linux server operating system developer Miracle Linux decided it needed to better promote its local Linux distribution. It developed two aims, according to Miracle's president, Takeshi Sato.

Japan will begin research in June to build a supercomputer capable of crunching numbers about 30 times faster than IBM's Blue Gene/ L, the world's current fastest supercomputer, the Japanese government said Tuesday.

South Korean Linux developer Haansoft has joined Open Source Development Labs (OSDL), a nonprofit industry group that promotes the use of the Linux operating system in enterprises, and will participate in OSDL's Carrier-Grade Linux working group, the group said Thursday.

Fujitsu is planning to sell 2.5-inch hard disk drives with a capacity of 200G bytes in the first half of 2007, the company said Tuesday.

Asianux 2.0, a version of Linux being developed for Asian markets, will be available to customers in South Korea and China from July 22.

VA Linux Systems Japan K.K. (VA Linux) and Sun Wah Linux will jointly promote a Linux distribution in Japan and China, the companies said Tuesday.

IBM is providing open source software developers with access to 500 of its software patents, the company said Tuesday.