Linux is proving to be a stronger competitor than Apple for Microsoft, says Steve Ballmer at a recent Strategic Update meeting with investors, and has a supporting graphic to prove it.

An alliance is forming between virtualization providers Novell and VMware with a strategy for teamwork. At the same time Novell is providing a glimpse of its upcoming SUSE Linux Enterprise Server (SLES) version 11.

Even though the OpenSSH project emphasizes that the focus of 5.2 is bug fixes to the 5.1 version, 5.2 does contain some notable enhancements.

The new OpenOffice 3.0.1 is the release of a portable, USB loadable version of OpenOffice.

The GNU Project's Bourne Again Shell (bash) is now in its fourth major version, which provides numerous enhancements.

According to current figures from Netbookdigest.com, Microsoft has lost $435,000,000 over the last year in netbook sales.

Red Hat's CEO, Brian Stevens, has in a webcast announced his company's virtualization strategy for 2009.