If you need to share files or printers with Windows machines, you’re likely using Samba and know how to administer and configure it by editing configuration files and starting and stopping the daemon. However, there’s an easier, graphical way to configure your box: the Samba Web Administration Tool.

The Gendarmerie Nationale is dumping Microsoft in the move towards open source software which first began in 2005. via BetaNews.Com

“We’re excited to be able to leverage the SUSE Linux Enterprise Server Starter System for System z for our mainframe deployments”

Novell announced the availability of the SUSE Linux Enterprise Server Starter System for System z, a pre-built installation server that simplifies the installation of SUSE Linux Enterprise Server on IBM’s … via Web admin

Back in 1999, free software believer Joshua Rand and his friend Oscar Mondragon were talking about the changes they predicted were coming for the Internet. Not long after that, the bubble burst and things did change, for the worst, many said. "We didn’t subscribe to that theory," Rand says. "We saw the Internet becoming a platform for applications and services long before the term Web 2.0 was coined. With the growth and proliferation of things like Web-based email, the next logical step was, why not everything else? Why not more personal productivity tools and office tools?" That was the beginning of Sapotek.

Softletter packed about 100 suits into a tiny meeting room at the Embassy Suites-Buckhead today to hear the good news about Software as a Service (SaaS).

That’s good news as in dollars-and-cents good news. As in survival of the firm good news. As in getting through the next recession with a job good news.

So they didn’t look happy (especially that guy right behind me). But inside it was a different story. Because they were paying attention. Serious attention. Even rapt attention.

Bob Conlin of Centiva talked about sales commissions. Russell Foy of RymaTech discussed product management. Erik Seifert of Atlantic Crossing  gave a case study of transitioning from a licensed model to a SaaS model.

Yet when I say they listened with rapt attention, I mean rapt. We’re talking Celine Dion before the encore rapt. Creflo Dollar before the offering rapt. If they’d had lighters they would have flicked them. Play Freebird!

There was good reason for this rapt attention, for as Foy noted, “We’re all SaaS now.”

The seminar’s aim was to get its listeners across the transition, from selling licensed packages to selling SaaS. This may seem at first like trying to jump the Snake River canyon.

But it just takes planning, Foy insisted. “In the old model everything was about closing $100,000 deals. With SaaS you can see a 5-7 year opportunity.” Dollar signs lit in eyes.

Instead of thinking of “buy criteria,” he added, think “use criteria.” Sales costs drop, support costs drop, but you have to train people to get value from what you make. Once you do that, they’re hooked.

Seifert showed how by charging 5% of the license fee/month, plus 2.5% per month for hosting, his company doubled unit sales. He also said that by selling three-year pre-paid contracts, he got 50% more revenue than he would have with licenses.

“The first quarter after you go to a new structure you won’t sell anything. It will take time for the channel partners to figure it out.” Like the first time you heard Queen’s Bohemian Rhapsody.

But when Seifert showed a chart with the commissions earned on that pre-paid plan, it was music for the eyes. “When the rubber meets the road they prefer the money up-front.”

Suddenly they got it. Another One Bites the Dust. As in the competition.

Wisdom worth paying for, I thought. Play Freebird again.  

The LWN.net Weekly Edition for January 31, 2008 is available.

Using VNC to remotely access your desktop, applications, and documents sounds like a great solution when you are out and about, but it has a few significant drawbacks: you have to leave your machine turned on, the VNC protocol is not secure, and often you need a dedicated VNC client to access your desktop. Ulteo, the company started by Gaël Duval of Mandriva fame, is set to offer an alternative solution. Ulteo gives you access to a full-fledged KDE desktop hosted on the company’s own servers while taking care of the behind-the-scenes stuff. While the service is still in beta and by invitation only, I had a chance to take it for a spin, and I found it promising.

Sun Presentation Minimizer (SPM) represents free software’s answer to PPTminimizer. Designed for OpenOffice.org 2.3 or StarOffice 8 Impress and released under the Lesser GNU General Public License, SPM is an extension that creates a wizard that guides you through reducing the size of your presentation, making it easier to transport and, on some systems, quicker to run. Those who present large slide shows — especially graphics-heavy ones — will find it a well-designed and effective addition, although several features require more work.

ars technica covers Asus’s announcement of new Linux-based products. A desktop, monitor all-in-one system, and TV product are planned. “Lastly, there’s the E-TV. As the name suggests, Asus is merging some aspect of the Eee into its 42″ LCD displays. Exactly what functionality the company is referring to is unknown. Asus could theoretically embed an Eee directly into the television and ship the device with a keyboard+mouse, but the whole ‘use your TV as your web browser/computer’ concept has never caught on well.”

Bernstein Research says 27% of iPhones sold in the U.S. are being “unlocked” to work with other networks.

Bernstein analyst Toni Sacconaghi emphasizes the potential losses by Apple in AT&T kickbacks arising from this.

Our own Tom Krazit thinks all these iPhones are piling up in warehouses somewhere, but that’s a pricing issue. The market will clear. 

This led me to thinking about the nature of the current handset market, and the possible opportunity this provides to the Open Handset Alliance.   

There are currently two models for mobile data clients:

1. The temporary model sold by handset makers and the networks, in which you replace the unit every year, and limit what you store on it.
2. The iPhone model, an expensive device you keep for years and depend on as you would a laptop PC.

The Open Handset Alliance will produce many different types of devices, but certainly one or more of these devices will compete directly with the iPhone rather than the throwaway handsets.

If one-fourth of iPhone buyers are so desperate for choices that they’re unlocking the devices, this means there is enormous unmet demand for a truly open, stable, permanent mobile client solution.

While Google and its partners are emphasizing the word “open,” meaning you can run the applications you like and use whatever network you like, I think they’re missing the boat if they ignore these other requirements.

Stable and permanent are not words you hear when you’re talking to people in the mobile industry these days. They assume people want throwaway phones because that is all they were given.

But Apple will move a minimum of 5 million iPhones by the end of this year. Motley Fool offers a bullish case on what this means in Apple revenues.

You can make the same case, with slightly smaller numbers, for an OHA device which competes with the iPhone.

We’re accustomed to thinking of handsets as just that, handsets. We’re not used to thinking of them as laptop replacements but, with the iPhone, they increasingly are.

If you’re going to move a ton of data through your mobile device, and store a lot of data there, you’re no longer talking primarily about a phone. You’re talking about a PC.

That’s the market I’d like to see us track more closely, the new market the iPhone has discovered. Apple has lost vast new markets before due to its proprietary rigidity. Can we make this one vulnerable as well?