Red Hat has released a significant upgrade of its Java middleware platform consisting of an extended services-based architecture with support for numerous new programming platforms and integration with Amazon's EC2 cloud-based service.
"Where on this weather map do you expect it's going to rain today?" Dr. Perry Samson asks the 200 students in his introductory class on extreme weather. Almost instantly, dots begin to appear on the displayed map, as students indicate their answers through their wireless laptops. In moments, a clear pattern emerges on the classroom display as Samson continues the lecture.
In a move intended at furthering its push into the burgeoning market of private cloud-based infrastructures, virtualization market leader VMware will acquire SpringSource, the chief commercial sponsor of the open-source Spring Framework project. The deal, already agreed upon by shareholders of closely-held SpringSource, is valued at approximately $362 million in cash and equity.
Panopto this week announced that it has developed a module to integrate CourseCast with the open source learning management system Moodle. Moodle. CourseCast is a lecture capture platform that is available free for academic institutions.
Desire2Learn this week announced that its Desire2Learn Learning Environment has been certified by the IMS Global Learning Consortium to comply with the IMS Common Cartridge Standard 1.0.
Expenditures by enterprises on open source software jumped 34 percent last year, and spending in 2009 is on pace to increase at least another 24 percent, according to a forecast released last week by IT market researcher IDC.
Earlham College in Richmond, IN has tripled its storage capacity by expanding its use of Nexenta Systems' unified storage. NexentaStor runs on ZFS, a Sun Microsystems open source high-capacity file system and logical volume manager that's also included in Sun's Solaris operating system.
Blackboard's patent on learning management system technologies has been overturned by the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. The court ruled Monday in favor of Desire2Learn and invalidated some claims in patent No. 6,988,138, also known as the "Alcorn patent" or the "138 patent." But the saga will continue.
Microsoft is bringing its widely adopted Live@edu collaboration suite to Moodle, the open source learning management system (LMS) that's installed at more than 35,000 registered, validated sites worldwide. Microsoft also unveiled today its new Education Labs site, which will serve as a repository for education software developed on an accelerated cycle.
Four universities have joined the Cooperative Support Program for the open source Sakai collaboration and course management platform, the uPortal enterprise portal framework, and Centralized Authentication Service (CAS) single-sign-on platform.