Open source: Linus Torvalds announced the issuance of the Linux kernel version 2.6.16, which carries a cluster filing system from Oracle and support for IBM’s Cell processor. The Apache Software Foundation’s chairman, Greg Stein, says that the days are numbered for commercial software sold through the traditional model. Hot review: Before you dismiss a Linux e-mail platform as entirely unrealistic, whatever your reasons for doing so, take the time to evaluate two worthy e-mail and calendar solutions, writes Mike Heck. The contenders are Scalix 10, and Zimbra Collaboration Suite 3.0. “Both products employ strong AJAX Web clients that are superior to the likes of, for example, Outlook Web Access. Functionality and cross-platform compatibility is so good that companies can seriously consider dropping desktop e-mail clients altogether.” Platforms: “Just put a plan in place. Even the skeleton of a plan is better than nothing at all,” Oliver Rist sagely insists. “Don’t get pushed into do-it-all-at-once fever. Having several smaller roll-outs is a far better recipe for success than trying to land the big fish all at once.” Rist offers some tips for getting that migration map charted. Columnists’ corner: While Intel’s core microarchitecture has some folks predicting doom and gloom for rival AMD, Tom Yager explains that they are only dreaming. “AMD’s Opteron, Athlon FX, Turion, and Athlon X2 CPUs own the high-performance mantle; Intel will not recover it and it knows that,” Yager writes in The Intel-AMD processor race revs up. Storage: Kashya extends its data-recovery parachute with a new edition that ties its continuous data protection with disaster recovery. “It’s an investment worth considering for many companies if your home-baked disaster-recovery solution makes your auditors roll their eyes in despair,” explains Mario Apicella. The news beat: Microsoft’s senior vice president in charge of Office Steven Sinofsky will take over as the head of Windows development. eBay and Amazon tap RSS to bolster their content syndication capabilities. And Dell snaps up Alienware for its high-performance PC products. Software Development