Stories about: Everex

Jim Zemlin is the executive director of the Linux Foundation. Formerly executive director of the Free Standards Group, Zemlin also has served as vice president of marketing for Covalent Technologies, providing products and services for the Apache Web server. Zemlin has also been a keynote speaker at industry and financial conferences including Gartner's Open Source Conference and Linux World.

Wal-Mart has stopped selling Everex's Linux-based PC in its stores because of a tepid response from customers, although it will continue to sell the product online, the retailer said Tuesday.

Everex is refreshing its Cloudbook line of ultraportable, Linux-based notebooks with redesigned models that may eventually include low-power Intel Diamondville processors, bigger screens and more storage.

Intel's low-power processor code-named Diamondville will initially be available as a single-core processor, but the company is planning a dual-core version, said a source familiar with Intel's plans.

Everex may not be releasing its first US$399 ultraportable CloudBook until the end of January, but the Taiwanese PC maker is already talking about a supersize successor due later this year that will sport a bigger screen but stay under $500.

Another US$400, 2-lb. Linux-based mini-laptop will be arriving in Wal-Mart stores in the US by the end of this month to rival the Eee, AsusTek Computer's ultraportable.

Taiwanese PC maker, Asustek Computer, has confirmed rumours that it will enlarge upcoming versions of its hit Eee mini-notebook PC to accommodate 8- and 9-inch LCD screens, up from the current 7-inch LCDs the $US399 Eee now sports.

This year has been a time of realignment and redefinition, as Apple launched its second zeitgeist-defining product of the new century, Dell and Intel battled to regain their former dominance, the software sector consolidated, Google rallied industry heavyweights around a common mobile device platform, and major vendors scrambled to embrace social networking. These, not necessarily in order of importance, are the IDG News Service picks for the top 10 stories of the year:

Greeted with fanfare and kudos when its prototype PC was shown off by Nicholas Negroponte and United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan more than two years ago at the World Symposium on the Information Society in Tunis, the One Laptop Per Child project is now beset by waning orders and competition from commercial vendors that threaten to sideline the nonprofit effort.

As component prices drop, the aggressive pricing of commercial Linux notebooks could hamper efforts by One Laptop Per Child to supply inexpensive laptops to children in developing markets.

PC vendors haven't been eager to know how many users run Linux when it's preloaded on their low-end PCs, and how many replace it with an infringing copy of Microsoft Windows. Everex, the latest company to introduce a low-priced desktop Linux system, will have the information, however, thanks to the software update system behind its Linux distribution.