Linux Solutions

Some mildly exciting news for this morning: Reflecting the growing demand from open source fans, Adobe is set to release a 64-bit version of its Flash 10 player for Linux. The 64-bit version will be an alpha release, and is to be the first in a line of versions for other platforms in the future.

The company said it released this version to the Linux community as it wanted it more, which is why users on other platforms will have to wait.

Tech magazine CNet spoke to Adobe who said:

“[The] release of this alpha version of 64-bit Flash Player on Linux is the first step in delivering on Adobe’s plans to make Flash Player native 64-bit across platforms. We chose Linux as our initial platform in response to numerous requests in our public Flash Player bug and issue management system and the fact that Linux distributions do not ship with a 32-bit browser or a comprehensive 32-bit emulation layer by default.”

That’s nice of them right? They continued that Flash Player 10 is, “a full native participant on 64-bit Linux distributions. We are committed to bringing native 64-bit Flash Player to Windows and Mac in future releases. We expect to provide native support for 64-bit platforms in an upcoming major release of Flash Player. Windows, Macintosh and Linux players are expected to ship simultaneously moving forward.”

The good news for pen source fans continues with the results of a survey by IT analysts Gartner, who say that they predict all businesses will be using open source software within the next 12 months.

The study was carried out between May and June this year, and showed that 85 percent of companies are currently using some kind of open source software, with the remaining 15 percent expected adopt open source software within the next year.

274 companies were surveyed across multiple countries across the world including, Asia, Europe and North America. Gartner says companies that took part in the survey varied from small to large and were evenly spread throughout the manufacturing, education, financial and service industries.

Those surveyed were asked to pick the main reasons for using open source software, which included; lower cost and reduction of development costs which made it easier to start new IT projects or software initiatives.

Many of the companies that took part said that they used open source software as a way of keeping all their cards to their chest, as it stopped a single vendor controlling the IT department.

Some other businesses said that by using open source software, they could have a faster time to market, which better positions them to meet the demands of internal and external customers.

It all just shows another step to open source acceptance across business and the world.