Gartner Linux findings disputed

Criticism is issuing from Australia on a Gartner study, which made the central point that migrating desktops to Linux makes sense only in a very limited range of situations, reports SMH.

IT consultant Benjamin Robson and open source advocate Con Zymaris criticise the study, saying migration to Linux does indeed carry costs, but so does migrating from an older version of Windows to a more recent one.

The Australian Mobile Telecommunications Association (AMTA) says lost and stolen mobile phones have been blocked on all GSM networks in Australia since the beginning of this week, reports Cellular-News.com.

"Using anti-theft technology which shares information with all carriers, lost and stolen mobile phones, once reported missing, cannot be connected to any network in Australia," said AMTA CEO Graham Chalker.

AMD has said it would add low-power versions of its latest Opteron 64-bit processor next year, challenging Intel`s low-power "Deerfield" Itanium chips, reports Extreme Tech.

The announcement is expected today at the Embedded Systems Conference in Boston, aimed at the blade server market. AMD will design a "wide variety" of the Opteron 100-, 200-, and 800-series.

IBM has launched a new service to boost the use of radio frequency identification (RFID) among retailers and manufacturers.

The service provides a combination of consulting, implementation and specialised software to provide companies with advanced product tracking and inventory control through the use of RFID, reports eWeek.