The winners of this year's 'LinuxWorld Product Excellence Awards' were presented with their trophies at LinuxWorld Conference & Expo in Boston at an Awards ceremony emceed by SYS-CON Media Group Publisher & Editorial Director Jeremy Geelan and captured on SYS-CON.TV for distribution Web-wide. The prestigious 'Best of Show' Award went to the Novell-sponsored openSUSE project.

One of the largest problems faced by Open Source,' claimed Bruce Perens in a 'State of Open Source' press conference he held at LinuxWorld Conference & Expo in Boston last week, 'is the disparity in the ability to contest a patent claim through litigation.' According to the American IP Association's Economic Survey, Perens said, it costs $3-5M to prosecute or defend a single case.

Open-Xchange Inc. announced that its leading open source collaboration server, Open-Xchange, has been awarded the LinuxWorld Product Excellence Award in the 'Best Open Source Solution' category. Organized by IDG World Expo and Sys-Con Media, publisher of LinuxWorld Magazine, and selected by a jury of respected technical professionals, business professionals and journalists from the open source industry, LinuxWorld Product Excellence Awards highlights the most relevant and innovative services and products of the show in 12 separate categories.

The openSUSE project - a Novell-sponsored community initiative that promotes the use of Linux everywhere - was named 'Best of Show' this week at an Awards ceremony at LinuxWorld Conference & Expo in Boston yesterday.

'It's an honor for us to see our efforts rewarded, and we share the credit with the open source community and our customers for their continued support,' said Frank Hoberg, CEO, Open-Xchange Inc., as Open-Xchange was yesterday awarded the LinuxWorld Product Excellence Award in the 'Best Open Source Solution' category.

'We continue to extend the Scalix product family based on user and partner feedback,' said Scalix CEO Glenn Winokur earlier at LinuxWorld Conference & Expo where company founder Farris received the 'Best Messaging Solution' award in a ceremony emceed by SYS-CON Media Group Publisher & Editorial Director Jeremy Geelan.

Continuent, Inc. announced that Continuent's p/cluster, the latest release of its database virtualization suite, won the LinuxWorld Product Excellence Award for Best Clustering Solution. The Awards, which as in previous years were organized jointly by SYS-CON Media's LinuxWorld Magazine and IDG World Expo, recognize product and service innovations by LinuxWorld exhibitors and were presented in 12 separate categories, plus the ?Best of Show? award.

Dell Inc. CTO Kevin Kettler gave a keynote yesterday here at LinuxWorld Conference & Expo in Boston on the week's hottest topic, virtualization. 'Virtualization and Linux: Anything but Traditional' was its title and Kettler discussed how virtualization is challenging traditional models of computing and explored client virtualization opportunities that allow users to run multiple OS instances to improve productivity, provide secure Web browsing, and enhance digital entertainment.

Bill Hilf, head of Microsoft's open-source and Linux lab, has just given a keynote address at LinuxWorld Conference & Expo in Boston about making proprietary programs such as those produced by Microsoft interoperate better with open source software.

One of the many announcements at LinuxWorld Conference & Expo yesterday was that SugarCRM Inc. has joined the Eclipse Foundation Inc. to support the continued development of Eclipse's development platform. SugarCRM joins the Eclipse Foundation as an Add-In-Provider member.

The LinuxWorld Product Excellence Awards will be presented tomorrow at this year's east coast LinuxWorld Conference & Expo, in an awards ceremony being recorded by SYS-CON.TV and hosted by SYS-CON Media group publisher & editorial director Jeremy Geelan. Winners include some of the biggest - and all of the hottest - Linux vendors at the show.

'The exhibitors at LinuxWorld Expo continue to innovate and improve existing products, providing quality solutions for levels ranging from personal users to the large enterprise,' said Mark R. Hinkle, Editor-In-Chief, LinuxWorld Magazine. 'For those seeking the very best in Linux and open source solutions there's no better forum to visit and review products than the ones showcased at this event.'