Penguin Playoffs Return

Athletic flightless waterfowl? No, just the skinny on the Comdex exhibitor awards ceremony.

by Doc Searls

Properly, Penguin Playoffs should be held in Antarctica with real penguins, but we figure there isn't much box office in that, especially since these well-dressed birds are milled so precisely to form that telling winners from losers is impossible unless some are dead. In that case, the whole deal isn't much fun.

So we hold our Penguin Playoffs in Las Vegas, where the climate hasn't been hospitable to coldwater birds since the mid-Pleistocene. Not that this matters, since only penguins in the shape of Linux products are eligible to participate.

Actually, they already held the competitive part of the playoffs, and this year's winners have been selected. The playoff event will be an award ceremony and dinner during Linux Business Expo, which coincides with the November Comdex show.

To recap last year's inaugural playoff, Linus was there to hand out the awards, which coincided with Linux Journal's Editors' Choice awards (seemed like a good idea to honor two birds with one event). The winners were:

Best Web Solution: TurboCluster Server from TurboLinux
Best Hardware Solution: The Happy Hacking Keyboard
Best Office Solution: Appgen Business and Accounting Applications
Best Overall Solution: Global Media Corporation

This year we've doubled the number of categories, more or less keeping pace with the increasing diversity of Linux solutions now competing in the penguin businessphere. Here they are:

Best Web Solution
Best E-Commerce Solution
Best New Product Announced at the Show
Best Server
Best Workstation
Best Business Application Development Tool
Best Embedded Solution

Why change categories in addition to doubling them? Well, markets are conversations, and these new categories seemed to better label the leading topical categories we're talking about today. No doubt they'll be more numerous next year and equally unlike this year's categories.

The awards event will be held at Gameworks on the strip again this year. Be sure to check our web site, http://www.linuxjournal.com/, for further details about day and time. Again, we will be giving out our Editor's Choice awards during the same event. There will be a Linux Journal party after the ceremony. Stop by the Linux Journal booth to find out when and where that will be.

We look forward to seeing you there.

Doc Searls (doc@ssc.com) is senior editor of Linux Journal and coauthor of The Cluetrain Manifesto. His opinions are his alone and do not express those of Linux Journal or SSC.