Hewlett Packard (HP), BEA and Computer Associates (CA) were among big names announcing new Linux software yesterday at LinuxWorld in San Francisco.

All the major hardware and software vendors converged on the event - even Microsoft had a booth - with the emphasis on broadening the enterprise applications base and building corporate confidence in Linux.

BEA claimed that its WebLogic JRockit Java Virtual Machine (JVM) was the first JVM to be optimised for Linux on Intel processors, and said that Red Hat will offer JRockit to its customers.

HP identified Linux as a corporate priority, unveiled a range of Linux software and announced a set of alliances to build industry applications.

"[HP's] set of end-to-end [Linux] solutions - comprising assets in technology, partnerships, engineering and executive leadership - makes us the leading choice among enterprise customers," said Peter Blackmore, HP's executive vice president.

Among HP system enhancements were:

The company said that in the last 100 days it had formed alliances with more than a dozen software vendors, including Oracle and BEA, to build applications which will integrate with its own software.

Meanwhile CA has added to its management applications designed for distributed and mainframe Linux, bringing its total to over 50.

There were updated versions of Unicenter Software Delivery and Asset Management, and betas of Unicenter ServicePlus Service Desk and BrightStor Enterprise Backup for Linux.

For distributed Linux environments CA produced a new version of its eTrust Admin security software and some extra BrightStor storage options and agents.

The company said it was working closely with Red Hat Linux and UnitedLinux in particular to ensure software compatibility.

These releases follow Sun's announcement of the LX50 Intel x86 edge server, its first to support Sun Linux (as well as Solaris) and bundled with a range of applications.