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Lawson Of Japan To Install 15,000 Linux Terminals
debreuil writes: "A Reuters article reports a leading Japanese convenience store chain will install more than 15,000 IBM computers running Linux to allow for Web access in stores, in the largest commercial use of Linux to date. Great onigiri there too..." IBM, who sold the machines, is happy as can be, of course.
This 2.4-fold increase would give Linux a 7.8 percent share of the overall server operating system market in 2000, compared to a 4.0 percent share the previous year, IDC Japan said.
;-)
2.4, eh? Coincidence? I think not
what Linux distribution they would be using?
Helping with organizational effectiveness is our job.
And the fact these boxes use Linux, for cost, stability, customisabilty, or for 'coolness' (all for all of the above) is just sweet. One question comes to mind - is IBM in bed with a Linux distro, have IBM make thw 'distro' up themselves, or are IBM in this for hardware only? With Japan being the homeland of TurboLinux they'd seem obvious, but then don't IBM and Red Hat have something between them?
All well, it's just one more place when Linux is going mainstream....
IBM, who sold the machines, is happy as can be, of course.
This is awful!!! A company that's happy because they made a major sale!!! Arrgghh, evil corporations. Oh wait, they run Linux. Oops, good boy.
People replying to my sig annoy me. That's why I change it all the time.
The appliances are Windows. The servers are Linux. From zdnet: "IBM (NYSE: IBM) said the deal calls for nearly every one of Lawson's 7,600 stores to install two Linux servers, which will feed Windows-based "Loppi" self-service multimedia terminals. "
that the gaining popularity of Linux, the resurgence of Apple and its impending roll-out of BSD/Mach based OS X, are causing a significant amount of upset in the operating system market. So what? Well, as a comp-sci degree holder, I know that there are a heck of a lot of "Really Good Ideas" out there that have to do with operating systems. Linux, the BSD's, and a bunch of research os's are all playing with these things. That makes me hopeful that at some point fairly soon, perhaps in a couple of years, there will be enough fragmentation of the OS markets that it will be possible for a really new, really good OS paradigm to sneak up and win. Now, I don't mean that Linux is bad or any other imagined slight. Linux is pretty darn good, but it doesn't really operate on a new technological paradigm. Most of its popularity is based on its unique development paradigm (Free/Open Source/Community software). As it transitions to popularity based on familiarity and demonstrated capability, it will become more difficult to change. I have to say that I don't really know much about OS theory - so I might be full of it, but these are just random musings so... TIWAGOS (Take It With A Grain Of Salt).
Helping with organizational effectiveness is our job.
IBM rep: "Our Machines include free software which you can change to meet your needs. There is also a ton of free sofware at freshmeat.net. If you need support there are many companies that will provide it for a small fee or you can hire a kid from college to be your sysop."
Will the last company to abandon Linux please turn off the lights??!
According to that article the server market for this year in Japan is expected to be:
That leaves only 13% for all of Unix and Novell combined. Surely that can't be right.
It is tempting, if the only tool you have is a hammer, to treat everything as if it were a nail. - Abraham Maslow
Yeah, that's right, for programmers only! All the rest of you, that'll be $100 per copy. And don't think you can get away with just buying one and copying it for all of your friends, the GPL only applies to programmers, dammit!
Seriously, that's really bizarre. Did the author simply misspeak, or did he honestly believe that only programmers could obtain free copies of Linux? Either way, when you think about it, that's really a pretty egregeous error, and will probably help support in many people's minds the myth that only prgrammers can use Linux (not that they won't get the most out of it, but others can use it too :)
"The question of whether a computer can think is no more interesting than that of whether a submarine can swim" -EWD
OK, we may finally come to the end of linux 'zealotism' where people desperately bash MS at every opportunity. Go look at zdnet postings and you will se a flock of newly emerging windows zealots who make the linux zealots look like fair weather fans.
The point is, never say this about MS products. The MS admin base is growing more vocally upset with linux and has begun large scale bashing. Let this happen. Adopt a come and see attitude towards linux, be evangelical like a buddhist, that is, only answer questions for as long as interest is shown. Underhype the OS, and people will arrive at their own conclusions, which will be correct. (notice I dont say what those conclusions are)
People are not THAT dumb. They usually turn against zealot-like rage. Compute with a smile on your linux or BSD box, and people will come and see. Those people will install linux or BSD if and when it and they are ready for each other, and not before.
Notice in this post, the poster explains how easy win2k is. The new win2k user who has difficulties will turn to disbelief quickly. If you say linux is hard to install, the user may or may not be pleasantly surprised. If you say linux has far less software than windows, the user may or may not be pleasantly surprised. If you say linux is not necessarily the most stable or fast thing around, the user may be pleasantly surprised. The user will not, however, be disillusioned.
I ran NT4 until it ate my FAT. I switched to linux expecting it to eat ext2. It never did. I still use linux.
To be kept running? Please explain.
In my experience it takes more knowledge to set up, but all you have to do to keep it running is leave it alone...
"Free your mind and your ass will follow"
No one was ever shamed into suicide by buying IBM.
I don't know if you have any particular linux certification in mind, but the Red Hat Certified Engineer certfication is actually quite good, I was very surprised.
You have to sign a NDA to take it, but basically, most of the grade is based on "hands-on" installation and troubleshooting. Like: "here is box that's seriously broken, we won't tell you what's broken, and all we'll give you is a boot disk, fix it and fix it fast!"
Eventhough I've been using Linux for years, I felt quite challenged by it.
I agree that MCSEs are completely useless though. We have a few at work, and all they're good for is spewing microsoft propaganda/PR crap. Amusingly, I am still the one that maintains the windows network (NT and 2000).
Just my $0.02
This is one of those celebrations of the irrelevant lampoooned in the recent Bill Gates satire letter. Does having Linux installed on terminals in Japan somehow do something to boost the productivity of Linux users? Does it do anything to promote Linux on the desktop? Why does it matter that they didn't use a one of many lesser-known embedded OSes that already have larger installed bases in these circles? Heck, you could run articles like this about embedded systems every week (QNX used for project XXX), because the embedded market is so huge that 15,000 units is pitifully small. We're one step away from rah-rahing over stories like "Linux-based PC seen in background of new Kim Basinger movie," which is pretty much what the Amiga crowd stooped to in it's declining years (no joke).
"aaah, you so fuh-nee!"
No, that press release comes after the one saying that the proper pronunciation of "American" is "eye-soh-lay-shun-ist ih-dee-ut". Setting aside, for now, the truly juvenille and mean-spirited nature of your little dig at cultures other than your own, I question exactly how expanding one's market to equal more than just the United States causes people to flee that product.
Take Linux, for example. Funny thing about Linux is, it's written largely by a man living in a little place called Finland. Not only do people not make snide, stupid jokes about having to pronounce it "Lee-nux-a-hur-de-hur-de-hur", it seems to be doing quite well in pretty much any market you look to, despite being marketed mostly on an international basis.
In any case, claiming that a company lost favor because of an increased focus on international marketing and sales is among the most sophomoric business analyses as one could make. It's akin to saying that atheists/ethnic minorities/Harry Potter books/homosexuals/etc. are destroying the Moral Fiber Of America: it's simplistic idiot-mongering at it's finest. Businesses do not rise or fall on one criteria alone.
Obliteracy: Words with explosions
Now I can buy my $7.00 Sukora and Beppin soft-core porn magazines without the terminal crashing!
"Reactionaries must be deprived of the right to voice their opinions; only the people have that right." - Mao
Yes, I see what you mean... it is impossible to convince users to log out every time they leave their workstation unattended. Someone will fsck it up eventually.
"Free your mind and your ass will follow"
Vine Linux seems to be the current Japanese favorite.
Turbolinux is also very popular.
"Reactionaries must be deprived of the right to voice their opinions; only the people have that right." - Mao
Another example: I hear recent technological developments like the office LAN came into widespread use... never.
Not yet anyway.
"Reactionaries must be deprived of the right to voice their opinions; only the people have that right." - Mao
What web browser will they use? Mozilla, Netscape? Yuck.
Nyetscape 4.x, which crashes a lot (more so than either major browser on Windows), Nyetscape 3.x which crashes less but is years out of date, or Mozilla which still has lots of rough edges? Or perhaps they'll go for stability and just run Links in a big Xterm. :-)
I use Linux myself, but the rather poorly web browsing experience on it tempts me to get VMWare just so that I can use a web browser that doesn't crash and supports modern standards.
It's a compound word made up of the words "Oni" meaning "hairy demon", and "Giri" which means "duty" or "obligation".
"Reactionaries must be deprived of the right to voice their opinions; only the people have that right." - Mao
We had a Linux cyber cafe here in southeast Portland for a couple years.
I hear it collapsed under the weight of it's own ego.
"Reactionaries must be deprived of the right to voice their opinions; only the people have that right." - Mao
Moderate up!
"Reactionaries must be deprived of the right to voice their opinions; only the people have that right." - Mao
...and around the world, by Tesco (a big supermarket in the UK). See this story from The Register.
Which, I guess, means that that is the biggest install of Linux, rather than in Japan.
Is it any coincidence that Tesco is supposedly also the largest online grocery retailer in the world? Erm, probably...
...j
The only real expense might be people, as Linux does require more knowledge to be kept running than Windows.
However Linux dosn't require anyone to "keep it running", whereas Windows does....
Bleacch. No thanks; I'll take the US or even Europe any day.
As far as IBM is concerned, the only loyal customers they have remaining are the gullible corporations and foreign buyers who just don't know any better. They don't see IBM's hypocrisy (making CPU designs for Apple even though they started the PC standard way back in 1981, pushing free Linux even though they're still pimping their "worth its weight in gold" AIX, et cetera). I won't be surprised to see IBM die a quiet death of obsolescence; the only thing holding IBM away from the flames is their server design, and even that's being outshined by other companies.
"Ancillary does not mean you get to rule the world." --U.S. Circuit Judge Harry Edwards, speaking to the FCC's lawyer
Where in that quote did the writer use the word "only"?
Geez.
[100% ISO 646 Compliant]
SVM, ERGO MONSTRO.
"Ancillary does not mean you get to rule the world." --U.S. Circuit Judge Harry Edwards, speaking to the FCC's lawyer
Bellsouth didn't do Linux support for their ADSL, so when the engineer came to install it (and yes, this was early on when they sent real trained people), I had booted into Windows.
It took him a good ten minutes of uninstalling, rebooting, and installing drivers to get Windows to be on-line with the external modem. Of course, he noticed I had linux during all those reboots.
He asked me: "Do you use Linux?". I said "Yup". He said... "Okay... watch this".
We then booted into Linux, which found the connection, and smoothly accessed the internet without a hitch, and with no configuration whatsoever.
So, you have your story, I have mine. I long since "reclaimed" the disk space that was used by windows. It's now my /home partition. Nice and roomy.
--
Evan
"$30 for the One True Ring. $10 each additional ring!" -- JRR "Bob" Tolkien
As Linux popularity and market share grows, the resistance to it, as embodied in this post, will also grow.
Currently, Linux intrudes on two major markets and communities - the commercial UNIX world, and the NT world. As advancements in GUI environments and basic usability come along, Linux will also begin to intrude on Windows desktop OS's. It'll probably also move in on the embedded market, but I'll ignore that for now, because, like DBA's and web surfers, embedded OS users usually don't care about the OS as long as it does the job.
Anti-Linux zealotry isn't likely to come from commercial UNIX users. While Linux may represent a threat to traditional UNIX vendors which are slow to adopt Linux as a core OS technology (SUN), it is an opportunity for others (SGI, IBM). More importantly, at the individual level the overlap between Linux and UNIX users is large. To anyone familiar with multiple commercial UNIX distributions, the similarities of UNIX and Linux are greater than the differences. Current UNIX users adapt easily to Linux, and consequently do not view Linux as a threat.
Windows users, on the other hand, have more adapting to do - new applications and interfaces spawn resistance even within the Windows world. "Windows Professionals" - NT administrators and other IT staff - have even more to learn before adapting to Linux, as the adminstrative tools are completely different and are based on concepts completely foreign to them. Consequently, Linux represents a basic threat to them. If Linux is deployed where they work, they will have to adapt or become useless.
An important factor to consider is one of the great things Linux (and UNIX) has going for it - reduced administrative cost. With UNIX and Linux, fewer people are required to run more systems. This is especially true when the people doing it have a higher skill level. With Windows, a certain number or people are required to perform a given number of tasks on a given number of systems. With Linux and UNIX, the number of people required to do the same thing is inversely proportional to skill of the people doing it, up to the point at which the number of people remains constant for any number of systems.
If *nix usage and marketshare continues to grow, this means that the IT workforce will shrink as productivity increases. A smaller number of people with greater skill will be accomplishing what the current workforce is doing. Because the current UNIX worker base will most easily adapt to the transition, this meanss that they can look forward to continues employment in even higher paying jobs. Meanwhile, the current "Windows Professionals" will be stuck working in a field with shrinking job counts and a lower barrier to entry, with correspondingly lower wages.
So think about the *real* implications of this article, and other like it, to a Windows Admin. "Distant Thunder" doesn't even cover it - more like the corporate bean counter grinding the company axe in the cubicle next door.
The resistance to Linux will grow as Linux's threat becomes more apparent and tangible. As Linux's market share increase, and Windows' shrinks, the number of Anti-Linux and Pro-MS zealots will increase in number, but and become much more vocal. Posts like this will become more common and more virulent. It was like this when the Amiga faded - Amiga zealots become louder and more fanatical as they became increasingly desperate.
Get used to it. It's the price of victory, but it won't last forever.
You're mostly wrong. .. in your hand, wherever you are, and just what you want to know, not surrounded by 50 million banner ads on a hulking great monitor sitting next to a 20lb home compaq.
People already access the "useful" part of the internet over their cellphones. They are not interested in having a huge PC at home and surfing huge american style websites.
The Japanese have skipped a technology here, and are working on the next, because what you think is state of the art isnt attractive enough. Its only dumb dotcom fever advertising in the US that makes people think they're missing out on something insanely great. The reality is its insanely boring.
Buy a PC, spend 20 minutes with the sites you heard about, then use it for GAMES or PORN.
Both of which are far more available and in far more quality in Japan on GAME CONSOLES or ON THE WAY TO AND FROM FROM WORK.
Take a look at any Japanese hobbyist magazine and compare the detail, and sheer quantity of quality information and then compare that to an american website on the same subject, or an american magazine.
Japanese use the Internet now for micro amounts of information exactly where you want them
NTT charges a lot for fixed lines, sure, but nobody cares, they buy cellphones for extra lines instead.. for higher speed web access than dialup, Japanese has affordable ISDN at flat rates.. for higher still, 3G wireless is up next for them. Nobody in Japan is moaning about wanting to get onto the net to see whats new on yahoo.
Actually, that was it. I'm afraid I didn't catch the reference; in reading your post, however, you might see how one could take issue with the statement if they had never seen the commercial, or not remembered it from nearly ten years ago. My apologies if offense was taken where none was intended.
I maintain that the expansion of IBM into global markets isn't their downfall, though. Globalization is almost always a Good Thing for a company, and even in those cases where a company declines, the globalization is rarely the culprit for the fall. (Now, poor management of the changes needed to go global is another thing, but that's management, not the international marketplace and marketing.)
Obliteracy: Words with explosions
I've printed this out and nailed it on the wall. :) You should have had +5 insightful. Ah well.. you know /. ... IF EXISTS (SELECT @iPostingID=PostingID FROM POSTINGS WHERE CONTENT LIKE %anti-linux%) BEGIN EXEC sp_DegradePosting @iPostingID END
--
Never underestimate the relief of true separation of Religion and State.
So? I submitted it two days ago and Taco hisself came to my apt. and kicked me in the yarbles -- and, believe me, there ain't much protecting them.
Treatment, not tyranny. End the drug war and free our American POWs.
See my user info for links.
I always recommend a mac to any non-geek.
The mac is, imo, equivalent to NT (the benefits are opposite, but the value is there) and basically won't cause you problems... and you won't need to pay someone (usually) to fix silly software problems.
But I advise anyone who is OR is trying to learn to be a geek to buy a PC. Because Mac hardware is too expensive. AFAIK, this is NOT price gouging on Apple's part. Compared to other PPC solutions, they're downright cheap (especially their cheap stuff) but they don't have the volume the PC world has, and everything just costs more.
Also, the right solution to a huge number of PCs is that when you ahve a software problem, you recopy an HD image. Meaning that the ease of untrained repair for the mac is a lost cause.
The other reason, of course, is because the terminals are WINBLOWS!, and only the server is linux. But it's a related point - Win w/ ME is cheaper, only it's much suckier and less stable. But if you actually are going to reinstall all the time (preferably from img) and you're not going to have YOUR files on there, it's a good value. Not as good as linux, which has the best of these worlds...
but for price, it's going to be linux on x86 for at least a few more years, maybe more.
Looking for freelance Actionscript (Flash/Flex) or ColdFusion work and/or freelance developers. Email me, put Slashdot
That's kind of what I was trying to refute - I don't think it's really possible to have "paper" RHCEs due to the very nature of the test. No matter how much you study the theory, most of the grade is hands-on. Again, because of the NDA I can't tell you a lot more about it, but trust - not trivial stuff. There is just no way "book smarts" will be enough to pass this test (or at least several order of magnitude harder that MCSE and OCP).
Just my opinion though. No certification (or college degree for that matter) can guarantee the quality of the holder - but some are a lot better than others.