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Ask IBM's Linux Marketing Director
His name is Scott Handy, and his full title is "Director, Linux Solutions Marketing, IBM Software Group." You want to know how to market Linux? Or how IBM's going about it? Scott ought to know. One question per post, please. We'll send 10 of the highest-moderated ones off tomorrow, and expect Scott's answers back in about a week.
Given IBM strong commitment to Linux and to the Power/PowerPC, what will IBM's strategy be in relation to the two combined? With the release of AIXL will we see products like Websphere and DB2 available for Linux PowerPC? With AS/400's converting over to the Power4 chip when released, will we seee some of its software released for LinuxPPC? Will we see PC level servers/workstations with a PowerPC chip?
From what I understand, IBM was manufacturing Alpha processors for DEC/Compaq.
Does IBM have any rights to Alpha technology that would allow it to continue the manufacture of these chips? In the agreement with Cyrix, IBM was allowed to manufacture its own x86 designs based upon Cyrix.
Any possibility that IBM could acquire Alpha Processor, Inc., and provide us with low-cost Alphas?
Or, wonder of wonders, is there any possibility that we could see inexpensive PowerPC motherboards from IBM?
Please, somebody just give me an alternative to IA64!
When will IBM consider releasing the source code to several of the closed source drivers needed to use networking on the S/390-zSeries Linux port? The OSA Ethernet card driver (lcs) is closed source, this makes using the latest greatest Linux kernels (like Alan Cox's kernels) useless to people who use the OSA card as a connection to thier network. Until the source for this driver is released, I can't take "Peace, Love, and Linux" very seriously...
However, in terms of marketing, none of the corporations I have looked at have made much effort in actually promoting their output to the wider audience. Indeed, a few have never mentioned their work even to those in the Linux community.
Given that IBM has such a massive technical lead, how do you see IBM's Linux marketing efforts evolving with time?
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
Open source and CPRM and SDMI are not linked. I can be a open source bigot, and agree with CPRM and SDMI's goals. They are not contradictory.
If I am for abolishing the death penalty, what has that got to do with de-legalizing drugs?
At least ask a question that makes sense!
"think of it as evolution in action"
Second, I wouldn't have said that Solaris is a desktop option either .... but Sun utilises it for that purpose.
When I first started to run Linux, years ago, there was an enormous gap in reliability between Linux and Windows. Although ideologues are loathe to admit it, MS has substantially narrowed that gap with Windows 2000. For the first time ever, I'm pretty happy with Windows as technology.
.NET, MS, Passport, and all the rest. People will listen to you -- despite the ill fated graffiti campaign, you guys have a lot of corporate gravitas behind you.
Now the issues that drive my loyalty to Linux have more to do with a fear of MS's power in the industry and what they might do with it. I'm talking about issues like privacy and crippled systems that serve the interests of large intellectual property owners rather than the people who buy the machines.
I've always assumed that IBM's interest in Linux derives from a wariness of MS's power and what they might do with it as well -- although I suspect that IBM is more worried about being muscled financially and technologically.
As a marketing guy, can you tell us if IBM willing to take the issues I'm afraid of to the public? A MS monopoly isn't in anyone's interests but MS's, and I know that issues of privacy are important to the public. People want the machines that they pay for to be working for them, not some big company.
I know companies have to look towards the bottom line, but IBM could do a lot to make the world a better place by stepping up to the plate here and taking on
And a world where MS controls authentication and transactions isn't in IBM's interest either.
We need you to back out of the crippled hardware business (the hard drives), and tell people why IBM and Linux are in the public interest. Cartoon penguins aren't going to do anything to the MS juggernaut.
Tux is cute. Linux nerds love Tux. However, he is a bit pudgy.
Do you see IBM advertising linux with a thinner, perhaps large breasted, penguin? (Hm...needa new name....Tuxi?) It if linux is going to break into the market on a large scale, it will need to market on the same playing field.
Tuxi could team up with Lara Croft in a movie or a video game.
Know what I like about atheists? I've yet to meet one that believes God is on their side.
Not sure what site you're at but if you're in rchland take a wander through the new cubefarm in 030-2... lotsa linux boxen, everything in my cube runs linux, ditto 3/4 of the others in my row, and probably half the machines in the next row. I've also heard a large number of the chip heads over in 050 are using linux boxen on the desktop to X serve for the banks of aix machines in the labs that they do all their designs and rendering on. Or hop on bluenet #linux and ask how many people are using linux for corporate projects. Oh and much of our external open source web presense (oss.software.ibm.com for example) are linux boxen... oh and are portions of www.wimbledon.org, as well as most of the other sporting events we've provided the backoffice support for. There are also some places in one of the labs where I know a pair of linux boxen attached to the site ring are providing a VPN mesh between some otherwise isolated ethernets. That's just a few off the top of my head.
So were is the $1 billion going? We're talking server processing here and not desktops......
VisualAge for Java is WAY behind the other OS's so it appears IBM doesn't want to lead with Linux anywhere.....
LoB
Fighting to keep away from Microsofts claws.
"Anyone who stands out in the middle of a road looks like roadkill to me." --Linus
How does developing Linux and Linux based applications fit into IBM's long history of being a leader in developing a massive IP portfolio?
Does IBM see Linux merely as a platform that can't be controlled by MS, or do they see it as something more? Is it merely another platform to plug users in to IBM's proprietary software, or is it a venture to try to make software which more closely meets user needs?
I have nothing against proprietary systems. It is just that if the company is going to "Spend One Billion Dollars on Linux", I'd rather PR didn't spin that as some altruistic venture. It's one thing to spend money developing the Linux kernel, gcc, filesystems, gui environments, networking protocols, etc., and releasing them as Open Source. It's a completely different thing to port proprietary programs to Linux, closed source.
What's the projected break down in Open Source development vs. closed source development of that "One Billon Dollars"? Does IBM plan to make money directly from software they develop Open Source, or do they merely see such software as enabling the sales of their proprietary software?
Thank you,
Ryan Warner
But they can't, as long as they're using the PPC processor. Unless they wanted compatibility with LinuxPPC, but that wouldn't get them anywhere considering the lack of packaged software for it.
D
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MS To Blow Imaginary $1 billion hyping WinXP to stardom
The gist is that Microsoft itself is probably spending about $ 200 million, relying on $300 million from Intel and unspecified amounts from resellers and smaller companies to make up the $1 billion total.
So it may not be as hard to counteract as it looks. I predict that Microsoft's genuinely spooky registration process is going to severely limit sales of these products. Consider the poor sap whose copy of XP expired on the plane while he was a thousand-odd miles away from his CD. He wrote a column on Ziff Davis Anchordesk about it, and boy was he pissed - even though a reboot cured the problem.
We'll see, but issues like that seem like ones that will upset "real people", not just geeks.
D
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As a Linux advocate I have installed 3 Linux servers in my corperate network. I installed them with approval but not what we really call approval in the corperate world. (I.E. the IT/IS department heads and the MIS director does not know they are there, nor will they.) Cince the CTO and the MIS director are horribly under informed about what is good for the company IT/IS wise and just listen to the Microsoft Sales(specalists) reps that take them out to lunch on a weekly basis what can I do to market Linux to my own company? The 3 situations where I have Linux running are because Windows products Cannot do the job/ or in one case fails to do the job reliably. How can us in the trenches help market linux? Let's base this on the fact that we have a MS server that crashes and loses information every 3-6 months, and noone cares, and just says "restore from backups" while after installing A Linux server I get "If that crashes once your head will roll". How do we fight such underhanded tactics from inside our company let alone from Microsoft directly. How can I effectively market something that MIS forces to play by different rules?
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
Let me take a crack at some of your concerns. AIX has a nitch that I doubt linux can crack in the near future, clustering. Now I know everyone is going to scream "linux can cluster" at this but hear me out. Linux currently does not have SMP processing to handle what your average SP cluster can. Another issue in this market is filesystems, and while IBM's jfs has been released open source, the tools and utilities for it (where the true power lies for jfs) haven't been and exist only on AIX.
Another area where Linux is lacking is high quality enterprise compilers. Many scientific programs are still written in fortran (nuclear simulations, etc) and there is nothing available for Linux which can handle some of the larger applications that AIX and it's compilers can do easily (One thing IBM can really do well is write a compiler).
Linux is not the best UNIX variant, it's strength is that it is the most cross platform, but it is certainly not the best. I believe IBM plans to keep it's respective OSes popular in their nitch markets, while pushing Linux as a low cost cross platform solution. AIX will likely never run on any platform other than PPC (although it is arguable that OS/390 Unix is sort of an AIX variant running on the s/390).
Finkployd
Is IBM's RS/6000 not a PPC based system?
Finkployd
Why would IBM sell a solution to a customer, where that solution happened to run Linux instead of some other OS? What advantage(s) does Linux have that benefits IBM in a purely selfish way?
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As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
Dissenter
Dissenter
"There is no knowledge that is not power."
There has been much talk recently about the viability of linux on the desktop. IBM's commitment to Linux is well known within the Linux community, but so far this commitment has been primarily server side.
With IBM's large stake in Linux, and IBM's large size as a company, it seems that IBM would be in a unique position to help push Linux onto the desktop. If IBM were to adopt Linux as its primary desktop operating system within the company, it would surely and quickly act as a catalyst to boost the credibility of Linux on the desktop within the corporate world and would likely spur more software vendors into considering Linux versions of their corporate desktop software, especially those who have been sitting on the fence, like Adobe, and even IBM itself (with Notes, for example).
Is there any movement within IBM to increase the importance of Linux on the desktop, even perhaps adopting Linux as a significant desktop operating system within IBM?
IBM didn't lack the Marketing for OS/2. Don't you remember the OS/2 Warp commercials on TV, months prior to the release of Win95?
I can particularly remember the Two nuns talking Russian (or something) talking about how "Chicago" is delayed again, and that there is an alternative.
What was lacking for OS/2 (and is also lacking with Linux today) are the commercial "killer" desktop apps. Unfortunately, from then till now, MS Office had just about taken over.
Was spray painting ideograms for "peace", "love", and "linux" on sidewalks in San Francisco and Chicago an affective strategy for advertising? Was the campaign successful?
Speak truth to power.
Microsoft has recently started attacking the GPL and GPL products as being inherantly anti-business. I'd like to know IBM's marketing stance.
Microsoft also seems to be favoring *BSD licences (freely available, but allowed to be modified and resold, for example as OS X, with or without a *BSD license). Were there times when IBM found it preferable to work with GPL-licensed product than with product under a *BSD license? Or is the oposite always the case?
-Ben
Given that IBM has traditionally been quite successful at this sort of game (using hardware and software sales as leads for larger services and support contracts), where does IBM stand vis a vis RedHat? IBM takes the high ground, RH takes the low? Direct competitors? Potential acquisition target?
IBM seem to be making a genuine effort to improve
Linux and make it more useful for everyone.
Are there things that someone like IBM cannot
do on this front? Obviously IBM, large as it is,
does not exist in a bubble. Are there some features you'd love Linux to have (to make it more sellable),
but which your corporate parent for some reason
cannot manage itself, which you must rely on
others for?
I guess what I want to know is how you see Linux being appreciated on an employee level at IBM.
I really like that idea. Before I went 100% Linux and StarOffice, I used SmartSuite, which I *really* liked. The tabs in WordPro were a beautiful usability feature, among a lot of other things.
Nowadays I prefer LyX, but we've standardised on StarOffice at work (the marketroids still use MS Office, but you know how it is) but if SS were multi-platform, I'm sure a number of companies like mine would at least try it out. We did try out Applix but it was lacking in intuitiveness.
The guy in the interview is a marketing director. IBM is marketing itself as a company that supports Free software and open computing while their actions show that they are willing to take the center-stage in technological movements out to do the exact opposite. If that is not hipocrisy, then what it?
Would you defend an oil company marketing itself as environmentally friendly while in truth not giving a shit about nature on the same grounds?
No doubt there are people at IBM with different opinions on these issues, but I am asking for the position of IBM as a corporate entity. Large as it may be, IBM is still a single corporate entity, and cannot escape from the label of hipocrisy if it practices are inreconciable with what it preaches.
I know these seem like lots of questions but they are really all on the same subject that is just not easily worded.
IBM is certainly pouring a lot money into Linux development recently. Why is this? Is it purely an anti-Microsoft maneuver? Was it ever?
I have noticed very few open-source developers working on IBM sponsored projects for Linux that then help move that work to AIX, which was why Sun tried to work with the community. Is IBM using the Linux developemnt for a testbed for AIX, or are you planning on replacing AIX sometime in the distant future? Let me elaborate on this further. I know the announced plan to have Linux and AIX coexist, but Operating Systems notoriously do not survive in the same market, even with deliberate planning e.g. NT and Win 9X. Has anyone at IBM considered the possibility of losing AIX? What would be the real loss for IBM? The company could still make money doing what it does best by providing support for Linux on their hardware.
Remember that the more two projects overlap the less likely they are both going to come out the other side. With the current speed of development for Linux we do not yet know what types of computing it will spread into but I imagine that not many OSes will be not in competition with it. Afterall Linux is already running on embedded systems, pdas, x86s, sparcs, alphas, macs, s/390s, and more.
Devil Ducky
Devil Ducky
MY peers would get out of jury duty.
they were in Chicago as well.
In Soviet Russia...michael would be rotting in Siberia!
Because, when I buy a linux solution from IBM, my money is going into the corporate coffers which can support the CPRM division. It's kind of like buying a win2000 license gives money to MS, which allows them to push Passport on people.
If a corporation is doing something you don't agree with, it's important to refuse to support that corporation at all, regardless of whether you like their other products or not. That't the problem with corporate integration: the good parts and the bad parts are tied to one financial future.
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My question is simple. Has IBM's involvement with Linux been profitable? And, do you see Linux as something that will (be/continue to be) profitable in the future?
Sticking feathers up your butt does not make you a chicken - Tyler Durden
What are your plans regarding Linux and desktop PowerPC systems? Currently, Apple is the only vendor of desktop PowerPC systems, but not too long ago IBM released the specs for generic motherboard based around the PowerPC (CHRP). Does IBM envision a future for CHRP-based Linux systems, or have they forfeited the desktop market to Intel?
Linux, and open source in general, provides the foundation for a paradigm shift from PC software as a product to software as a service.
IBM, throughout its history, has emphasized service; especially in it's high-end products. IBM has also become a formidable PC OEM vendor competing in the product-oriented PC paradigm. The last twenty years have kept IBM from showing its true strength, competing in a paradigm where the value of service is misunderstood.
Under the current paradigm, no OEM can offer complete business solutions: hardware, software, and service. The impediment has been the dependence on a closed-source operating system and applications that can be integrated by the OEM, but in the end, can only be supported by scattered vendors (with different approaches and levels of commitment to service).
Mixing Open Source with IBM software and hardware and experience in a service driven approach uniquely positions the company to offer complete, "soup-to-nuts", office solutions, and be a prime mover in the paradigm shift.
Using this approach, you can get that golden ring back from Microsoft.
What are you waiting for?
When I die, please cast my ashes upon Bill Gates -- for once, make him clean up after me!
In the long term, do you see Linux on the desktop, and if so when and by what means will it be achieved?
-no broken link
To put the question a slightly different way, are there any features in IBM operating systems that IBM is not planning to port to Linux?
steveha
lf(1): it's like ls(1) but sorts filenames by extension, tersely
IBM has committed $1B to making Linux a successful commercial platform. How does IBM envision supporting ongoing Linux development and Open Source development in general? In other words, will IBM continue to rely on the Open Source Community to keep IBM's R&D costs low, or do they plan to create a feedback mechanism that, financially or otherwise, compensates the community for its work? For example (hypothetically), if IBM needs special work done to the Linux Kernel to enable some advanced DB2 functionality, how does that work get done? Internally at IBM, or externally through the community? Furthermore, in what direction do dollars and IP rights flow within either scenario?
Much better if they make sure that all important user-space OSS packages can be natively and smootly compiled on their platform.
Ciao
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FB
IBM has announced that it intends to spend 1 billion dollars on this Linux operating system this year. Given the size of this investment, how comfortable are you with the current "benign dictatorship" model of kernel development? Do you feel that there will eventually be a need for a Linux Kernel Foundation to direct development, similar to the Gnome Foundation? Is it possible that disagreements over the future of the kernel could lead to a fork?
Okay, so you're most likely have heard a thing or two about MS's new EULA which prohibited the use of 'virual' software with the previewed toolkit.
What concerns does IBM have about Open Source Licenses like GPL, Netscape's, etc and close sourced projects?
III.IIVIVIXIIVIVIIIVVIIIIXVIIIXIIIIIIIIVIIIIVVIII
Ever thought of spraypainting a couple of penguins on Redmond sidewalks?
icqqm [ICQ:11952102]
IBM could choose to allow free use of the patent in any open source work - as long as it stays open source. Any non-open source product would have to get a paid licenses.
Just because it CAN be done, doesn't mean it should!
I posted the above comment originally at 2. A little while afterwards, it had been moderated up +1 to 3, Insightful.
Around 10 minutes later (around 3:03), the moderation attached to my comment was down to 2, Insightful.
However, there was no evidence any change in moderation had actually occured: i.e., my total karma didn't decrease by one, and I didn't see any -1 overated/troll/flamebait, etc. attached to the comment, which is usually the case when a comment is moderated down.
What gives? I've been using /. for a while, and I've never seen anything like this phenomona before.
Sincerely,
Vergil
Vergil Bushnell
Insects and Grafitti Photos
I hope not to hear the usual "linux has no future on the desktop".
I think hat Linux has a great future as a high-performance multimedia platform, but corporate world still seems to ignore it completely (audio even more than video)
Check out what the Linux Audio Developers are currently doing at www.linuxaudiodev.org, The Home of Linux Audio Development
Benno.
And WTF were you smoking when you came up with the graffiti campaign? Cute, yes, but now whenever I think "IBM Linux" I immediately think "spray paint."
sulli
RTFJ.
I am wondering if IBM is selecting Linux because it would be cheaper to have the code from the linux community then it would be to hire a dozen AIX engineers?
If this is the case are you planning to eventually replace AIX or donate AIX to the linux community and drive the development cost of the operating system to near zero?
http://saveie6.com/
OS/2 had a major drawback: the lack of applications and drivers (I remember buying drivers for OS/2 for a certain device...). This was a really serious issue. Back in the day, I ran mostly DOS stuff and Win 3.11 stuff on it. The advantage was simple: app goes down, system stays up. I even used the office package (very usable!) that came with the bonus pack with OS/2 Warp to write papers. Needless to say that I can't read those docs nowadays. (not that I need to, mind...) For the rest: nope...nothing available for reasonable prices. This lack kept back a lot of WfW3.11 users to jump over to the sleeker OS/2.
Linux doesn't have this disadvantage: most things do exist....not always completely usable by the "normal user" but usable nevertheless. The backing of a big company could for instance make the support/implementation better for existing appications.
As for marketing campaings: back in the days OS/2 was "hot" there were numerous full-page ads in business magazines (mouse talking to an elephant comes to mind, so does a ferrari with bike pedals which made a bit of a derision of Windows without naming it). The ads were not targeted to the general public as for Windows 95 (no TV ads, no hype) but they were there. Don't forget that OS/2 was thought back then for the business customer...I think that was the major mistake, but IBM can learn from mistakes, I hope. Besides, did you ever see a mainstream ad for Windows NT4? I don't think so.
Ahhh...the great dumpster continuum. Many a free computer will be found there. -- sowth (748135)
So, did the grafiti campaign work? Did the news articles help? What happened with the fines / community service? Does upper managment approve of the result? Did anyone expect legal complaints before the campaign?
-- .sig are belong to us!
All your
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
Compaq and Redhat are newcomers. Redhat particularly. The boost for Linux is that IBM is backing it enough to put their own name and services behind it. If Linux fails to impress enough business buyers that IBM backs away from it, it's a sure bet that other vendors will follow suit, and Linux will be quickly dismissed as a serious contender for any project and would be relegated to the hobby bin.
Most likely the failure of Linux is what Microsoft would love to see, hence their bad-mouthing Open Source and GPL. That they have chosen to throw stones is a sure indication that Linux is a serious threat. IBM + Linux, moreso.
-- .sig are belong to us!
All your
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
For Linux to become poular with the mainstream, it's going to have to become:
1) extremely easy to use, especially older folks who can't or don't want to learn complicated systems.
2) very pretty. General society likes buying things that are colorful, and simply look nice.
However, it (Linux) was designed with the programmer/hardcore user in mind, to offer power and stability at the expense of ease of use and beauty.
Even though XWindows is easy to use and looks nice, going as far as being able to appease the mainstream will most likely turn off us geeks from using it.
How do you intend on making the interface easy to use and "colorful" while still maintaining a powerful command-line, and have each not interfere with the other.
Why is IBM so terrible at marketing?
It seems to me that IBM has never been successful selling software for small systems. For example, OS/2 was a good operating system, but was terribly marketed. IBM called it Warp, as in bent out of shape.
IBM bought Lotus, and the Lotus desktop products continued dying.
Right now, IBM is trying to market web software using two men in funny-looking space suits. The woman who put the campaign together obviously is ignorant about technical products and technical people.
Is the involvement with Linux a way to ally IBM with a successful software product, so that it can concentrate on hardware and support? Why is IBM so terrible at marketing?
Bush's education improvements were
IBM once, perhaps still, has demonstrated Windows NT on AS/400. Will there be Linux for AS/400?
If you can't beat them, embrace and extend them.
Question: Those two guys in the IBM ads, you know, from the alternate universe where open source software doesn't exist? What happens if you take off their space helmets? Do they explode or something?
Was the San Francisco Linux "Graffiti" part of a bigger, broader conspiracy to take over the world or was it just marketing-gone-wrong(tm)?
--Volrath50
How much effort is IBM putting towards improving the VisualAge support for Linux? I think that if there was a strong push to get VisualAge for C/C++ and foundation libraries out to developers, there would be a chance to improve corporate/government willingness to move desktops and internal developed applications to GNULinux.
I think the server market is going well, but the workstation market needs help like this.
It's easy to write songs, you just sit down and write them.
The only thing it will take to put large numbers of Linux machines on the home desktop is a really good game that is available only on Linux. Many gamers are real fanatics. Of course, that means a game written from scratch for Linux, not a port of some Windows success.
Gnome or KDE?
Doesn't the console-oriented (edit each command line locally on terminals and press [enter] to send the whole string) nature of the 400 make it basically impossible to run an operating system other than OS/400 or similar?
D
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I'm not trying to belittle the Linux effords that IBM currently shows, but if I look i.e. at JFS I wonder how much resources IBM is actually putting behind those effords. It's a port from OS/2 JFS not AIX. Why? The project isn't moving very fast nor is the mailing list very active...
Would it help create a "critical mass" of Linux Desktops if a multi-vendor consensus desiged a quickly installable, common "first boot" Linux Desktop?
Is there value, in market building terms, of bringing to desktop Linux "The Familiar Windows Experience" of allowing a low-to-medium skilled user to sit down at a new-to-them "Standard" machine where they have a reasonable expection of knowing where resources can be found?
- By "Common Desktop Install", I mean a single CD which would after 3-8 clicks, auto install a fairly well tuned desktop version of the OS with a single GUI showing, plus several major productivity packages like Star Office, Netscape etc. Under the hood stuff would still be unique to each vendor, but what the lightweight user saw would be highly consistent.
I do not suggest removing the customizing capabilities of the OS, only the creation of a common first boot desktop for the masses.In Nearly All Paradigms, Shift Happens.
I strongly disagree. As an organization gets bigger it tends to be less monolithic and more factional. We don't (or shouldn't) label the United States Government as hypocritical when Congress and the President have different opinions on the issues and try to implement different plans. We don't (or shouldn't) lable the EU as hypocritical because the French and Germans have different policies on some issues. Why should IBM be labeled as hypocritical because two of its branches take different views about the importance of user freedom vs. restriction?
There's no point in questioning authority if you aren't going to listen to the answers.
In a world where one OS (Windows) has a de facto monopoly on the desktop market, how then do you go about winning people over to Linux? By "people," I am not just referring to those with a high degree of technological knowledge -- I am referring to everyone. Students, businesses, heck, even housewives.
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DOOR!!
I pledge allegiance to the flag...
of the Corporate States of America...
What do you see as a viable economic model for Software and/or Software/Services companies who want to develop purely Open Source software for marketing to Consumers and or Customers? What does this mean for Business to Business relationships involving such companies?
Windows is more convenient than Linux just as having an ingrown toenail is more convenient than seeing a podiatrist.
Will IBM's marketing actually get behind this? At one time IBM had a superior OS (OS/2). However, due to their marketing (OR LACK THERE OF), IBM allowed the evil M$ to market it's way to the giant it is today. I believe IBM is capable of making a superior product again, but without proper marketing, and support from higher IBM management, it will sit on the shelf like OS/2.
--
Care about electronic freedom? Consider donating to the EFF!
Sun puts it's money where it's mouth is by ensuring that everyone from CEO to secretary uses a Sun box running Solaris as their workstation. They don't use Microsoft Office, they use Sun Star Office instead.
So if IBM has such faith in Linux, why aren't they using Linux on their workstation internally. Even if that is too big a step for the entire company, the tech staff would be able to cope if you made the move.
Given that any company can market Linux tools and computers, where's IBM's edge in this market over other players like Compaq and RedHat who have been there longer?
What's your damage, Heather?
Was the defacement of city streets with paint that "didn't clean up as well as we thought" intended, or just a nice side effect? Would you reccommend this path to others? Do you know where I can buy some highway paint? I hear that stuff is really tough to clean.
How does Microsoft's current campaign against Open Source in general (and the GPL and Linux) affect thinking and plans in the marketing arm? Is this something to worry about, or just Microsoft redirection? Do you have any plans to get anyone to attend the discussion hosted by O'Reilly? What is the best way for the average person (essentially, non-CIO's) to influence platform shifts?
Jesus was all right but his disciples were thick and ordinary. -John Lennon
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Do you plan to market Linux as an enterprise workstation replacement? Specifically, I wonder if you plan to market Linux desktops for replacements for Windows 9x/NT/2000 workstations, and how you plan to market them.
Now, I'm a happy consumer of several IBM products. I'm not seeking to question the validity of the Big Blue intellectual property vault, nor am I doubting IBM's ability to develop innovative products.
I've looked at several of your corporation's software patents. In my humble, uneducated opinion, patents such as these (and others) owned by IBM might conceivably either be enforced against, or hinder (just by their existence, prima facie validity and the implied, interpreted threat of an infringement suit)the work of a free-software developer.
We've heard what Bruce Perens has to say about software patents. I'd like to ask you just how far is IBM willing to go in embracing Linux and/or the free-software movement? Specifically, is IBM willing to take a hard look at its patent practices, and potentially committ to sharing its intellectual property with free software developers?
Sincerely,
Vergil
Vergil Bushnell
Insects and Grafitti Photos
In it's 1995 Annual Report, IBM touted Network Computing as the "Future of Computing". I'm not completely sure of the history, but that seems to have died, to be replaced by - ostensibly - MS's .NET strategy.
Can Network Computing be considered something of a 'Holy Grail' for the business software environment? And is it IBM strategy to leverage Linux to support an alternative NC architecture based on OS concepts, tools, and products; one that could possibly usurp the MS monopoly on the business software environment?
Please say Yes.
SDMI: Finally! Music that won't rip or burn! Brought to you by the fine folks at RIAA.
Could you please tell us what the most common variation on the "Why should we use Linux instead of (what we already have)" question you receive is? What is your general response?
Thanks in advance.
Obliteracy: Words with explosions
A lot of people (me, too) embrace the Linux philosophy as well as Linux itself. IBM has embraced Linux; how much of the philosophy have they embraced?
As a PR person, you try to encourage a certain viewpoint. During meetings, is the Linux philosophy presented as a tool to be used against us, or as a way of changing people's concepts of software-- that is, do you try to sell the Linux philosophy as well as Linux, or are you selling Linux by using the philosophy?
Microsoft is to software what Budweiser is to beer.
In my opinion Linux has a long way to go before it can make it to the home desktop. Ease of use is one of the greatest inhibitors. However, the corporate desktop has very different requirements. Security, remote management, reliablility, simple license management and at the same time, a corporate desktop requires only a handful of very clearly defined employee responsabilities.
As I see it, the greatest limitation Linux experiences on the corporate desktop is interfacing with customers running MS Office, and secondly, Linux lacks a corporate email package. That requirement could be filled quite perfectly by Lotus Notes.
Is IBM taking steps to sell Linux on the corporate desktop as a simple and secure alternative to Microsoft's mindboggleingly complex Licensing and questionable security? If so, what is being done to address the lack of MS Office document compatability, and the lack of a client email/database package such as Lotus Notes?
Today I came across a ZDNet story (yah, yah) where MS sid it will spend $1 billion US to market and promote WXP. You guys have said you'll spend the same amount on Linux.
Now: for as long as I can remember, IBM has been synonymous with "good technology, bad marketing". OS/2 stands out as a particular example.
Do you think that a cool (Dr. Evil style) 1 billion of MS's marketing dollars can match the same amount of IBM's best and brightest cranking on Linux? Do you see this as a marketing battle, a technology battle, or both (I doubt its neither, although philosophical issues factor in too)?
ZOMG I WOULD LOVE TO KNOW ABOUT YOUR FEELINGS ON MACINTOSH VERSUS WINDOWS, VI VERSUS EMACS, AND HOW YOU'RE NOT A DORK
Now that IBM appears to commited to Linux, where does this put AIX? And will we see an AIX compatibility library for Linux?
Jumpstart the tartan drive.
Hi,
I've been generally impressed at the level of support IBM has given to various open source project such as Apache. Other areas however have obviuously been neglected, for example the opening of drivers. Witness this recent thread on the linux kernel mailing list in which one Dan Streetman from IBM states plainly:
But management doesn't listen to me when I say it will never get accepted so I had to make a token effort of submitting it to prove it won't get accepted. And I did try hard to convince them to release the actual driver but it didn't work.
This obviously makes linux developers doubtful about the real motivations behind IBMs open source efforts:
I find it very odd indeed with IBM's big voice of open source praise, yada yada, and what Lou has said in the past, that there would be any question at all of wether it would be open source or not. Isn't big blue behind open source? Or is it just for publicity? Makes me wonder now... -- Mike A. Harris
My question is the following:
Will IBMs open source effort in the future be limited to the obvious areas (net/web related stuff, linux ports to IBM hardware) or are there any plans to educate other IBM departments about the benefits of opening the development process? If yes, are there any practical examples (winmodem drivers for thinkpad laptops, etc.)?
Thanks in advance
I strongly believe that trying to be clever is detrimental to your health. -- Linus Torvalds
How can IBM reconcile it's spoken commitment to Linux and Free software software with it's center-stage activity in projects like CPRM on harddisks and SDMI for music?
Even if IBM does not recognize that these user hostile technologies are at 180 degrees to the ethics and values on which the society in which they wish to parktake are based, how do they believe that these technologies, which rely on laws to keep the user from working around them, can possibly made compatible with an open software model?
Does IBM believe that they continue to use the Linux and Free software message of Freedom and cooperation ("Peace, love, linux") as a corporate image while working on technologies whose only purpose is the control users and take away their natural freedoms?
How does IBM as a corporation stand in regard to the American DMCA and similiar acts internationally within the WIPO treaties, which many Free software developers consider a threat to our movement?
&& Oskar Sandberg
I work for a very, very, very huge company that still uses quite a few MS products.
.ppt format? :-)
Several other like-minded folks across many of the daughter business have recently begun trying to formulate a plan of attack viz. Linux acceptance.
I assume when IBM pitches Linux to corporations you have some sort of metric that gauges linux against other os's and shows various strengths and weaknesses.
Are these metrics/comparisons available to the general public? Preferebly in management friendly
Given that there are a wealth of Linux distributions already available in the marketplace, it seems that IBM has to choose one (or more), or create one (or more).
So, will IBM create a Linux distribution (or multiple distributions)?
If not, why? And what distributions will/has IBM choose to support/market?
If so, why? And will that/those distribution(s) compete with other distributions (i.e. be directly available) or only (or at least primarily) available as part of an IBM 'solution'?
1. Any plans to release (note I didnt say open) lotus notes for linux? This is a very strong product, very popular in corporate circles (even now!), and would help in the fight for legitimacy in the eyes of corporate managers.
2. Any plans to open ANY of the technologies in OS/2 to the linux/open source world? Since it is not a currently supported product (although that seems to change from year to year), it shouldnt hurt the bottom line too much. Any technology you can offer from previous OS efforts are going to be helpful.
Thanks for answering these questions, as I have been wondering about them for months.
GPL'd web-based tradewars themed space game
First off, by way of disclaimer, I'm an IBM employee, but am posting this as an individual and am quite sure my manager neither knows nor cares about the contents of my question. :)
It's great to see that IBM is committing to an open approach, both in their specific funding of Linux development, but also in their more general push to use open, standard technologies like XML and Java, and to participate in the standards process. On the other hand, IBM holds more patents than any other business in the world, by a fair majority, and what's more, are quite proud of this standing. Now I am not at all knocking IBMs desire to produce patentable technology, and I do think it is indicative of their technological leadership that they have acquired them,
but...
I'm wondering how IBM's dedication to openness will interact with their commitment to producing patentable technology. Will IBM's contributions to open source projects include these patentable ideas, and will open source projects in which IBM participates be licensed to employ said ideas, even to freely distribute software based on them? If IBM is willing to do this, how will they ensure that their patented IP is not picked up and incorporated into competing products? If not, could you give us some insight into the decision making process as regards these patents, and why IBM's openness strategy does not extend to them?
Johnath
Ooh. I've got another. Given how Gung-Ho IBM is about the whole Open Source thing, why do they insist on basing the entire internal business on a proprietary mail system (Lotus Notes) and proprietary word processor formats (Mostly Lotus Word Pro, though I occassionally get a MS Word .DOC file.) This makes it hard for the previously mentioned techies to live the Windows-Free existence that they so fervently desire. Can someone give the Lotus people the stunningly effective Al Capone teamwork speech and get them to document their file formats or at least release specs for them?
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
How do you approach your OS/2 users? Does IBM plan to move them to Linux platforms? Will any of the OS/2 goodies, like the presentation manager's link database, move to Linux?
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
I work for a fairly small computing firm which relies mainly on AIX but also has a fair number of Linux boxen around.
In the past few months, the question has come up more than once as to whether AIX or Linux is a more appropriate solution to whatever problem my company is current facing...and often times we've installed Linux on commodity hardware instead of buying a fancy RS/6000 machine and buying another copy of AIX.
My question is that as Linux grows in stability and wider corporate-level acceptance, what's IBM going to do about it? IBM has invested a good deal in the AIX system and I'm sure that they generate a fairly hefty revenue stream from it. Do you forsee any of the IBM Linux initiatives losing funding if they encroach on AIX market share?
On a side note, how 'bout a JFS install disk like the XFS one?
IBM makes PowerPCs. Linux runs on PowerPCs. Does IBM's commitment to Linux imply that they will take the logical step and we will finally see a commodity (non-Apple) PPC motherboard?
This project always seems to generate so much enthusiasm when presented here or in other forums that its continued non-existence is shocking. Particularly since the PPC's superior electrical characteristics have made it all the more intriguing in the current energy climate.
Kill, Tux, kill!
A few years ago I was looking for a desktop
with linux pre-installed or, at least, with
no OS. A few of the big companies (IBM, Dell)
had just made some statements about how cozy
they were with linux, so I called IBM to see
how serious this was.
I told the salesperson that I wanted to buy
an Aptiva with linux. She told me IBM sells
(and I swear I'm not making this up)
"Wintel Solutions".
I told her that's an oxymoron.
She started explaining to me: " yes, it stands
for Windows and Intel".
So, two questions really, do your sales training
manuals now explain the difference between an
acronym and an oxymoron, and can I buy an Aptiva
(or whatever they are called now) with linux
installed or with no OS? One single Aptiva, not
an officefull? And... the price will be less than if I
got it with Win (right? no OS license fee).
To me this is the litmus test of a company's
commitment to linux. I'm sick of hearing that
to get linux I need to buy a server or that
I can't be sold a compuer without an OS because
that means I'm pirating my OS.
"Never bullshit a bullshitter" All That Jazz
Microsoft's strength is largely in its public relations machine. When they talk, the media listens. Craig Mundie's (and therefore Microsoft's) opinion of open source and their own related plans made industry journal headlines. I'd bet many business managers have learned about MS's "shared source" plans. But there's no consistantly loud (or heard) front made against MS statements. Execs hear "open source: bad, shared source: good" from MS, but don't hear other opinions.
Does IBM plan on investing more in the image of Linux and open source? Will there be strong defensive marketing against MS statements? Do you think a closer balance can be made between pro-Microsoft and pro-Linux marketing?
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Developers: We can use your help.
Although your marketing and R&D seems to be focused on the server roles of Linux, do you see Linux as a desktop solution, and if so how are you helping develop that area?
As a customer who has been with IBM for years we are looking at retiring some of our old AS/400's. We are trying to find other uses for them, and with over 100GB of disk Linux makes an attractive option, but we are saddened to see that IBM seems to have made no effort to try to support Linux at all on the 400.
With the recent support IBM has been giving to the Linux community are there any plans to start devoting resources to the Linux on the as/400 project?
DocWatson
MessEdUp
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