IBM Releases Desktop Linux Presentation

An anonymous reader writes "DesktopLinux.com, in coordination with the Desktop Linux Consortium, is making select presentations from Monday's groundbreaking Desktop Linux conference at Boston University's Corporate Education Center available. Sessions from the well-received program included talks from key companies and open source projects bringing Desktop Linux into the enterprise. The first presentation available is from IBM's Sam Docknevich, Linux and Grid Services Executive for IBM Global Services and is titled "Open Source Desktop - Directions for today... and Tomorrow". His presentation discusses IBM's push into the Linux desktop market, an initiative from inside Big Blue."

Comments

Re:IMHO, Open source is bad for the economy

[One Louder]

This makes sense if you believe that all of the economy resulting from software is generated by the developers/publishers.

However, you're forgetting about the users - many businesses rely on OSS, which they would not be able to afford to run using the equivalent Microsoft or Sun solution, at least when starting it up.

More importantly, we are in a situation where an abusive monopoly runs viable commercial alternatives out of business, which is certainly not healthy for the software ecosystem. OSS is turning out to be one of the few forces keeping some of these commercial companies in line.

So, yes, some older business models will fail, but others will replace them. I won't cry anoy more for Sun that I would for the monks who lost their jobs creating illuminated manuscripts .

Re:And yet:

[fw3]

Well yeah, you're talking laptops, which are still a far cry from well supported by Linux. Look at their servers, Netfinity units I picked up on ebay nearly 3 years ago used Linux-boot cds w/ java for Raid-controller configuration.

1. the number of buyers for thinkpads with linux is tiny. IBM has in fact shipped some models with linux pre-installed but as a general move, linux on laptops is still pretty chancy, why should they put all that effort into somthing that obviously will generate no return.

2. See 1, if the market for Linux on laptops is small, the market for fbsd on laptops is that much smaller. As it happens I have installed fbsd on my Thinkpad, don't use usb so don't care but I do/did care that it corrupted my linux partitions and completely fails to recognize the OpenBSD disklabel.

3. See 1. latest-hardware drivers on Linux has always lagged. with 99% of the market, sure windows drivers get written right off. Funny how revenue will cause code to get written.

Linux desktop profitable for Sun already

[ChrisRijk]

The FCS release of Sun's Linux Desktop will start shipping soon and is expected to be profitable for Sun on release - see this article at The Register.

Sun have had a number of StarOffice customer wins for over 10,000 seats, and a few for the Linux desktop bundle it seems (reading around a bunch of press articles). However, most of this is outside the US - see this article:

Not among those seeking a Microsoft desktop alternative are customers in the United States, Schwartz said. "I will be blunt in saying North America has the least sensitivity to price of any nation on Earth," he said.

Here's another quote from him, from this article:

Company Executive Vice President Jonathan Schwartz Thursday said the
appetite outside U.S. for an alternative to Microsoft is "voracious".

You're right - I tried

[Prof. Pi]

You can't buy a IBM Thinkpad unless it comes with Windows. That 'old "Microsoft tax"

I bought a Thinkpad for a relative in China, who wanted a Thinkpad because of IBM's reputation. (I had to agree with her; I've never had any problem with them hardware-wise, unlike many other laptops.) I tried to get one without Windows, not because she's a Linux user but because she would naturally prefer a Chinese-language version of Windows and the sellers in the US only sell English-language editions.

The IBM ordering website had a bewildering list of models, all of which were very specific as to CPU speed and other features. (For example, two machines with different CPU speeds but identical in every other respect.) There were about 20-30 models with minor differences between them. It was a lot like the way cars were sold before standard options packages. So much for the excuse that vendors don't want to sell preconfigured Linux systems because they only want a few models to simplify manufacturing and inventory. simple.

I called IBM's ordering department and asked if I could get one with Linux pre-installed. The saleswoman said no. I asked why they have so many models with trivial differences between them but they offer no choice of OS.

"Oh, but we do have choice. You can have Windows 2000 or Windows XP." ("We have both kinds [of music]: Country and Western" -- The Blues Brothers.) And no, I couldn't get a Chinese version either.

Next I asked if I could get one without an OS. "No." "Why not?" "Because Microsoft won't let us."

Now, to be fair, her info could've been out of date. Maybe she couldn't thing of anything else to say, Or maybe that's what they told her to say. But if she's telling the truth, wasn't the anti-trust settlement supposed to put an end to this?

The end result was that M$ gets paid for 2 copies of Windows on one computer. (Well, my relative was paying for it, so that's her choice. I would've gone to a Linux laptop vendor, though I don't know if any of them are as reliable.)