Slashdot Mirror
Where Will IBM Drop Windows?
TurboProp writes "An article by the Associated Press on Friday (1/09/2004) Says that IBM has plans to abandon Microsoft operating systems on it's internal desktops by the end of 2005. The news originated from an internal IBM memo published by the Inquirer, a British technology news site. Further stories from the Inquirer, indicate that IBM May already have begun dumping windows. While this all bodes well for Linux users, and would seem to be a good PR move for IBM, executives at IBM seem to be trying frantically to put a much milder spin on the story. They say that the memo was taken out of context. I really can't imagine why they wouldn't be posting it on billboards."
...that SCO cut them a great deal on Linux desktop licenses, and IBM just couldn't refuse!
Is that they do it at the prom and it is really embarassing for Microsoft.
Heh... I misread that headline as: "Where Did IBM leave OS/2?"
Not sure why IBm is pussyfooting arond on this one either, unless it's to make sure they don't piss off Microsoft so they'll be penalized in the retail or business support sector. Who knows why they're pussyfooting around with this.
Last Wednesday
They should have done that when they launched OS Warp almost 10 years ago - instead, they pre-installed Windows everywhere - from their retail machines to their own network. OS2 Warp was technologically speaking more advanced than other flavors of Windows of the time.
What were they thinking???
Better be careful where they dump those windows discs, there's laws against just throwing your trash on the ground.
..as would any organisation. No matter how much we might want them to get rid of Windows, they will only do so in areas it makes sense to do so.
In all likelihood, I would suspect that the vast majority of their servers already run Linux... Domino runs on Linux (and has for a while), and most of their webservers are likely to run Linux.
However, while desktops may get replaced, I would think that the engineers would be a prime target for Linux desktops well before, say, secretaries. But I wouldn't think it impossible that "where appropriate" will include Ms. Jane Q. Secretary in another year or two...
libertarianswag.com
First off, they won't be dropping it on their desktop or laptop lines anytime soon, so consumers can feel safe IBM is not abandoning them; Windows has a huge stake in IBM's business. However, it wouldn't surprise me to see IBM begin to try a move to desktops among their own company; however, I can state for fact this is nowhere near the implementation stage, there are a lot of barriers before this will become full-fledged across the number. IBM is too big a player to abandon Windows fully, but they may be making a little bit of a political statement in full support of their desktop, especially in light of the SCO case. IBM has their hands in so many honey pots, there should be no worries that the next ThinkPad you will get will be Linux-only.
Enjoy their linux commerical here.
Yep!
AC
What? I sold my soul for this? Damn you Mestopholes, I want a refund!
I remember when it was Multimedia. Now it's open source. So why are we celebrating that IBM is using new hype words to motivate its workers?
So what about their past sins?
They were all over the TV during last night's NFL playoff game...
www.ibm.com/open
Revenge is a dish best served cold :)
siggy played guitar
"I really can't imagine why they wouldn't be posting it on billboards.""
Then you, sir, are truly, truly out of touch with the outside world...
For the love of god, don't click that link.
Mods, check the link before you mod up. It's not pretty (you don't have to click even just hover over it and read the URL).
I really can't imagine why they wouldn't be posting it on billboards.
IBM does *billions* of dollars of business selling Windows systems, and this declaration would be tantamount to throwing that all away.
The first rule for growing a business is to preserve the existing business above all else. Then you can figure out a way to obtain new business opprtunistically with an alternative offering.
http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=04/01/08/001523 6&mode=nested&tid=106&tid=136&tid=185&tid= 187
But that would require them not to be dumb bastards.
Even if they only have one or two divisions or sub-divisions running on it, they will find out EXACTLY what the benefits and deficiencies are.
It's easier to sell something to someone if you already use and prefer the product.
If IBM drops Windows and adopts a Linux desktop, they're no longer tied to the x86 architecture. Of course, all the machines they have will still be useful, but what chip does IBM design and fabricate?
PowerPC
Now, I don't expect anything to happen immediately, but with the 970 aimed firmly at the desktop market, having a Linux desktop sure would make hardware migration a lot simpler--essentially transparent to the end-user...
There are two reasons why IBM would be juditious in how public they make this. The first big reason is IBM and M$ have a strained relationship to say the least. The big bit of control M$ uses to manipulate PC vendors to do their will is windows and office licensing. Even if you are IBM or Dell if M$ decides to pull your dirt cheap licensing of windows and office and make you pay like they do all the little people your bottom line just got crushed. IBM most likely has no interest in seeing one of there cash crops get killed and knows M$ would tolerate misbehaivor from them least of all their big partners. The seccond reason is IBMs server business is becoming more and more dependant on Linux and its related technologies. Even though desktop and server Linux tech are not always related, IE what is good for a big server is not always good on my PC and the other way around, and sometimes the same thing is good on both, a failure is a failure. If they have to back pedal and go to windows again for any reason its a failure for Linux and PHBs will hear about it. The conversation will go like this.
"We want to sell you this Linux server."
"I heared you guys tried Linux and had to swich back, why would I want to go through that."
"No we use Linux on lots of server systems its desktops that we had to go back to windows for."
"So windows works better then I want a windows server!"
"No Linux is a better server OS most of the time."
"I am calling HP bye."
If I was IBM I would much rather make the swich under the radar incase things don't work out and then tell the world what a great success the swich has been if it does. If not then it never happend.
Repeal the 17th Amendment TODAY! Also Please Read http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html
Seriously, try searching for once. Two dupes in a row is pitiful.
My company uses two IBM-owned Windows-based products: Lotus Notes and Clearcase. (Yes, it is appropriate to feel sorry for me now) Will IBM continue to develop and support these products for Windows? Certainly. But will IBM but less priority on those products now that they're almost certainly not going to be using them in-house to the same degree? It's possible.
My company and many others don't want to hear that IBM is de-prioritizing their Windows products, and that's why IBM isn't making such a big deal out of this.
I was just watching the Redskins vs. Colts game and I saw a commercial IBM put out advertizing Linux! It showed this boy and they said how amazing he was because he got along everywhere, and at the end they say "This boy is Linux" Looks to me like they're hiding nothing.
-----
Make Love not [Browser] War!
regardless, i'm not so sure that IBM would move away from windows internally anyway. sure, there might be a move to replace a lot of workstations with linux, but at the very least they need to keep some around, e.g., for customer support calls. <tongue-in-cheek>but hey, they're probably all in india already anyway, so no one can understand their customer support and they might as well have them run liunx.</tongue-in-cheek>
Xfce: Lighter than some, heavier than others. Just right.
During the NFL playoffs yesterday IBM was running a commercial promoting linux.
I'm still lusting after the Mail implentation that was recently on /. - more stuff like that, all over Linux, and I might be convinced.
IBM is dropping Windows because it is a good business move not as a gimmick. They are not trying to impress Slashdot or open themselves up to abuse.
IBM is simply too big to not sell Windows so they don't want to make this rude. IBM needs to make money from the whole market to support IBM. They do not want the more childish Linux Element posting to the web every time they see a non Linux machine in the hands of one of their reps.
The move is hugely important because it will help them hammer out all the kinks in their understanding of the software. It will help them see where business oportunities lie, more than anything else. They will then be in a position to share how they do it with the rest of the world.
They are not doing it to insult Microsoft. They are doing it because they have more control and bigger margins when they sell Linux.
IBM will run _all_ prevalent operating systems as long as there is an IBM. They are just too big not to.
LS
It would be business suicide for IBM to ditch Windows on it's desktop systems in 2005.
While I'm far from an MS fanboi, Linux isn't ready to take the place of Windows on the desktop. It's not ready technically or graphically or from a design perspective, that is, the fluidity of the GUI. It's also not ready from a market perspective. Windows is the juggernaut. For IBM to ditch the market leader would be consigning their desktop division to massive losses.
I'd like to see a world where companies were free from market pressure to ship Windows or Linux or OS X and that all three could live equally in the computing world, sold to areas where they could leverage each OS's strengths.
But then I long for a world with ethical politicians and businessmen, where there will be peace in the middle east and that upper management will always make good decisions, so I don't think it's likely to happen.
I believe this was taken out of context.
IBM is a thousand companies within another. Each with seperate financials, goals, etc, etc...
This memo was issues to a select number of small groups within the company and was not indicitive of a company wide shift.
Now that IBM's started throwing off it's chains, I wonder who'll be next? And once Apple and Sun stop using Windows in their business, it's anyone's guess where the avalange will hit. On the other hand, you have to wonder why these companies would stop using Windows, seeing as how Microsoft invented the whole GOOEY thing anyways. Weird! They won't be able to rely on the strength of Microsoft's support and development anymore and won't be able to run Office. If they can't run office, how will they get any work done? Will they just use notepad? They won't be able to use email either, without Outlook Express. Suckez!
I drank what? -- Socrates
heh heh I had the stereo in my office turned on full-blast when I clicked on the link. everybody came running in and became transfixed on my screen.
I've never run into anything like this HTML-abuser. What flaw does it exploit?
It is very simple, they actually want it both ways. They want to play up the fact that they are moving to Linux, but make it clear they are not abandoning Windows. Since they still sell Windows and sell consulting services for Windows customers, they want to make it clear they aren't biased against Windows if that is what the customer wants.
If they were truely moving ALL their employees over to Linux, that would allow companies such as HP/Compaq, Dell, Gateway, etc. to sell more internal support contracts at MS based companies. Look, how can they really know how to use Windows if they do not even run it on their systems. All they will be doing is pushing Linux. Of course, for the most part, they are starting to subtly (and sometimes, not so subtly) push Linux everywhere.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
"I really can't imagine why they wouldn't be posting it on billboards."
Likely because outside of the slashdot / computer professional crowd, Linux is either unknown, looked at skeptically, seen as an outsider, and/or seen as a tool solely for the computer geek. You all may view Linux favorably, but the OS still has a long, long way to go before the common consumer truly embraces it.
Besides, the move away from Windows only affects employee laptops and workstations. Why would most of the rest of the world care?
where? Answer is simple: to the trash!
yay!
#
#\ @ ? Colonize Mars
#
Remember that IBM is a HUGE corporation with lots of departments and logical seperations of business. The internal memo currently seems to only apply to a portion, perhaps mainly for testing/feasbility etc.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
nothing beats free publicity...
The dumpster would seemto be the obvious answer. Although that could backfire when the rest of the garbage gets up and walks out of the dump in protest.
That's our life, the big wheel of shit. - The Fat Man, Blue Tango Salvage
The MIME type is coming across as an empty string for the QuickTime viewer, and the browser wants to direct me to a Apple's QuickTime page to download the QuickTime plugin. Sure, I could do that, but I shouldn't have to -- I'm on a Mac.
sig != null
I agree with the comment that IBM is soft-pedaling the memo to avoid public timelines. This would be a huge transition, and needs to be taken at its own pace. Good luck, Big Blue.
This is my post. There are many others like it. If you don't like what you read here, go try one of the others.
their HelpNow! team which handles contracted IT support from other organisations has no idea about Linux at all.
I have it on good account that another major ($6 billion+ / year) software company will be dropping Windows O/Ss on their internal desktops within a year. Moving the SUSE, since Redhat dropped support for non-Enterprise versions.
When it comes to desktop applications, Microsoft has more pull in the business world than even IBM these days. If you want to speak the language of business, you will use Microsoft software.
If IBM were to give up Microsoft products entirely, it would seriously jeopardize their valuable business relationships by making them look bad in front of their business customers. The reason why is because they will be perceived as "incompatible". It doesn't matter of OpenOffice can perfectly open and save Microsoft Office files. If the rest of business uses Microsoft office and IBM uses something different, that creates a risk of incompatibility that could make the customer think they won't be able to communicate with IBM, and threaten IBM's business relationship with them.
Microsoft software remains firmly entrenched, and will continue to do so, largely out of fear.
So while IBM may be internally moving to open source desktop software in some areas they will a) softpedal it like crazy and b) try to exercise PR damage control in this regard, to protect those valuable business relationships.
N4st0r, trixx0r h0bb1tz0rz! Th3y st0l3 0ur pr3c10uzz!
If the average person hasn't heard of Linux up until now, they have been getting more familiar with it in the last couple of weeks. At least football fans have.
Why? Those IBM commercials with Linux as the "adopted kid" that have been running during the NFL playoffs. There have been other commercials mentioning Linux in the past couple of years (from IBM and Dell), but this is the first one that emphasises it.
Any commercial that features such diverse talents as 95-year-old ex-UCLA baseketball coach John Wooden, "Laverne & Shirley" star Penny Marshall, and Muhammad Ali all in the same ad, is pretty good.
BTW, where was Linus in all this? Shouldn't he be involved in these somehow?
Microsoft's VP of Customer Service is Helen Waite. If you are having problems with their products go to Helen Waite.
The problem is that Microsoft has now chosen to drop all versions of Windows previous to Windows ME, including NT version 4. Because Windows is a closed source operating system, this means that if a serious security breach is now discovered in these versions of Windows, Microsoft's attitude is "tough - upgrade". The problem is that many Businesses use these older versions of Windows, because they work. They are not interested in using the latest version of Office, as they have no need for the use of the new features provided, or even may have a compatibility issue they cannot resolve.
Sure, Linux systems cost money to operate, but they tend to be more secure, as the system administrators must be better trained. Overall, huge long term savings can be made by using an operating system that can be maintained without a serious upgrade every 3 years as the company that sold the operating system decides not to support it. Anyway, many companies outsource their IT don't they?
The other advantage is that there is more profit. By offering to support an operating system by up to 10 years, the supplier can charge more, as the customer will save money, as they don't need to spend money on re-training or new hardware. By adopting Linux across the business, IBM can show their customers how it can be done. Remember, that many older versions of Windows software can be made to run on Linux through the use of WINE. Yes, there will be some re-training, but not as much as the operating system will be better tailored to the customers needs.
The bottom line is that IBM is re-adopting the old white shirt principle. This is where systems were designed to meet customer's needs, not enforce new requirements on customers. Remember, the customer is always right.
I was doing an OEM deal for my employer at Research Tringle Park (RTP) near Raleigh North Carolina with IBM. RTP's entire server development group works out of RTP, I was shown off the blade center before it was functional etc. Oddly enough! No ethernet. Still token-ring, why give up on your own technology?! This great resource center of hard work and tech invention was most likely the ugliest most run-down facility one could possibly expect. I would say the time frame for an ENTIRE move from Microsoft desktops INTERNALLY is sometime after 2005.
IBM+MS | SCO+LINUX ----> SCO-LINUX+MS | IBM+LINUX-MS
net: IBM+LINUX | SCO+MS
see? it all balances out!
Esoteric reference.
From the comment:
Just a quick note that we all should remember:- It's = it is (contraction)
- its = possessive of it (possessive)
Try to remember it in this fashion: If you know the sex, use the apostrophe (think phallic). If not, no apostrophe.It's a rule we can live by ;-)
...tizzyd
This is a dupe...
No it's not.
The previous article was about the leaking of the memo. This one is about IBM trying to downplay the leaked memo. Two different stories.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
Yea, you just keep telling yourself that. I figured there would be some OS2 zellot who would make such a post, even in the face of the evidence that IBM doesn't even use it on their desktops. Not that XP is any good, but there's a good reason why IBM is switching to Linux, and switching from Windows rather than switching from OS2.
I'm an American. I love this country and the freedoms that we used to have.
... in fact, they do like Israel does: they threaten to go full-opensource just to have a big rebate on their next round of Windows licencing !
I'm getting sick of the little eminem-wannabe kid commercials. They are getting a little stupid.
Yes, my girlfriend is a BitchX
My own private, personal interpretation goes like this:
1) IBM is a *very* conservative, slow-moving, large and cautious organization. Even if everyone at IBM decided tomorrow that a switch should be undertaken, and there were no technical/implementaion hiccups, it would take time, lots of it. They have gotten burnt by trying to lead an unwilling maket before, they have not forgotten.
2) The value of the IBM name is affected by people's perception of how well they succeed at an endeavor they undertake.
2) IBM does not have a culture dominated by strong top-down directive-based management (there are exceptions of course). Rather, a lot of management directives are "sold to" subordinates, achieving buy-in, at least to some degree. Viewed in light of this, it is reasonable to interpret the note at face-value: a challenge to see if it can be done or at least explored, issues investigated, etc...
3) No one really *knows* with certainty how easy it will be to move 300,000 people (90% of whom are not OS/software technical) over to linux: how many little unforseen gotchas will pop up; least of all high-level managers who are paid to think about strategic rather than tactical issues. More to the point, no one know with certainty what the adoption-percentage vs. time curve will look like or at what level it will saturate (how long it will take, what the final % will be). Many of the details have yet to be fully fleshed out or even listed, so predicting a time-line at this point is risky at best.
Given these points, I think that IBM is merely trying to manage (perhaps unreasonable) expectations to guard against a backlash if on 01Jan06 they only have x% of their people migrated over, or worse if there are issues that pop up that push it out further, or make it unreasonable at this time. We may all have opinions about the likelyhood of those things, but we don't actually *know*, and neither do the IBM execs. See #1,2 above.
But having a division at IBM running on Linux mean a lot more than all the talk in the world.
And how IBM deals with those Windows apps will help their customers determine whether migrating is the right idea right now.
If IBM won't switch off of Windows, that doesn't inspire much confidence in their customers.
And sales is all about confidence.
I been working at IBM for several years, in 1997 I was forbided to use Linux in my thinkpad, I was at that time to remove Linux. I was working ultil I left IBM to push Linux inside, now seen that Palmisano mentality has change. He's a not very clever guy I know him personally, he's a peon in hand of the real Directors.
Now evey IBMer can select the operating system from ISSI, the repository of the APPS software. You can select W2000 and Linux.
Why, because it's funny and there's a lot of big IRON behind, the mainframe is like the fenix thankyou to Linux. And the Public Sector is mving to Linux, IBM is actually the only company that can cover all the needs arround Linux.
A lot of million $ arround it.
That all, and they solve the internal problems arround illegal licences of MS office working arround.
That all
..actions speak louder than words?
Maybe IBM realise that what they actually do counts for much more than whatever they announce loudly in a press release, or whatever "spin" they put on the news as reported by somebody else.
They get the benefit of guerilla advertising passed on the grapevine, and would presumably suffer *lots* less embarassment in the event of unexpected problems with deployment.
Ian
"I really can't imagine why they wouldn't be posting it on billboards."
Simple: they just don't want to scare off most of their customers who are using Windows and may fear that IBM won't support them anymore.
We've gotta think outside our Linux Box: after all, at least 95% of the users are using Windows at this time! Also, we also must remember that users don't necessarily like using computers: to most of them, it is just a necessity and they certainly don't want to change their habits without VERY significant BENEFITS.
IBM would indeed be quite dumb to advertise everywhere that they are dropping the most widely used OS in the world... Anaybody remember OS/2 and Microchannel?
Not like it was selling that many desktop systems these days anyway. I've noticed their Thinkpads don't have a "Windows" key on their keyboard. An intentional omission as payback for MS' handling of OS/2?
At least they're going to read themselves of viruses and the associated costs (virus scanners, etc.).
Since IBM makes its money from its Global Services department, and since Global Services writes software for other companies, and since almost all companies use Windows, IBM needs to keep Windows on their engineers systems so their engineers can keep writing software for other companies. So no, IBM is not dropping windows. Ever.
My life is an open book ... up to a point.
I haven't seen anyone mention this, but one sure reason IBM is backing off from announcing that they are going to stop using windows is that they don't want to piss off Microsoft.
Remember that IBM is supplying the chips for the next X-Box. It probably isn't too late for Microsoft to switch to someone else. THey piss off Microsoft by braggin that they aren't using Windows any more and that would certainly make Microsoft start looking for alternatives.
http://www.popularculturegaming.com -- my blog about the culture of videogame players
...for IBM internally. For one, they don't have to cough up money to anyone but themselves and we do know per CPU costs aren't that bad once the production is set up, so some extra volume would only do them good. Plus you save all those transaction costs (contract negotiations etc.)
Being corporate desktop processors I'm sure they don't have a problem supplying the right speed mix either, since most corporate jobs don't really require that much.
As for the rest of the market, I'm not so sure. I don't think IBM want to take on Intel and AMD going for the extremely price-sensitive CPU market. IBM never did all too well there to begin with. Macs and servers with higher mark-up are more their turf.
On the other hand, it could be a way to "sell" Linux to corporations. Say e.g. discounted support rates for IBM (P)PCs, or something similar. Businesses care more about things that *work* than if it's 2% faster on this CPU. The thing about Linux is that it hasn't - well it's been stable and all that but the apps didn't "work" for them.
Downtime is pretty much the most expensive thing you can have these days. Pretty much every job has now been computerized, and more often than not *needs* you do be connected to some central document management/customer database/order database/central accounting in order to get anything done.
IBM just needs to price it right - they need to be low enough that they are competitive. Then more often than not they'll go with IBM PCs to go with that new IBM server. Corps don't have anything against single vendors - that's usually a plus.
What they don't like is single vendor lock-in. But, if they're running Linux they can dump both PPC and IBMs support whenever they feel like it, go back to x86 and whatever else company is offering the best Linux support.
Kjella
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
Agreed, I've been there.
When I visited there, I couldn't even get my notebook plugged into the network. The IT department didn't have token ring cards or 10BTToken Ring boxes for visitors.
The newer Tivoli building there is nice. But the IBM building looks like a federal office building with furniture to match.
-------- -------- Support Wesley Clark for president!!!
Remember tho, it's all about profit.
G5 sales are a nice feather in IBM's cap, but Apple makes the money when a G5 goes over the counter. The R&D is more what IBM is interested in, they get to use lessons learned in their POWER line.
That's where they'd like to be making their money, in the high-margin low-quantity areas like server clusters and high availability.
Maybe someone here who's read IBM's SEC filings can tell us where their money actually comes from.. The PC business must move a lot of machines, but I'm forced to wonder if there's any profit in it at all, the market being as cutthroat as it is.
Heh, and don't forget to include Java as a platform IBM can fall back on, they've put a lot into WebSphere.
...putting it on billboards. Hey, maybe IBM won't, but is there any reason why /.ers don't pitch together and rent one out :-D?
eric http://www.ericdfields.com/
I guess they're in for a price hike on their OEM licensing agreements for desktops and laptops. Say $20 would be enough (I guess) to make the move to Linux unprofitable to the company as a whole.
Will they actually be dropping Windows, or are they simply fishing for better pricing from Microsoft, like India, Israel, et al?
Will IBM start selling notebooks without the microsoft tax too? And with fully linux compatible hardware?
True genius is grasping a situation like a peice of fruit, and peircing it just right so that it drains dry.
Because the absolute majority of their customers is running Windows on Desktops. Most of them might not have faith in a company which drops internal support for their product of choice and consider their business to be better taken care by another company. That is why IBM making a lot of fuss about such a move is a bad thing for IBM.
Right on their head I hope.
2 Rules of Advertising:
1. LET PEOPLE KNOW WHAT YOUR PRODUCT IS
2. LET PEOPLE KNOW WHAT YOUR PRODUCT IS
Sure, all of us know what they are trying to sell. So, who are these ads targeted at? If it's lay-persons who don't know what Linux is, they are sure to be confused. Seriously, the first time I saw the commercial I thought it was advertising some new kind of free online encyclopedia of everything. Then they say the kid's name is Linux. Needless to say, I was rather disappointed.
Here's the source code (SVG) of a logo, IBM can use if they do abandon Micro$oft. It says: "Not powered by Micro$oft". My server cannot handle substantial traffic, so I cannot provide a link to a picture showing the logo. Convert it with the Batik rasterizer, resize the .png file it generates with 'convert' and/or convert it to another file type and show it with pride!
<?xml version="1.0"?>
<!-- Copyright (C) 2003 H.J.P.M. Vos
This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or
modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License
as published by the Free Software Foundation; either version 2
of the License, or (at your option) any later version. This
program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the
GNU General Public License for more details. You should have
received a copy of the GNU General Public License along with
this program; if not, write to the Free Software Foundation, Inc.,
59 Temple Place - Suite 330, Boston, MA 02111-1307, USA.
-->
<svg xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink" width="326" height="110">
<rect width="326" height="100" fill="lightgreen"/>
<rect x="10" y="10" width="306" height="80" fill="pink"/>
<text style="font-family:Helvetica;font-size:30;font-wei ght:bold;"
fill="red" x="10" y="35">
NOT
</text>
<text style="font-family:Helvetica;font-size:30;font-wei ght:bold;"
fill="orange" text-anchor="middle" x="163" y="60">
POWERED
</text>
<text style="font-family:Helvetica;font-size:30;font-wei ght:bold;"
fill="yellow" x="30" y="85">
BY MICRO$OFT
</text>
</svg>
That maybe IBM wants to keep it low-key to avoid social pressure and causing an uproar. Let alone risking any number of business relationships if somebody hollers too loudly about it.
C|N>K
Since when does public websites have anything to do with what runs "internally"?
(although if you did deep enough on ibm.com you will run into some NSF URLs which are Domino)
back when IBM was using OS/2 Warp on it's workstations a lot of ppl started installing NT4 on it instead. My friend was in tech support and they'd do that their manager would care occasionally. How likely will this happen with windows vs. linux especially with the business guys. It's probably less of a concern than OS/2 Warp vs windows since linux is definetly cooler, but the migration and training could always be botched, giving ppl the wrong impression.
OK, SVG and XML files are not programs. 'This program' is not Free software, because it's not a bloody program.
That's like me saying 'this MS Word file is free software.' Or 'this PNG is free software.' It's not even logical.
Use a CreativeCommons license, which is actually for artwork/data/etc, fine. But trying to call a SVG file a program... Don't you think that's just a tad bit of a reach?
Atleast you could have taken the time to spell 'score' correctly...
Dedicated Cthulhu Cultist since 4523 BC.
What I want to know is when I can get Linux supported on the Thinkpads. Without having to buy a copy of Windows.
Nevermind that embarassing fact that IBM fired the guy there who WAS doing the lead effort for Linux on Thinkpads.
I suppose it's just a matter of time, but heck, I want it right now, please!
Linux is almost there, but until the dog is ready to be put to sleep, it's still "nice doggy" time.
Honey, I'll be home in 20 minutes!
Backlash
Microsoft shouldn't be expected to take something like this lying down. You can expect the folks in Redmond to dig into their bag of dirty marketing agreement tricks and find a way to punish IBM. Things like not giving them preferential pricing for installed Microsoft software unless IBM publicly renounces use of Linux on internel systems, that sort of thing.
Microsoft wasn't able to force IBM out of the OS and applications market by offering technically superior products; they did it by using their ability to set prices for their own products to punish anyone who dared to offer an alternative to Redmond. IBM can expect a price increase on Microsoft products (both those for internal use and for re-sale) as soon as they drop licenses for Microsoft products internally.
They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither safety nor liberty.
Ben
Fact is, there is the perception that open source is as much an ideological movement as a practical one. IBM is a publicly traded company, and its appearance, to investors and to potential clients, is important to their success.
Appearing ideological would be a Bad Thing (TM) for IBM. It must appear to be motivated by profit and practicality, so any embrace of an ideological movement must be dulled and qualified with a mild and sober spin. Otherwise they might appear to have the zeal and excitement for a "new" technology that all those failed dot-coms.
This is of course irrespective of whether the move is good or not
IBM thinks about IBM first
1) the p970
this chip is a major contender, with apple helping with distribution and a probable p970 blade this year. they will need an os that can really use the chip (linux)
2) if you buy an IBM desktop your an idiot.
IBM is known for their servers (big iron) they don't really care about their small range servers they make their money on pseries and mainframes.
3) if linux can be specialized and modified for easily deployable office appliances and big servers than this could make IBM allot of money.
4) a linux version of OS IBM,
What if linux came out with a proprietary desktop, that could compete with sun, run linux and leverage the OSS movement. apple made that work so why not IBM think about it. would you pay 100$ for a linux based desktop with IBM backing it, has all the apps you need, and has a commercial interface.
This makes sense if you look at where IBM really makes its money, not desktops, not small servers, but the big guys.
If IBM declared war on King Bill, they'd face Least Favored Nation licensing terms for Windows (maybe even an embargo), which would hurt their ability to compete with HPaq, Dell, and Gateway. While many /.ers would love to see IBM boxes shipping without the Windows tax added into the price, mainstream corporate purchasers would be far less happy, and the SOHO market - many of whom actually think of MS as the swell people who "innovated" all these nifty technological geegaws - would come to regard IBM as a freakish Big Bad Blue monster.
>2) if you buy an IBM desktop your an idiot. Ouch.
ok, I'm impressed now. That shit caused a pop-up bomb even on Firebird.
Now excuse me while I wash my eyes in acid.
Only on
WHat I heard at work was the contract with MS is up for renewal and MS practically doubled the price. So IBM is threatening going with Linux to get MS to drop the price.
IBM makes a lot from selling Windows products and supporting Windows so they don't want to rock the boat too much with MS. So they are in a tough position balancing their need to make money on Windows and Linux.
Do you know anyone who moved their desktop to Linux and used it on a daily basis for any extended period of time that whent back to M$? How about large organizations. Do you see Lowes moving back? I never have and I don't.
There's nothing really to drive them there. Windoze has got games and fiercly propriatory hardware which are essentially toys: video junk, USB all in one nightmares and that kind of thing. All of it is buggy and NONE of it ever should have been used to run a business.
More important, there are significant issues for M$ to overcome once it happens. When you've been in free software land long enough, there's plenty of stuff you don't want to put up with ever again. "I agree", it's been years since I've had to press one of those buttons for anything more than a sigle paragraph like Knoppix has. Crashes, a peer's computer crashes on him once a day at work. It drives him nuts, but I'd wipe it. The single desktop interface and the difficulty of place keeping this and instability create. The pathetic networking tools. "Driver" issues. The list goes on an on.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
We need a new mod category like this. It would come in handy for so many ./ threads...
...could it happen?
Some anonymous troll wrote: "but the OS still has a long, long way to go before the common consumer truly embraces it"
Faulty logic: Customer ignorance is not a flaw in the design of the OS.
So a more correct statement would be "the customer must be aware of the alternatives available to him in order to embrace them"
The troll goes on to say "Besides, the move away from Windows only affects employee laptops and workstations. Why would most of the rest of the world care?"
They would care because if a company like IBM can do business using linux, that sort of takes all the wind out of the giant microsoft FUD machine that shrilly insists that you need microsoft in order to do business.
All the custom software written in VC++, VB, Delphi, ASP, .Net, etc. etc. are not going away anytime soon and there will be no "big rush" to rewrite software that is not broke for Linux because it is cool either.
The newsboards should be abolished in favor of rumor mongering...
every day http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random
Safari, however, has no problems, even with the pop up blocker turned off. Window moves kind of slow, but spawns no additional windows. Other browsers however... oh jesus.
First off, nobody moves 300,000 desktops in one year. You retire maybe 20% per year and refresh them with new machines that can contain a new OS.
Next you have to insure that all of your custom desktop apps are rewritten OR - run under Wine or VM32.
Then you have to create a build and tune it for your network.
Then you have to push all of the legacy apps maintenance to sunset their own apps. You will need to do this for several years unless you plan on migrating entire business divisions at once.
Then and this a BIG thing, you need to train a desktop support infrastructure to maintain it. That includes break/fix, troubleshooting and helpdesk.
And Oh - you also need to develop national language support for all the desktop code, world wide in about 20 different languages including DBCS support and all the supporting documentation.
While this may be true for some parts of this 350k people organisation, it's not generally true. Unless something happened over the weekend which I'll find out about on Monday of course...
Oh yeah, I'm an IBMer hence the AC post. My work Win2k laptop is coming up to EOL, so I'd be delighted to replace it with a Linux one, but it would make life tricky without MS Project and Visio.
Increasingly IBM is being mooted as a Linux company. Although I am not aware of an IBM specific distribution. Linux is probably one of IBM's highest sources of revenue.It only makes sense for them to use it internally, it looks better for them if they are using their own products etc.
I wouldnt be surprised if the reason they are not making a big deal about this is due to the impact this may have on their Microsoft revenue stream. Its surely must be a blow to Microsoft that one of the largest tech companies(IBM) is publically ditching microsoft on their internal desktops. My guess is they dont want to harm their non-linux revenue streams , and at the same time avoid any rumbles with redmond.
This also has to be a good thing for the maturing of Linux as a desktop OS. A company such as IBM is going to be able not only to see what problem areas exist with linux as a desktop machine, but due to its commitment to the os will actually be able to input and contributions actually fix some of the issues its internal users will discover.
This is a sound move and one that shows just how strong Linux is becoming, and shows without a doubt that you dont need Microsoft to run your business no matter how large or small.
Electronic Music Made Using Linux http://soundcloud.com/polyp
on the contrary, windows do pop up if you are foolish enough to click that button that says "click here" on the main page
I REALLY want to use Samba/LDAP for single-sign-on and file/print services. But AFAIK this requires modifiation to every windblows client we have, to change how kerberos behaves, among other things. And what PAM modules/filesystem do I need to run to be able to have the additional ACLs required for "proper" access control beyond OWNER-GROUP-WORLD? We have some resources that have pretty complex access restrictions on them - It can't be duplicated with the O-G-W permission scheme.
I'm the first to admit that I'm not a Linux expert, by any stretch of the imagination, but I know enough to have been successfully using Linux as my personal workstation for the last 6 moths exclusively and have migrated all of our "other" critical systems to Linux (Email, DNS, WWW, FTP, Backups, DHCP, NIDS, etc.) so I'm not that ignorant when it comes to Linux either.
What I would love to see is a SAMBA/LDAP "drop-in" server distribution which would be [pre]configured to allow transparent access to our WinNT/2K/XP clients who join its "domain". The LDAP service should be configured to support all/most of the common user and group settings required by a Windows client logging in: i.e. remote home share location, home drive letter, remote profile location (even though we don't use that - many do) and the ability to synchronize account info to "linux BDCs" at the remote locations - without having to manage /etc/password files for 15,000 users on 20 different machines.
Last summer I actually created all of our accounts on a Linux LDAP server with a test Samba server authenticating off it. It kinda worked for NT clients logging in but for 2K/XP forget it - BTW I did do the registry hack to them to allow authentication. Now I'll admit that I undoubtedly had many things messed up in the configuration as it was my first attempt, but it shouldn't be that hard to do as most default AD configs and behaviors could be set up as the default.
Am I missing something here? Is there a resource out there that I haven't found that will allow me to replicate the functionality of my AD domain with Linux? If so, please let me know. I want to roll out a LTSP this summer and I can't do it without having a way for single-sign-on and for users to be able to access their "windows" home directories. Allowing our Mac/OS X user to participate would be the cat's meow!
Even my boss has had it with the constant upgrade/license hassle with Microsoft and is encouraging me to look at Smaba as a solution. Of course his recommendation, in all his wisdom, is "Can't we just use Samba?" as if I could just say "Yes" and it would be as easy as that.
Give me an ISO with an "ActiveDirectoryKiller" Samba/LDAP Server Install and I'll port all my users to it in a heartbeat. Please !
"terrorism" and "pedophilia" are the root passwords to the Constitution
... idiot(s) who is (are) leaking internal information and screenshots of internal web sites gets fired. Whoever you are, I hope you did that BEFORE you signed your BCG for the new year.
Buy the President
Where I work, IBM makes loadsamoney on:
* Mainframes, mainframe software and mainframe support. DASD. Backup equipment (ATLs)
* RS6000s of various flavours (pSeries NUMA machines are $$$)
* AS400 still has a strong presence
* WebSphere (and MQ / MQ Integrator), DB2.
* Lotus Notes!
* Services - they charge mountains of cash if you want to outsource something to them. Ask them to tender, and weep. Then pay.
We don't use IBM PCs.
I reckon IBM make most of their cash in low volume / high margin. Linux is probably a way to turn the desktop into high volume / medium margin (support).
Yours Sincerely, Michael.
That was my thought as well... IBM could definately license Apple's operating system. This would be great for both Apple and IBM as Apple could definately dictate the terms for such an agreement and I think IBM would like it just in principle to stick it to Microsoft.
I just wasted your mod points! HA!
Is the results of the rigoruse testing of Microsoft Windows 3.1x,95,98,NT,2000. Where are the results IBM?
I still have NT on my desktop at work. It has severe problems underload (Dell gx110 pentium 800MHz and 256MB ram). Any kind of load and you get all kinds of problems, like Word failing to start until I close the Peoplesoft IDE. Explorer crashing and restarting.
Pure junk and I've never had problems with Linux on my desktop at home even when the kids sit on the keyboard and launch a billion copies of Mozilla or Natilus.
Erm.
IBM has never been big on selling software. They are fairly OS agnostic.
They see OSes for what they are: tools to get the job done with the hardware you have. This is why they have such a large girth of OSes that they deal with: MacOS, Linux, AS/400, Windows. They don't give a damn what their customers do with the hardware they purchase from IBM, they just want the customers to be productive with their products.
~/ssh slashdot.org ssh: connect to host slashdot.org port 22: too many beers
A company the size and scope of IBM does not switch from Windows to Linux without the rest of the IT world hearing about it somehow. They would never be able to conceal a move of that magnitude.
-JD
Will I be able to use SmartSuite in Linux?
You would see that Tivoli is already ported. IBM also has it's own internal software update system for Linux. It also has a Anti-Virus system for Linux. The move is possible. Today? Probably not. In 2 years? Maybe.. You could use Notes with Cross Over Office, but nobody wants to do that. I hope they don't go that route.
This is pretty funny considering that it is exactly what IBM's agenda has been since 1950!
What are they going to do for Mom and Pop who is used to having windoze on their thinkpad...
Are they going to
1) Stop selling Thinkpads?
2) Replace windows with Linux and support Mom and dad?
Everything works under Knoppix including sound. I haven't tried the modem yet, but really have no inclination to seeing as I have DSL at home and both 802.11b and GPRS connectivity available to me while out and about.
Only sticky bit is playing VCDs under Linux...the X video driver doesn't seem to be able to do video overlays like what is needed by Xine. I suspect with a little more digging I'll be able to deal with it. In the mean time, I can just boot over to the Dark Side and watch my VCDs happily.
Alan Cox still uses his 600 series ThinkPad, I believe, to give but one example of someone high up in the Linux Universe who uses a ThinkPad. However, there are hundreds of other Linux users who run Linux on ThinkPads. I think right now that the only laptop kit more common running Linux than ThinkPads are Apple PowerBooks and iBooks.
Computer Geeks still has 600X laptops around for super cheap...those have Pentium IIIs instead of Pentium IIs like the 600 and 600E do. Why look, here's one now. Enjoy!
Knowledge is power. Knowledge shared is power multiplied.
It's interesting that this is conceivably the best computer hardware commercial since the Apple "1984" commercial. Which, as you all remember, was a poke at IBM.
Knowledge is power. Knowledge shared is power multiplied.
As a CPA, I would personally be thrilled if my company were to support me on a Unix based OS.
I believe it is the lawyers that are holding things up because they find Clippy to be witty . . .
Sdelat' Ameriku velikoy Snova!
There were 2 new IBM - LINUX commercial during the Colts/Chiefs game today..... And if you have a look at the main IBM home page right now it has linux all over it!
It's not bias. They made a decision based on judgement. That's what consultants do and are paid for. It's going to work for them and they will be able to help you if you want it to work for you.
The decision was that Microsoft had no place in their business, but your business might be different. Stranger things have happened. They can still help you out with Windoze if you want, it's what they were using and they will keep a few people on staff well versed in eXPensive, easily broken crap.
Oh dear, I'm letting my knowledge, I mean bias, shine through.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
Good point. The sites I support have people who depend on macros they inherited / were given by other employees. Some of them are very elaborate, and asking them to rewrite something they have no idea how it was written in the first place is asking a bit much. An asking the IT staff that already has 90+ trouble tickets to handle with some being months old due to number of tickets opened daily plus projects, emergency reports, people walking up and interrupting them with dumb questions, etc, is not practical either.
I.E. an IT infrastructure that is already stretched to its limits buy cost reduction initiatives is not going to learn how to write macros or how to migrate them.
Yes, I am speaking from experience. I get requests like "please install program x on 70 computers in the next couple of days because 70 people are changing jobs, oh, I know you have 87 trouble tickts and IT staff was just moved into its present office and still have stuff to box up and relocate, but this is important!". No warning, no overtime is possible, just somehow make it happen without ignore any of your other responsibilities. Sigh...
I can't afford a sig!
They already committed in Munich. There's no going back. They either believe what they say or they don't take advantage of free software in house. They can't have it both ways.
The chances of failure, by the way, are slim to none.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
My company provides key enterprise software to IBM. We've been told this is for real.
Moving IBM to a completely different system is a monumental task, but it's been done before when IBM abandonned OS/2 internally and more recently, Token Ring for networking.
IBM will stick to a well planned process in order to make it work. That's what IBM has done for decades. They will port internal apps to Linux and I'm sure that many of these were already in the works. They will convince vendors to support their Linux initiative. Windows desktops will still linger in some places, but IBM really wants to stop writing Microsoft the check they have to pay every year for software and support. That is the real goal.
I work for IBM. I have never seen a single Macintosh at the company. At first I thought it was strange but I've become used to it. There were some Macs used in advertising departments in several acquisitions but they were all surplussed. IBM was big on OS/2 and now then they switched to Windows 98. Now they use Windows 2000 or XP for the most part. However lots of engineers, developers and researchers use Linux, AIX or Solaris on their desktops. There is even an officially supported version of Red Hat for internal use which comes preconfigured with WINE to run Lotus Notes (the corporate email, calendar and groupware client), MTS (VPN connectivity), a "piece love and Linux" screensaver, ISSI (corporate software distribution and installation software) and SameTime (corporate chat client).
At no point did the parent post suggest that customer ignorance was a flaw in the design of the OS. In fact, at no point in the post did the writer attack or even comment on the design of the OS. The poster simply commented on the current public perception - right or wrong - of Linux.
Thank you IBM
Unless it refers to where they're going to send all their old indtall discs, licences and MS desksets.
No offence to the parent poster, it was the editor who made the senseless headline.
Of course you can imagine the entrenched Notes people pushing back, but eventually the change will be made. Steps are already being made to produce 'web service' type access to Domino mail databases...which themselves are moving to using DB2 as storage instead of the asinine notes format.
Blar.
I think it will happen, the trend is there, since Linux delivers a lot of what Microsoft has been promising/promoting for the past couple years (TCO, ROI, Security, etc.) But there is still a lot to be done to get the usability of Linux more in-line with the mass market (if not fool-proof, at least fool-usable).
As a server platform it is gianing ground and as a tool for electronic embedded systems it is making big inroads. As government and business get better accostimed to it, It will influence consumers (repeating the old parent addage, "Well, I use it at work... we should use it at home and in school")
"Enjoy what you're doing! If it becomes drudgery, you're doing it wrong!" - Jim Butterfield
No more paying the MS tax on Office...there is a replacement in the works and it isn't any of the OS suites.
Blar.
Yeah - the whole string of 'em had me actually listening. I'm wondering if I still like Kurt Vonnegut?
Stuff that matters.
... those profits were cut short by the arrival of the clone business and competition.
In recent years (my recollection, check me on this to be sure) IBM's PC business has been struggling to break even.
It's a logical move for them to look at ways to make their PC business more competitive, and with their Linux business (and associated consulting and hardware sales) growing well, it make great synergistic sense to leverage that success by both reducing internal expense and promoting a successful business line.
The time at which they would actually drop Windows from their products lies far in the future (if ever), but having IBM using it internally means it won't be long before they sell their desktop PCs and Thinkpads with a choice of OS -- and that's a GREAT thing.
And (sadly), IBM's moving to Linux for desktop hardware in no way points to an abandonment of the x86 architecture for the PPC. That move depends upon how well their x86 desktop Linux effort succeeds, and whether IBM can make licensed x86's cheaper than PPCs.
So for the foreseeable future, if you want a desktop G5 running a *nix variant, I think you're looking at Mac OS X.
According to the Mac News Network, independent sources put its latest sales figures of desktop systems at around 3.8% market share.
CNet News.com puts Apple's latest (3rd Quarter 2003) market share figures slightly lower: "Apple, meanwhile, saw shipments rise, but not as fast as the market. The company's U.S. market share is now 3 percent, while its worldwide share is below 3 percent."
While it is true that Apple has taken as much as 7% market share in the laptop market of the US in some months (see this MacLinks article) this only translates to 4% worldwide share. And HP is still the world laptop leader.
Apple, despite what you might think, has not significantly improved its market share over the last few years, except in laptops. You could make the argument that they have managed to keep market share from declining (which was the trend up until 1999), but they have failed to translate their new products into market share leadership.
I know it's hard to believe all of this when you get your news from Slashdot posters, but luckily industry analysts don't.
IBM has already licensed Mac OS X from Apple once. Well, they licensed Next from Next -- that's really the same thing now. They didn't really do anything with Next when they licensed it. But, that doesn't prevent them from doing it again and perhaps going somewhere with it this time. I have to wonder if Apple would be as interested in it as Next was.
I have a website. It's about Macs.
Perhaps that is the problem, If you were a UNIX shop, your sysadmins would be professional script writers. The real issue is that your fellow sysadmins either don't know how to write "for i in `command`", or /usr/local/bin/perl -e 'do something clever', or my favorite /home/me/toolbox/automated_labor_intensive_job.pl, or are not allowed by a restrictive OS. Which also means you also don't have an easy to use "CRON" type program to execute commands while you sleep, and you don't have something like "PROCMAIL", to do something clever with the mail report received from the clever "CRON" job. You are spending all your valuable human time doing jobs inexpensive machines do in a UNIX shop.
I get requests like "please install program x on 70 computers in the next couple of days because
If that is the problem, the correct solution may be UNIX. Installing software for UNIX means testing the software on one or two machines, to figgure out what environment tuning you need to perform. Then install the program on /usr/common/bin/., or where ever you have your apps installed on the network. If you had that infrastructure, one install would install the app for all your users.
On a UNIX network, all your user are belong to root.
- High Tech workers, please say NO to Union Carpenters, their Union sees fit to control our compensation.
True enough if you change the application to one that would run on Unix, then get money & approval to migrate entire company to Unix..ok, back to reality. The application will not run on Unix. If I had access to an SMS server( to push the application ) or a Windows Terminal server, necessary permissions to the Active Directory infrastructe ( to use GPO to installt the app via Windows Installer service ) that would help. But then again having 2-3 days to install an application I have never heard of before is still quite a request, given the other restrictions - walk-up user requests ( I get several of these every day ), existing ticket queue, weekly reports, other projects, in the process of moving into new office - it is quite a stretch. Heck, these days taking time for a restroom break is quite a stretch, lol.
I can't afford a sig!
If there is anything lacking in the gnu/linux desktop in for an everday office environment the use of it by such a big company will smoke those deficencies out
IBM also has the resources to code away any deficiencies they find.
I hope they make that cool stuff GPL
For years I have been asking myself why do people tolerate microsoft. Their power comes from their desktop and technically it is nothing special. Many companies could make something
The answer has always been some sort of cost/benefit. IBM and others decided it would be too costly to take on microsoft
Not so with the Free(dom) software model. The GNU/Linux desktop has been mostly built by others.
All IBM will do is use it an polish.....very little risk on their part....a lot to gain.
Steve
After they built it right?
They make such great technology choices.
"IBM has never been big on selling software"
Erm..... their software revenue is bigger than Microsofts (well was in 2001 anyway, last time I looked)
Now if that is not big, what is ?
Has anyone seen those IBM ads for linux? I'm surprised to see a company advertising on prime tv for linux... There was a discussion a while ago about whether anyone would advertise linux. It looks like IBM is doing it.
Sivaram Velauthapillai
Sivaram Velauthapillai
Seeking the meaning of life... @slashdot of all places
1. You can not play games on it.
hmm, was I just imagining that I was playing quake 3 and ut2003 today on my linux box?
2. It cannot be used by my grandma.
Sorry, can't comment on your grandma - but it can be used by my mom with no trouble.
3. It lacks a GUI of any note.
It's got a GUI that I enjoy using a lot more than windows - perhaps you've not actually used linux recently.
4. There is no support available for it.
(yawn) support avaialble from vendors and 3rd parties - not that you'd really need it.
5. It is an assortment of fragmented OSes.
hmm not sure what you mean here...
6. It cannot be run on the x86 platform.
Actually it can and does work quite well on x86.
7. You have to compile everything and know C.
LOL, tell that to my 7 year old daughter.
8. Support for the latest hardware is always poor.
That's odd, my new nvidia card, video capture card, usb scanner, and digital cameras work just fine.
9. It is incompatiable with GNU/Linux.
Difficult to tell what you mean here.
10.It is dying.
Nope.
Hope this clears things up!
How can they "fall back" on OSX? OSX is Apple-proprietary. IBM can't sell it, they can' make their own machines for it, etc. And why would they want to anyway?
>>They are fairly OS agnostic
Could have fooled me. Watching U.S. football playoffs today, I lost track of the number of IBM Linux commercials. Strangely, I didn't see any IBM MacOS commercials, nor did I see any IBM AS/400 or IBM Windows commercials.
A lot of people like to use the word agnostic as meaning "not supporting one side or the other".
I prefer the version by the guy who most famously brought it to light, Professor Huxley in 1869.
in a nutshell, "we are incapable of knowing"
so if i'm agnostic when in comes to a supreme being, it means that I believe that at this current time, I cannot know if one exists, so I do not bother with such questions.
if i'm agnostic when it comes to operating systems, it means that I believe that with the information present, I cannot know if one is better then the other, so I do not bother with such questions.
IBM isn't stupid, they will give to the customer whatever the customer wants. If that's windows...so be it. But they sure "appear" to be advertising the fact that they know about a "pretty good thing"...and that we may want to know about it too.
That thing is linux.
Agnostic? Could have fooled me.
"If there is anything lacking in the gnu/linux desktop in for an everday office environment the use of it by such a big company will smoke those deficencies out"
Smoke them out? Smoke them out? Even the most cursory glance toward any Linux desktop will have deficencies popping out at you. Have you never used Linux? Smoke them out. That's a good one. Maybe if IBM really user tests, and I mean really hammers on those usability tests; they'll discover that cut and paste is broken.
I could see them hiving off the PC division. Just the way they hived off the Printer division as Lexmark.
You have NO IDEA how true this is. I used to work in both buildings in RTP, back in the day. We actually did the first full-scale Ethernet deployment in the entire RTP IBM complex, which is frightening considering when we did it -- 2000/2001!! Before that, all we had was Choken-Ring.
Let me tell you -- the glorious feeling of leaving the old 1960s, dark, dank dungeon and moving into the Tivoli building was probably one of the highest intangible points of my career (notwithstanding all the work I had put into the new building's datacenter design amd power/networking infrastructure).
I miss that nice window office, too, but the Tivoli I worked for is long, long gone now. It's all IBM Software Group, with Lotus and Tivoli just brand names. Most of the things that made Tivoli a great place to work have vanished. It sure was a great ride, though (free Snapple? who can complain about that??).
None of the guy's suggestions are exclusive to Unix. Unix Admins are just usually smarter/lazier than Windows floor support types and will always do things the cheapest way.
I've worked with all too many of your type. "Too busy" running around like a headless chicken to do thing the right way.
You should take the guy's advice -- learn how to script and demand the network rights or infrastructure to do it.
IBM makes twice as much money from Software, yes OS licenses for it's mainframes than it does from hardware. Have you had your head in the ground for too many years, oh, I see, maybe up an Apple tree ;-)
Kids, they think they know everything.
Paul
Excel is frequently used as a front-end of calculations. The main numerical work is done in custom DLLs. I would not use in in this way, but it saves a lot of work in tabular and graphical presentation of results.
Yes - there is a fully documented Visual-Basic like language in Open/Star Office. For more sophisticated work you can write plug-ins to Open Office in C++ or Java or Python. If you use IBM's Java VMs you can get C-equivalent speed for numerical work.
IBM has plans to abandon Microsoft operating systems on it's [sic] internal desktops by the end of 2005.
It's about time they're switching to OS/2!!!
What?
IBM is trying to suck in small/medium companies (and maybe some large company IT depts/CTOs) to consider Linux. If you're a business owner with some IT support, be it a file & printer server or two, and perhaps an Exchange server, IBM is trying to lure your $$$ away from Microsoft, as well as larger corporations' departmental server business away as well.
If I were the IT person for a law firm, real estate agency, etc., this is exactly what I would do, also. Consider Ximian's Exchange Server replacement, but set up a Linux-based printer and file server or two for sure.
Except for Active Directory and Exchange Server, using NT Server for file/domain/print services really does seem to be priced much more than what it is actually used for, when compared with Linux & Samba.
Too bad Cisco didn't let the guy(s) who converted their file & print servers from NT to Linux spin off a supported venture to do this for other companies (it was in the Linux Journal).
Believe it or not, SCO Unixware is still big in the POS (Point of Sale, not Piece of Shit) market, along with IBM (It's probably one of SCO's only remaining markets). Of course, IBM just mentioned a large move from their existing POS systems to be Linux-based, not only to convert their existing customers, but to lure SCO customers as well.
Remember when they (IBM and Microsoft) together decided to build the ultimate 386 O/S ? when IBM was in deep trouble, Microsoft was already developing Windows NT. He he...now, IBM can pay back Microsoft big time, by using Linux!!! it would be quite a blow for Microsoft...not that IBM was a totally fair player back in the days, but it's nice to see monopolies broken. It's for the good of all of us.
Believe it or not, SCO Unixware is still big in the POS (Point of Sale, not Piece of Shit) market, along with IBM
Yes but so is DOS. The POS market isn't exactly cutting edge technology, although it does have the benefit of being high-volume high-margin. Most of the stuff being sold into the POS market recovered it's intial developement costs years ago. The only costs left are distribution..profit!
bush has..imposed steel and lumber tariffs..
The steel tariffs were found to be illegal, not to mention the damage it has done to international trade relations with one of the largest economic blocs on the planet. Why is violating international law something to be proud of?
Something else Bush has done; totally fail to revive the economy and create more jobs. Have you seen the value of the dollar on the international markets recently?
I am an IBM employee and also happen to read the financial statements, and I can tell you quite clearly that IBM makes most of its revenues from services -- Outsourcing, Consulting, etc..
Look at their notebook products page and you will see they recommend MS Windows. Try to buy a Thinkpad and you will see you only can choose between Windows, Windows, and Windows. No chance to buy with Linux preconfigured. No chance even to buy with no OS at all. Until this does not chance I do not, ahem, buy their Linux sermon.
This is quite bizarre as IBM has only recently for the first time signed an Enterprise Agreement with Microsoft so they can use MS Office instead of the antiquated Lotus WordPro and its pals.
We run test cases, and check that we get the same results as last time. We do this with all safety related closed source programs, when each new version comes out.
i tt lebit))),dodgy result, correctresult)
There is no way that we could read enough of OO's source to check that it was always telling the truth, we'd still have to test it. And every time we got a new version, we'd have to check all that source code all over again.
I agree, to some extent, that we shouldn't use Excel for safety related stuff, but, not for your reasons. Spreadsheets are inherently uncheckable - any random cell in a 30 Mb sheet could include the following pseudocode
=if(and((somecell>anumber),(somecell(anumber+al
The way I get around that is to write robust cells that handle all exceptions, and copy them down the whole sheet. Also, most of my work is correlation based (ie testing analytical models against real data)- so algorythmic errors would tend to show up.
Matlab would probably be a better bet.
Perhaps a more fundamental question is why do I trust Excel more than OO?
Well, if you see the discussions of OO here they usually claim it is a reasonable Excel substitute - despite its obvious lack of speed, stability and features. If the people making those claims are being honest then they can't be pushing it very hard. Therefore they aren't really qualified to comment.
I'm a bit puzzled by people's problems with various levels of Excel, I use 97 at home and a couple of different versions at work, my sheets and VB seems to work fine on all 3 installations.
There again my stuff is big rather than fancy.
Ahg! did you just refer to VB as an embedded programming language?!
That aside, I do agree. I've been writing embedded SW for the F-16 Falcon for the past couple years and when I needed to analyze data from flight test, did I use a tool on my nice 64bit Ultra 10? No, there wasn't anything besides bc available, so I citrixed myself over to a overloaded w2k server to wait 10min every time I tried to run a VB tool.
We finally got star office, but I now have the exact problem your talking about. The project is almost over and initial attempts to get my VB tools ported to the seemingly similar basic SO uses indicate that its not worth the time it would save.
I think numerical analysis is probably the most useful business area that OSS needs to concentrate on compatibility. Gnumeric is a great tool, but switching is more work than starting over.
And if you want a real embedded programming language try Jovial73.
refactor the law, its bloated, confusing and unmaintainable.
I think this is a great thing, not even thinking about the details behind why they're doing it, or how accurate the report on how big the change is. Like so many people have posted about previously, it's a great support move for the open source community, especially since IBM has such a large position and influence in the computing industry and this is how change starts, in little steps. Hopefully, as time goes on, and if things go well, other companies will be able to see the benefits of moving away from products produced by monopolies such as Microsoft, to more flexible and less expensive open-source software, and make the same move. That will still take time.
Microsoft is eating themselves alive, I appreciate the value of what they've done, and what they're doing, but it obvious that their goals have changed over the years, I'm no M$ strategic planner or anything, but it seems as if they've concentrated less on created solid, reliable software, and more on keeping up with senseless design fads and functions that have caused nothing but sloppy code, and pretty looking OS's that are full of holes.
It will still take some time for open source OS's such as Linux etc to get up to speed with easier interfaces (because as we know, the average computer user has to be babied quite a bit when it comes to interface functionality) but that will all change with time.
This is great news, and I can only look forward to positive changes as a result of these kind of business moves within the industry
When reliable, open source centrino support exists.
"First you get the Linux, then you get the power, THEN you get the women"
They slumber for the longest - but when they wake, no one should mess with them. Least of all William H. Gates. These might be the moves so many of us have waited for so long now - against Darl, against Gates, etc.
Go Big Blue!
That's not completely true - there are a few diehards that have their own Macs that use them in their daily work. I haven't personally seen a Mac at IBM, but I know some people on that use them at other sites.
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EVERYTHING IS DEAD AND DYING KEEPS ON GOING!
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LOL, I know enough about scripting I can write books on it, mostly I use Perl and vbscript in the Windows environment. For Unix/Linux its just Perl as I really don't want to spend time doing shell programming.
On your second point, I can demand until I am blue in the face, if the President of the IT group wants 4-5 people at a single site to have writes to Active Directory, then that is the way it's going to be. If he says there will be no Linux/Unix boxes on the company network ( hint, he said it ), then you can lose your job if you put one up. If he says you will not create custom scripts to solve problems and/or automate processes, its your job if you are caught doing so ( he said that, too ), now do you get the picture?
I have recommended solutions to many things that suck up too much time needless, put together prototype to show that it worked ( I risked setting up a Linux box to show the benefits of Samba/Apache/etc. ), I showed how using a non-MS browser like Mozilla would not only give a free popup-blocker, but also stop the active-x spyware programs dead in their tracks. I created a database driven web site that handled inventory ( using Perl and MySql to get rid of the dumb Excel spreadsheets everyone in the company uses. Do think ANY of these ideas were adopted? The answer is no. And nor will they. I don't know what logic drives the decisions in the company, but it isn't one that strives for efficiency. As a result, my solution are delegated for my own use only. I answer inventory queueries faster than anyone thanks to my inventory web site, I change passwords, unlock account, create and configure accounts all from the command line thanks to the Perl scripts I wrote that access MS Active Directory, and so on and so forth. I feel bad that while I can do something in 2 seconds while other admins waste time opening up a GUI application, navigating to the item they want to manager, and then click around clumsy interfaces, I realize that this is not my company, and if they choose to be stupid, that is their choice. They were given the reigns of the IT group, and both the decision and the consequences thereof are theirs to carry.
Oh, and I am working on Trolltech QT C++ apps now to make a nice GUI interface for my Perl scripts, because the few admins I can allow to use my tools are not command line savy, since I want them to use them ( scripts make sure the job gets done everytime, with no steps left out ). Eventually I may replace the Perl oart with pure C++ code to make it more uniform.
Peace.
I can't afford a sig!
Its not just those parts that IBM makes huge money on.
...Instead, we went for:
Recently, I had to source parts for an IBM Netfinity 500 series server (I think it was, anyway) -
Rough prices from IBM -
256 MB ECC RAM - NZ$2900 (US $1300ish) Cost/Wholesale + 12.5% GST
18.2 GB SCSI HDD - NZ$2400 (US $1100ish) Cost/Wholesale + 12.5% GST
Kingston OEM Memory with a better warranty - NZ $400 (US $230ish) Cost/Wholesale + 12.5% GST
18.2GB SCSI HDD (Forget what brand) - NZ $660 (US $300ish) Cost/Wholesale + 12.5% GST.
I wonder where those other hundreds of dollars are going?
Founder & COO, Hayai India (hayai.in) / USA (hayaibroadband.com)