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Kill Bill, IBM vs Microsoft
theodp writes "Though IBM did not invent Linux, does not distribute it and earns nary a penny on it, the computer giant is spending billions in a crusade to make Linux the world's most popular operating system. All told, more than 12,000 IBMers today devote at least part of their time to Linux. To hear IBMers tell it, all this effort is a matter of giving more choices to customers tired of the Microsoft monopoly. But according to Forbes, IBM has a broader agenda--undermining Bill Gates' company in the battle for a new $21 billion market for Web-linked software."
If IBM sells Linux as well as they have OS/2 and VisualAge products, I don't see how Microsoft can lose. IBM has a bad track record of poor marketing strategy. Hopefully they'll finally get it right this time...
A love beyond compare...
With the announcement of IBM's new per user subscription model web applications (last week, was it?), I can see how this is a certain possibility. What better way to promote platform independence than to market an alternate operating system AND show off your new web apps in use on it? Intelligent marketing for Big Blue.
They could do it a lot faster by making the pieces that regular people ( ie not slashdot users ) still miss when they look at the linux desktop.
Microsoft still gets most of its strength from vendor lock based on windows.
Give people an alternative desktop that asks no sacarfice on their part and you kill the giant.
IBM has the resources to do this.
Steve
What exactly do their Thinkpad configurations have to do with their support of Linux? Last I checked, Linux was originally developed for x86. . .
"The problem with internet quotations is that many are not genuine" -Abraham Lincoln
Don't want to get flamed but adding onto your comment...
In my opinion, a good case in point would be when Windows was first starting to become very popular along with the Internet. Microsoft worked very hard in promoting IE and tying it to their OS. To me, it seems that a lot of their other projects suffered as they concentrated in only promoting IE.
Sounds like IBM's ROI could be higher if their marketing were smarter. Then again, does it matter to OS if HP gets more Linux business than IBM does?
Remember, IBM is prone to the same sorts of behaviors as Microsoft.
They are not doing this out of kindness, and if IBM can take advantage of the situation down the road, they will.
Just be careful what you wish for, you might just get it.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Maybe, perhaps, they dont want to spend ridiculous amounts of money engineering and supporting a product that no one wants? The x86 thinkpads run *both* Linux and Windows just fine.
-fren
"Where are we going, and why am I in this handbasket?"
If and until IBM adopts Linux across the board themselves, it appears that they're talking out of both sides of their mouth. This came up before, and a number of IBMers said that it was impossible to get off of Microsoft entirely, mostly due to Windows specific apps (such as MS Project)--that may be so, but then how do you reasonably expect the rest of the world to adopt Linux?
And it's bullshit anyways--I understand IBM to have more than a few of their own coders. With enough will, you could rewrite the apps that you need, and then release them back to the OSS community, and the world will indeed thank you for making a migration from MS possible, for themselves as well.
Frankly, it'd be like going to Apple and finding that they all use Vaios. Hint: they don't. They do use MS applications, but they do so on Macs, like Office. And those that don't work on Macs--like the POS system for their retail stores--they port so that they do. What do you think would happen to sales of Macs if the you walked in and saw an IBM POS at the checkout counter at the Apple Store?
IBM has the opportunity and the resources to make their migration from Windows to OSS fodder for whitepapers and PR for decades to come. It's illustrative that they haven't yet, and I think it's a cautionary tale for any other company considering the same move.
--
$tar -xvf
Say it ain't so! You mean IBM isn't investing in Linux because they're a furry, friendly, happy company out to spread good will to world+dog?
I thought IBM was the little guy standing up to the evil, horrible Microsoft empire, fighting bravely for freedom, justice, apple pie, and all that's good in the world. Guess I should read a little less Slashdot, whose parent company is VA Systems, which has a vested interest in the promotion of Linux.
Though IBM did not invent Linux, does not distribute it and earns nary a penny on it
Has IBM ever made money on an operating system? I thought it was generally understood that IBM's business was selling "solutions"; the whole kit - hardware, services, support, customization, consulting.
Does OS400 run on an IBM AS390 mainframe? (serious question!)
An operating system is just part of the package for IBM - they obviously like Linux for small/medium business environments; people are probably less scared of Linux than AIX/OS400/etc, since there is probably more (and cheaper) non-IBM support for Linux based solutions. I guess in that sense, Linux is the Windows of the Unix world as far as support goes - everyone and their dog knows it.
Whether it's running Linux or not, you're still going to pay through the nose for an IBM kit. I honestly can't see how spending money/resources on Linux could be directly aimed at Microsoft any more than if they spent it on AIX. Perhaps Linux just gives them more bang for buck and makes business sense?
But according to Forbes, IBM has a broader agenda...
Yes. This is because IBM is what we call a "company" which exists to make money. Obviously there's a profit motive. This isn't some dark secret.
I'll say this about the article, though, it's pretty good for a Lyons piece. Looks like he finally was able to dig his head out of his ass.
Do you have ESP?
for big iron, and anything but x86.
Wince when did IBM make money [real money] selling software?
thank God the internet isn't a human right.
IBM are pro Linux whereas DELL and HP are selling Linux just to keep certain customers happy but are ultimately MS puppies.
"HP recommends Microsoft Windows XP for business" is all too often in adverts for their hardware and they couldn't be more in each other's pockets (HP and MS). But this is business and HP and DELL will do whatever it is that makes them the most money without putting themselves in 'jeopardy'.
Whereas IBM has a history of conflict with MS and are in no way trying to keep in the MS good books. Linux is the perfect vehicle for them to sell services and at the same time disrupt the MS server (and soon desktop) monopoly.
When a company advertises Linux on TV you know they are serious about it.
Good for them.
"IBM's Linux pitch is either stupid or insincere. I think it's a little bit of both. It's not a sensible strategy for IBM in the long run," Zachmann says.
I wonder if we can see any biases in Canopus research?
Linux users are not the only ones harmed by Microsoft's monopoly. IBM is just using Linux as it's weapon against Microsoft. If in the process IBM can be Linux users' weapon against Microsoft, that seems OK to me. Corporations don't just do good things for no profit, it's just that sometimes they might have an agenda thats compatible with ours.
# cat
Damn, my RAM is full of llamas.
Ibm evil?
They gave the PC OS market away to Bill Gates. They gave the PC to anyone who wanted to clone it. How much would a PC cost today if it wasnt for IBM deciding that releasing the PC instead of drag in court for years?
I like IBM and i dont know why there are so many people whining about them. They have handled their position on the top eons better than MS have done.
HTTP/1.1 400
IBM is using the old Gillete (sic) business model. Give the razor (OS) away for free and make money on the blades (hardware, services). The other, current high-stakes gamble on this age-old business model is the iPod/iTunes store, but that turns the blade/razor model on its head; make little or nothing on the blades/songs and make more per unit on the razor/player.
:)
The article points out that this is a high-risk gamble because IBM's agressive feeding of the OSS movement may be sowing the seeds of their failure. MySQL and JBoss are two excellent examples of how OSS can undercut IBM's own or partners' products. Although only the really large firms can afford in-house experts to boot-strap them in these technologies, those are excatly the cash cows IBM would like to benefit from under this strategy. Are they looking more downmarket?
At the end of the day, succeed or fail, IBM has done a world of good for the anti-MS, pro OSS, pro-Linux movements. I consider that a Good Thing(tm). It would be nice if it worked out for IBM too but, hey as someone who works in those areas, I'll win either way.
"Being Irish, he possessed an abiding sense of tragedy which sustained him through brief episodes of joy." -W. B.
You know.. I just love what IBM is doing with Linux right now, but I wouldn't trust them to do the right thing any further than I could throw Bill Gates. I can see all of the Linux eggs going into one basket in the future, if the opensource community is not careful. Who knows, maybe it would be a good thing... Time will tell.
Guess what, non-linux users tend to use Flash and Real.
Guess who IBM want to use linux?
Web-linked software? Linked to what? Probably XAML and Avalon, thats what. IBM's got 50 customers like Munich? They would need 50,000 like that to make Redmond sweat. I know that Microsoft is hated here, but SOMEBODY is spending that money on them. (best quarter ever)
Sooner or later, some smart company is going to understand how Microsoft makes all that damn money, and stop telling themselves that they can win by just changing the rules.
The rules are:
Own the desktop
Provide the best-of-breed apps for that desktop
Own the developers who support that desktop
Own the contracts with those who supply those desktops
Leverage the desktop in every other market
Club competitors over the head with your 50+billion until they run to new markets and stop competing in yours.
Die Rich.
Large, conservative corporations like the warm, fuzzy feeling that IBM can provide them. CIO's don't get that same feeling with MySQL and JBoss.
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it."
- Evelyn Beatrice Hall
I was just about to post something regarding PowerPC, which, I think, IBM probably has in mind as a possible periferal benefit to pushing Linux forward to consumers.
To begin with, IBM has been focusing more on back-end servers and such, and not just providing the server and software, but the service. All those E-commerce commercials that you see, that the average person has no idea what's being sold? They're working. So IBM will sell you the server, they'll install the software, they'll customize it to your needs, help develop implimentation stragies for all this stuff, and provide continuous support, and if that's your business, Linux is a good tool to be using. It's free, or even if you buy a RedHat or SuSE distro, it's still relatively cheap, like TCO. Plus, all the customizing for the customer's specific needs goes a lot easier, because you can always rewrite source if you need to. Plus, IBM knows they can get along much more nicely with Novell than MS. The whole Novell/IBM allience is probably going to become a force in business in coming years (much more than now, I mean).
But besides that, if IBM can push Linux to the desktop, it opens up all sorts of business for IBM in the desktop processor manufacturing. I mean, as long as Windows is dominant, and Windows is only supporting x86, Intel and AMD are bound to dominate the processor market. But what if we find ourselves, in the next few years, in an increasingly MacOS/Linux environment? Don't think IBM isn't eyeing this market. It just won't be profitable (and therefore feasible) until there is a OS with large market-share that supports PowerPC.
Similarly, when you buy an IBM product, you are paying for linux, because they are working on linux and it's just part of IBM's overhead. Even if you buy an RS6k with AIX :)
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Sure OS/2 has now lost. Simplest reason? It became isolated, just try to find a programmer for OS/2.
But their hardware continues to be very very good. Maybe not the best maybe not the fastest but simply good. Nobody ever got fired for buying IBM is still true. Sure people do get fired for going over budget and buying IBM is a sure way of doing that but there are still enough places that can afford IBM's prices.
They also supply one thing nobody else does. A world wide total solution provider. If you have something to do with computers were ever you are IBM can help you.
And here this IBM ad ends.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
How are all the Linux boosters out there going to feel when you wind up trading one dictator for another?
People want to get rid of Microsoft, or at least greatly decrease their power, so much so (and to a large extent for good reason) that you can't see that IBM will take their place in a heartbeat if they can.
Many of you may be too young to remember the days when "no one ever got fired for buying IBM" because IBM ruled the computing world, flat out. Hell, *I* don't even remember those days personally, but I've heard the stories from people that were there, and IBM was in most ways just as bad as Microsoft. They used pressure sales tactics, made deals with companies that weren't in anyones' best interests but their own, and generally didn't play fair in many instances. They'll pull the same tactics out of their hate and monopolize the world just as surely as Microsoft has, first chance they get.
Absolute power corrupts absolutely. IBM is setting themselves up to again prove that cliche true, and so many people don't have a problem with it because Microsoft is the defeated other party.
Be careful what you ask for folks... you just might get it.
If a pion (n-) collides with a proton in the woods & noone is there to hear it, does lamdba decay into the source pa
Easy moderators: The title is meant to be provocative, not an endorsement. Please read further.
It's good IBM is spending the resources to make Linux a more viable competitor to M$. Go IBM Go!
That said, what is it that keeps "Windows" synonymous with "computer" in the minds of the important people (CIOs, managers, grandmas)? Marketing. Remember, it's not Outlook, it's *Microsoft* Outlook. It's not Exchange2003, it's *Microsoft* Exchange2003. Microsoft made an important decision to have their products be inseperable from the Microsoft brand. It's all Microsoft, regardless of what you're using. Got a PC? Unless you built it yourself, you probably have (or had) a "Designed for Windows" sticker on there somewhere. And notice that on those dark cases that Dell, IBM, etc. are using now, what do you see? A big dark box with a colorful sticker. It's like the seal of quality, an assurance that you're getting something easy and familar (actual experience may differ from promise).
What we need, and what IBM's endorsement has not yet brought, is that same "promise of quality" that can be readily understood by anyone and *trusted* by everyone. Face it, with Windows, you know what you're getting, for good or ill. Linux just doesn't have that yet. Maybe it's the fragmentation of distros (Suse likes KDE, Redhat likes Gnome, etc.) As we can see over and over again, people don't buy the superior product, they buy the product they have been convinced into buying.
As an analogy, I offer this from my own life: I was in the store buying groceries. I needed peanut butter for sandwiches. I've been a lifelong JIF user, but JIF is kind of expensive. So I'm checking out the generics and store brands. All a bit cheaper, but not too much, and frankly, I don't know anything about them. They could taste better than JIF, but I don't want to be stuck with an open jar of crap peanut butter if it doesn't. The price isn't much different, so I suck it up and buy the JIF; I just don't want to run the risk of being disappointed. In my mind, JIF is the gold standard and until I am convinced otherwise *by external forces* I am probably not going to change. It's not that I don't want to, it's just that I am afraid of being disappointed and out some $ for a failed experiment.
Thus, I believe we need something, someone, to create that buzz that will usurp the idea that Windows is the good, safe choice. If I can get my grandma to ask for a pc and know that she wants Linux, and not Windows, then I think we will truly have succeeded.
It was through their shortsightedness (at the time) and luck that gave the OS market to Gates. IBM was originally interested in CP/M for their Disk Operating System to run their new computer, but the owner/developer of CP/M didn't take them seriously enough. Gates did, and got the OS market, eventually. As for the other parts, other companies reverse-engineered the IBM BIOS chips in a white-room way (perfectly legal, if not morally so), and knock-off computers that were IBM COMPATIBLE became available on the market. The point being, it wasn't a CHOICE they made, but lack of vision. (For an example of the opposite happening, Apple sued a number of companies that were making compatible LOOKING computers to their iPaq computers a while back, and were successful in preventing these computers from being sold because they had basically trademarked the look of the machine).
People forget, IBM also has to battle SUN and HP in more lucrative spaces. Having a consistent scalable *nix interface gives them a huge advantage over SUN/HP.
That is one of the main things that is such a misconception with Linux. IBM uses REDHAT LINUX and SUSE. NEITHER of those are "FREE" as in Beer. RedHat Enterprise stuff can cost THOUSANDS of dollars. MORE than any Microsoft OPERATING SYSTEM has EVER cost. You'd think RedHat Enterprise editions came with a free Oracle license or something.
Bzzzt! Sorry, thanks for playing. All of RedHat's software is released under the GPL. What you are bitching about is the support contract.
--fatboy
My current employer used to make loads off of AS/400 and System/36 work, but lately everyone has come to the realization that cheaper hardware and OS'es can do things better, faster and just as reliably. Four years ago the mantra was that "you know an AS/400 will never go down!" But after the latest rounds of PTFs, services packs and OS upgrades have wrecked havoc on working installations people have taken a second glance at that opinion.
The AS/400 is a great piece of hardware, no doubt. Their RAID controllers, massive RISCs and reliable hardware are fantastic for stable servers with 24/7 uptime. But OS/400 just can't take advantage of it. If you want to have hardware abstraction to the point that Sys/36 code from 1960 can still run you just aren't going to milk all the performance points you can out of the hardware.
One of the first things IBM did was get Linux running on an AS/400 (now eSeries). And I'm sure it wasn't a hobby project. They've got the hardcore hardware, now they need to get the industry behind a new common OS so they can sweep their OS/400 legacy under the rug. And good riddance, too.
This may seem a surprising thing to do, but in fact it makes good sense to commoditize the products that complement your own. For IBM, a hardware vendor, that's the OS. For Microsoft, an OS vendor, that's hardware.
For the last twenty years, Microsoft has been extraordinarily successful in commoditizing PC hardware. This has not been good news for IBM (though most of IBM's problems over that time have more to do with a misperception of where the market was going). Now IBM is turning the tables on Microsoft by commoditizing Linux, which if successful, will drive down the price of Windows and make it more affordable to buy computer hardware.
WWJD for a Klondike Bar?
IBM had already outlined the arcitechture long before Bill Gates bought QDOS from Seattle Technologies. Bill Gates delivered a system so riddled with bugs that IBM had to kill more than 300 before they thougt it was usable.
The reason IBM decided not to press charges against the clones was the fact that they wore under close scrutiny by the DOJ. Pretty much the same situation where MS decided to thumb their nose at them and integrate even more things into MS Windows.
If anything IBM have been much less sneaky and havent sold silverpainted crapola. IBM seldom buys and buries companies either.
There is a world of difference between IBM and Microsoft.
HTTP/1.1 400
Hey moron, wanting to make a profit != evil
Device drivers for what? Most UPC and credit card scanners still spit out to a serial port. What kind of peripherals are you referring to? I can't think of many reasons why there would be too many problems with POS peripherals, considering that many of them still even use DOS.
The younger crowd doesn't realize what a predator IBM was in the late 80's. Anti-Unix zealots... because *everything* can run on one of their mainframes or their POS mini computers.
Good riddance to both of 'em.
IBM trys to overthrow MS with a technically superior OS
I wonder what lessons both sides learned from the previous round, OS/2 vs Windows?
A pizza of radius z and thickness a has a volume of pi z z a
From what I've seen before, IBM has trouble making money off software. Microsoft lives by making money off software. IBM's core business is hardware and consulting services, so perhaps that's where the Linux mantra kicks in.
Unfortunately Sir Bill demonstrates on a daily basis that he is incapable of learning anything, it will take at least a jail sentence before he mends his ways.
It is unfortunate that US law appears not to have the necessary power, if the Monopoly trial had been in the UK, Bill would never have become a Sir, because he, and several others, would have gone to jail for perjury and contempt of court, and maybe some conspiracy charges also.
It's really simple. IBM, having nowhere else to turn, decided to embrace Linux to spite Microsoft.
Nowhere else to turn? IBM had its own robust well respected and trusted version of Unix called AIX. IBM did not need Linux, IBM merely found Linux convenient. Just like the majority of Linux users, they are not motivated by a hatred of Microsoft, they just want a low-cost Unix box and find Linux convenient.
Sigh, Straw Man argument yet again. There is no mass of people called "Slashdotters" who have a monolithic point of view, no matter how much you scream about it.
Uh, there is most certainly a majority viewpoint around here, based not only on editors' opinions but the majority of +5 upmods for pro-IBM/pro-Linux comments.
You seem to be stating nobody can draw any conclusions about a majority because a few people might disagree. Too bad.
Are you seriously arguing that Slashdot and most of its readers don't support IBM?
How much has IBM made if a significant amount of those have websphere and/or DB2 + other software ibm sells???? HP doesn't have the software offering IBM does. So yes HP may sell more boxes than IBM in sheer numbers, however I bet IBM makes more per box once you add in all of the above mentioned 'extras'. We have a whole cluster of cheap (relativly speaking) IBM servers, however they all have Websphere. A few have DB2, most have some other IBM software on them. Point is a basic linux box from IBM costs us ~$5000 (Dual CPU). NOW put Websphere + appropriate licenses + DB2 + licenses (per CPU). Now that box costs us about $25000......
Thats whats IBM is about, not just selling a bunch of cheap x86 Linux boxes! Walmart can outdo everyone at that.
BTW Need some IBM consulting to go with that!!!!!
So Long and Thanks for all the Fish.
As someone else has pointed out, IBM has figured out that software commoditization is well underway and that soon there won't be any money to be made from COTS--a fact that Microsoft seems either to be oblivious to or afraid to acknowledge. So of course IBM embracing F/OSS is mostly a pragmatic move on their part. I don't see anyone here posting that they think IBM is doing it out of the goodness of their heart.
Most people that I've seen are glad that IBM is supporting F/OSS, but that doesn't mean that they implicitly trust them. Get real.
At the end of the day, you just have to face the fact that foo bar baz.
It's called comprehension. Something you seem to greviously lack.
Again moderators: How you can moderate a Straw Man argument as +Insightful is beyond me.
Remember how Microsoft sunk OS/2?
Remember how Microsoft destroyed the browser market by giving away Internet Explorer?
Someone at IBM does, and they know that by making the OS a commodity item, they can reap greater profits on hardware and consulting.
HP and Dell are about to get hit by a bus, and they don't even see it coming:
I, for one, welcome IBM's move. I'm sick of buying computer systems that Just Break(tm). I shouldn't have to constantly patch my machine; my hardware should work the way it is supposed to; my software shouldn't welcome viruses with open arms. IBM knows this, and that's why I'll be buying IBM hardware in the future.
The society for a thought-free internet welcomes you.
How many years have we talked about a Linux desktop coming that would be better than Windows? Write anywhere, debug everywhere? I use Firefox because it is the BEST browser. But Mozilla needs to market the fuck out of it or non-geeks will never know.
Marketing wins, period.
All I am saying, is that for every great technology, they need to have equally or even more great marketing, or they will fail. This is a fact that companies continue to ignore.
You can still download all of them for free and not pay the support contracts. Try that with commercial software.
Wow, talk about your arbitrary ignorance.
The most obvious difference is -- ANYONE can sell you a support contract for ANY linux distro without the artificial barrier of no source code. The same is absolutely not the case for MS-winders.
The parent is a troll right? I have to respond anyway...
DB2/400 performance absolutely sucks
Yeah I started believing the propaganda too but then I did some testing of my own. Simple SQL select statements took twice as long using MYSQL as DB2/400. Throw in some scalar functions with a "group by" and MYSQL just rolled over and died. DB2/400 didn't even slow down.
WebSphere performance and management blows
I don't have experience with WebSphere but I do use Apache and Tomcat. The intranet I maintain runs both. Management is just what you would expect for any Apache/Tomcat install. The performance of Tomcat and java servlets hasn't been an issue either.
after the latest rounds of PTFs, services packs and OS upgrades have wrecked havoc on working installations
Are you sure this isn't a personal problem. I've been through three model upgrades, twice as many OS upgrades and countless PTF installs. All came off without a hitch. Total unplanned downtime in 6 years: 45 minutes.
Their RAID controllers, massive RISCs and reliable hardware are fantastic for stable servers with 24/7 uptime. But OS/400 just can't take advantage of it.
I'm not sure what a massive RISC is but that doesn't matter. The reliability of iSeries/AS400s is directly due to OS/400 so I'm not sure how OS/400 isn't taking advantage of all that great hardware. The error handling capabilities of OS/400 are a true work of art. Virtually all cards and devices can be hot swapped. Adding drives and new features (PCI cards) can be done without a reboot. Newer models include standby processors for capacity on demand and fail over capability. And OS/400 can run multiple partitions. Those partitions can be OS/400 or Linux. I just don't understand what you mean by OS/400 just can't take advantage of it
The iSeries really does Rock! To know it is to love it.
Having run OS/2 for years, I can atest to this little factiod, running Command & Conquer in a window on OS/2 with sound, while working on email and having a telnet session up monitoring a process at work. Can you yet do this in Windows? (I haven't tried, the BSOD frightens me too much to leave anything running during a game!)
And, IIRC, the thing that killed OS/2 wasn't anything less insidious than MS's anti-competitive practices, something about Office 97 not being backwards compatible by design (recall that little forced update fiasco?) and Office 97 apps asking for a memory address at the 2GB limit. (OS/2's VMs were limited to 512MB, so Office apps bombed when they didn't get what they asked for, not that they used anything above 512MB. I suppose someone enterprising should have hacked the memory request code, but that didn't happen.)
The cesspool just got a check and balance.
That is just what I was thinking. Make all operating systems free today and it hurts MS more than it does IBM.
That's uncanny. It's almost as if you had read the linked article, which made a similar point. Great minds think alike, I guess. :)
Of course, IBM's market share of personal desktop computers could be better and I have never understood why that have so much trouble competing in that arena.
IBM made the mistake of trying to control (and tax) the PC market by moving from their original open architecture to a proprietary MicroChannel bus with its PS/2 line of PCs in the mid-80s. Ironically, IBM PCs came to be viewed as *non-IBM compatible*. They got greedy, and the clone makers, who provided a better, cheaper alternative, ate IBM's lunch. Starting to sound like a familiar story?
IBM has always looked at the long view - the short term stuff never really mattered to IBM.
... In order to be competitive in the consumer PC sales circus, IBM PC-Co signed a deal with MSFT to license the OEM Windows 95... Without that deal, IBM would have to bundle the full retail edition of Windows 95 and it would make their PCs uncompetitive. Unfortunately, the contract had a clause which was the knife which killed OS/2 - IBM could not sell/bundle OS/2 nor could they develop it.
... all the driver support (the old PITA for OS/2 users) is actively worked on by the community (face it, if peripherial vendors wouldn't write an OS/2 driver, they wouldn't work on a Linux driver either)
OS/2's Death was a simple case of smothering the baby because their hands were tied
IBM is basically focusing on what the industry would look like in 10 years time. In the long term, the software is essentially free, consumer hardware is sold at cost (it practically is nowadays) and all the money to be made is in consulting and customizing the software.
The major benefit of something like Linux is a single architecture which works on a wide range of hardware... from simple embedded low-power systems to high performance clusters. It makes it attractive as the skills are the same on all of them - simply the hardware may be tuned easily for the application.
When IBM looks at Linux, they see it as a platform which they can launch themselves from. This was how they treated OS/2 - as a vehicle to sell their consultancy. The retail sales of OS/2 never justified it's development costs. However, the retail "public" presence of OS/2 was important: It's very difficult to sell services on top of a system which the customer has not heard of before.
In many ways, for IBM, Linux is better than OS/2... They do not need to spend so much effort to market it. It already has a penetration into the minds of the public and generally the public perception is "It's free; it's fast; it's secure... sometimes difficult to understand" but the last bit is not a bad hurdle - it just means that the customer already expects to hire someone to put it all together.
I am pretty sure that IBM makes a lot of its profits in consultancy and custom programming. Ok, their mainframe deals can be pretty sweet for the revenue - but such big iron costs big bucks in the first place. The software front, IBM knows that it can be painful to move faster than the smaller guys (think of IBM as some kind of dancing elephant)... They are using the nimbleness of the FOSS movement to develop the foundation
Hmm... Like any long posts, I kinda forgot what my original point was...
-- The universe began. Life started on a billion worlds...
-- Except on one where stupidity was there first.
FFS, the only reason IBM is even remotely interested in Linux is to sell services first and hardware second. IBM earns billions every year by telling customers "we're from IBM and we can make this work for you". Once IBM Global Services are in they are there for life. Who else could possibly get that Netsphere hairball to work properly ? And BTW, for all the lovey dovey crap I hear about them contributing Eclipse to the open source gene pool why is it that nobody realises that it's an anti-Sun ploy pre and simple ? Look at the name for god's sake: Eclipse... Sun... geddit ?
IBM certainly has had a history of taking market-capturing monopolistic moves not terribly different than some of the stuff Microsoft has been pulling. The difference though, between IBM and Microsoft is that for the most part, IBM's products don't suck.
Think for a moment-- if Microsoft's products were anywhere near as well designed as, say Apple's, do you really think they'd be getting the kind of flak they're getting now over their monopolistic practices? Linux would have a much harder time of it if most Windows users actually liked Windows.
And that's not to say that IBM can't produce junk, I'm sure there's plenty of examples people could point to. Generally though, IBM is capable of recognizing, admitting and/or correcting the problem when it occurs. But Microsoft's FLAGSHIP product is junk, it's been junk for its entire lifespan, and it would appear that not only is Microsoft incapable of competing on quality, they are completely aware of that fact and therefore resort to the most underhanded means of lock-in and other consumer-unfriendly market protections (either that, or they simply prefer to do things in an underhanded way-- a distinct possiblity).
Because of that, I'm inclined to give IBM far more slack with regards to it's "selfish" efforts to steal market share away from Microsoft...
...then why don't they offer Linux on the laptops they sell? Even a dual boot laptop would be a sign of their sincerity.
Compare with Joel's discussion ( www.joelonsoftware.com ) - somewhere he has a thesis on wanting your companion products to be commodity.
e.g. if you sell apps, you want the required o/s to be as available and cheap as possible. If you sell o/s's, you want the hardware or apps to be as cheap as possible. If you sell cars, you want petrol to be available and affordable everywhere.
-- All your bass are below two Hz
All the Slashdotters think IBM is doing it out of the goodness of their hearts
I don't think anyone here truly believes IBM is doing it out of the goodness of their hearts. It just so happens that IBM's interests are for the moment aligned with ours[*] so we are happy to support them in our common goals. Just like during WW2 USA and USSR shared common goals in opposing Germany and Japan.
Hopefully there are enough checks and balances (eg GPL) to prevent IBM from harming the OSS movement if OSS is no longer in IBM's interest.
[*] Open Source advocates.
You make the mistake of thinking you can educate the fundamental stupidity out of people. You can't.
I don't get the parent posters rant either. As a person who admires well designed products, the AS400 ranks high in my book.
:)
:)
Everything on the system is an object. Devices, files, users, etc. The design goals of the AS400 were met, the glue between Mainframes, Midrange and PCs. To have it run Linux in a VM speaks volumes on the extensibility of the system.
IBM's loyalty to the system is also admirable. I once placed an 'Intel Inside' sticker on the front of ours (leased) and the technician dragged my boss into the computer room and explained to him that I had basically defiled a work of art and IBM wouldn't put up with it
The only flaw in the design is my hatred towards RPG, but thats a different topic
Enjoy,
It's just the normal noises in here.
IBM rakes in well over $10 billion in software revenue a year, if you look at the public statistics.
I work for IBM software group. I'm not allowed to tell you the internal profit figures, but I will say that every single IBM software group brand made a profit last year.
IBM is in the software business precisely because it is higher margin than hardware; comparable to services. Software group has been a great success--IBM now sells the #1 messaging platform, the #1 database system, the #1 J2EE application server middleware, and so on.
So, take that knowledge and the revenue statistics, guess the likely profit margin, and draw your own conclusions as to whether IBM "has trouble making money off software".