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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."
one spot likens Linux to an omniscient child prodigy who resembles Eminem.
....and Twins.....
Maybe that's what Linux needs to cross over as a mainstream desktop OS? Celebrity endorsements!
Imagine ads featuring Colin Farrell beating up his Windows PC and putting out cigarettes on the keyboard! A Dawson's Creek ripoff where Katie Holmes's "private, amateur photography" gets lifted off her computer through because she happened to be running an unpatched IIS, part of the default Windows 2000 installation.
Or, best of all, Snoop Dogg chillin' with a bunch of penguins in his own language resource center, showing them all kinds of shizzle on his Thinkpad laptop running KDE.
Best quote from the article... "While IBM's products run on Windows, it wants its customers to see how nicely they would run on Linux as well, using the free operating system as a lure. "[It's] Like getting free bread in a restaurant," says Irving Wladawsky-Berger, vice president of technology and strategy at IBM.."
Hmmm.
All in favor of overturning evil software monopoly and rooting for evil hardware and software monopoly say "Yes!"
They don't make money off of selling linux but they do make money off of linux. Just look at thier linux offerings
"IBM has a broader agenda--undermining Bill Gates' company in the battle for a new $21 billion market for Web-linked software."
What? You say IBM has an agenda? They don't support Linux just to spread peace and love and free software? Quick, stop the presses!!!
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.
Nah. Paris Hilton going "so I was using windows, and then it was, like, bleep bleep bleep, and I'm like, what? bummer."
The fifth ad campaign by Quentin Tarantino.
Starring David Carradine as Bill Gates
Michael Madsen as Steve Ballmer
Uma Thurman as The Bride (Tove Torvalds, avenging her dead husband Linus, her reign of bloody revenge sponsored by IBM)
and Chiaki Kuriyama as Gogo NT, the prototype Microsoft Killing App. (because really, when you're dealing with this stuff, you need a killer android, preferably Japanese in a schoolgirl outfit, for the sheer surrealism factor.)
Brazil has decided you're cute.
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 ----
"Looked dead, didn't I? But I wasn't. But it wasn't from lack of trying, I can tell you that. Actually, Bill's last OS put me in a coma - A coma I was to lie in for four years. When I woke up, I went on what the movie advertisements refer to as a 'roaring rampage of revenge.' I roared. And I rampaged. And I got bloody satisfaction. I've squashed a hell of a lot of competitors to get to this point, but I have only one more. The last one. The one I'm driving to right now. The only one left. And when I arrive at my destination, I am gonna kill Bill."
(Apologies to Tarantino)
Happy people make bad consumers.
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
IBM is trying to get back in the game in a big way.
Federal: for years Sun, SGI, MS and select other companies (including IBM) have had a hold on the federal sector. IBM wants a much bigger piece of that pie as they see $$$$ there. They see their WebSphere and DB2 pillars as major ROI in this sector to the point that they are practically giving the HW away for free if you go the WAS/DB2
Commericial/Corp: MS on the desktop and probably a heterogeous backend network. Does IBM think they can surplant MS on the corporate desktop? Not if they continue to use Lotus notes, et. al. IMHO. MS has them beat there, but could there be a major rework or even junking of those tools with existing OSS projects? I don't know the answer here, but by at least getting Linux in the backend, they protect themselves against a full corporate MS monopoly.
Plus there has always been an uneasy interaction between some of the IBM products and the MS OS. I remember that patching Windows 2000 with a hotfix actually did something to the Windows kernel that prevented IHS (IBM's repackaging of apache) server from running smoothly. IBM would them have to patch IHS to get it working again. I suspect that they didn't really care for those types of tug-a-wars, intentional or not.
"Look Lois, the two symbols of the Republican Party: an elephant, and a fat white guy who is threatened by change."
--
Evan
"$30 for the One True Ring. $10 each additional ring!" -- JRR "Bob" Tolkien
IBM are pro Linux whereas DELL and HP are selling Linux just to keep certain customers happy but are ultimately MS puppies.
"HP recommends Microsoft Windows XP for business" is all too often in adverts for their hardware and they couldn't be more in each other's pockets (HP and MS). But this is business and HP and DELL will do whatever it is that makes them the most money without putting themselves in 'jeopardy'.
Whereas IBM has a history of conflict with MS and are in no way trying to keep in the MS good books. Linux is the perfect vehicle for them to sell services and at the same time disrupt the MS server (and soon desktop) monopoly.
When a company advertises Linux on TV you know they are serious about it.
Good for them.
Daniel Lyons of Frobes is up there with Laura Didio and Rob Enderle when it comes to having a clue about anything. These people are mostly pens for hire who will do or say anything to make a buck. I would highly encourage the Slashdot editors to put these people on ignore.
OS/2 actually IS pretty dead now, but it's not because it was technically inferior. Up to 1999, it still was better than anything MS could put out. Serenity Systems puts out a nice variant that blows Warp 4 and e-Business out of the water, but a little company can only do so much. The PowerPC port eliminated what little technical difficulties OS/2 Warp had. It was exceptional. Therefore, IBM simply had to kill it.
Fortunately, even IBM couldn't kill Linux singlehandedly. They could kill their own Linux business, but Linux will go on. God knows why IBM hasn't gone the way of DEC yet. I guess it's their advertising budget.
Gamingmuseum.com: Give your 3D accelerator a rest.
Easy moderators: The title is meant to be provocative, not an endorsement. Please read further.
It's good IBM is spending the resources to make Linux a more viable competitor to M$. 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.
I prefer my evil to come from a company with a long history of evil. IBM got the history. Would you trust some tiny little upstart or a company that is now in its 3rd century of spreading Fear, Uncertainty and Denial? MS is still learning Slight-anxiety, Bit-of-doubt and Feeble-counter-argument.
Also the penguin logo is so much cooler. You can make him cute and cuddly or a fearsome killer penguin.
MS got some four colored thingy and a butterfly. Tsk. Might as well use a fruit and really show what kinda customers you expect to attract.
Anyone else find it humorous that MS logo is a bug?
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?
Well, If I think that IBM is getting too big for its britches I can go talk to HP, Dell, or for that matter Red Hat or Suse. To be a dictator you have to have absolute power. With Linux no one can ever have absolute power. I will always have choices, up to and including rolling my own distro if need be. The only way now to give someone like IBM absolute power is to sign your company's life away with a comprehensive support contract, and no one is forcing you to do that.
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.