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IBM Puts $100M Behind Linux Push
IainMH writes "Over at the BBC, there is a report that despite the slow build up, IBM is spending $100m (£52m) over the next three years beefing up its commitment to Linux software. It continues: 'The cash injection will be used to help its customers use Linux on every type of device from handheld computers and phones right up to powerful servers.'" Commentary and coverage also available on TechNewsWorld and ZDNet.
And develop an easy-install linux that works on virtually every big-vendor box with a good GUI. Something like OSX but free and for that weird instruction set everyone else uses. *flamebait, kill my karma*
My little site.
I know it fits inbetween handhelds and servers somewhere, but it seems there's more Linux growth on those two ends (handhelds and servers) than in the middle, on desktops of Joe user.
IBM spends dough.
Pushing Linux for all apps.
Why do they hate Bill?
Right now Ubuntu looks OK for the Gnomers and XandrOS is just fine for the KDErs [IMHO]. The most important thing here is to have a desktop that works out-of-the-box.
Did IBM put this much into OS/2? Man I loved that os...
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ping -f 255.255.255.255 # if only
The thing to remember about IBM is that the are the do-everything company. Where Sun, or Microsoft, or Apple etc. try and sell you one vision of the future, IBM invest in everything, and let you decide what you want.
Want to run Linux sir? No problem! Or Windows? No problem too. Proprietary UNIX? We've got it. Have we got some bizarre other operating systems? Have we ever!
We'll sell you an Intel server, a RISC based unix server, an AMD server, any bizarre server you like. Stuck in the 80s and can't decide whether you want fat clients or thin clients and a mainframe? No problem, we've got mainframes, we've got PCs (until recently, of course).
My point is that IBM may be investing $100m in Linux, but chances are, they are also investing $100m in everything else too. That's the IBM way- because they never stick all of their chips on one technology, they never win big (like Wintel has done), but they never lose their shirts either (like Sun looks like doing, and HP looks like doing with Itanic)
From what I've read it seems that IBM is going to commit to making sure that there is a LINUX (Mac too?) client for IBM workspace.
I watched the demo and it looks interesting enough. The question is, do you trust IBM not to lock you into their "all encompassing" back-office infrastructure with no-interoperability? Or Do you just want to swallow the pill and drink MS's cool aid?
What I would like to see is some sort of reasonably easy to program middleware that is cross-platform (XUL for example) to take the place of platform specific proprietary clients. This way the user's PC is not weighed down.
I suppose some people might point out that you can already kind of do this with X terminals, but it seems that using the browser as the way to do everything, either through XUL or HTML/J2EE..ect is the direction people WANT to move in.
Let me just say that I run Linux on IBM hardware and for the most part it's ok. The hardware is managed to within an inch of it's life and there are a number of propriatary componients to this hardware that just down not play well with "FLOSS" deployments. Ie keeping up to date often means loosing propriatary functionality or control for a while.
I see they are finally making progress on integrating more of the hardware into the software ( IE partitioning is kindof working ). But for the most part I spend 3x the time managing the IBM hardware then real commodity hardware like dell's. With commodity hardware I can find better documentation, better written toolchains ( free toolclains that can be altered ). With IBM's I have to reverse engeneer how the software works just to figure out why it stoped working.
Overall it's just an odd fit. IBM is trying to commodidize the OS so they don't have to worry about it, but the problem with that is it leads to the result that commodity hardware is better supported, not what IBM is selling! So the more they push Linux the more we are moving away from IBM hardware and moving to true commodity hardware like Dell's ( at less than half the price per CPU ). IBM hardware may be reliable, but st some point it's just not worth 2x or more of the price.
Give them the razor, sell them the blades comes to mind (and is a good source for a pun). If IBM kicks its fabs into full production, starts putting their power chips into millions of devices, and really nails the world on the whole 'digital convergence' crap, Microsoft's $2000 Tivo will be nothing.
/random speculation
How far could you push a generic box? Linux is a router, is a tivo, is a phone system, is a PC, is a whatever you dream up. Sell a platform for it, do what Dodge did with the K-car, and sit back and count the cash.
Maybe that's why they teamed up with Sony for the PS3?
You might have noticed the term "Workplace" occurring more than a few times on that Lotus page you linked to.
From TFA:
Granted, that quote is written in IBM-market-speak. But, from what I've been able to find out, Workplace is essentially IBM's new model for groupware. Not surprisingly, it's based on Websphere and DB/2 on the server, with either a browser-based client, or a rich client based on Eclipse. Both the browser and rich clients run on Linux.
I don't think even IBMers will describe Notes/Domino as premier anything for much longer.
... in five years you will ask the man-in-the-street what Linux is and they will reply, "That's that IBM stuff, right?
;-) of their big IBM mainframes and move most of their stuff onto a flock of linux (RedHat) servers scattered around the Net. One problem the sales guys had to deal with was convincing their upper management to sign off on what they hadn't ever heard of and which they considered fly-by-night stuff.
;-).
Heh. We're getting there fast. I recently came off a several-year project to wean a big corporation (who shall remain nameless here to protect the clueless
The approach that worked was to show them some of IBM's web sites, and say "See? Linux is an IBM product."
Now, most readers here will probably think this is a joke. While I agree it's tremendously funny; fact is that it worked. They didn't see through the rather ambiguous wording at all. To their fuzzy minds, linux is indeed an IBM product, since IBM sells it.
Actually, the techies at the big corp also thought this was really funny. Most of them have either linux or OSX (or both) on their personal machines. And when I set up demos of our stuff via web sites, they knew exactly what to do with them. In fact, they mostly lost interest in the GUI stuff we were developing, and only wanted to talk about the Web interface, which became a significant part of my job.
But there is a widespread attitude among management that "computer" and "IBM machine" are synonyms. If it doesn't come from IBM, it's not a computer. And Microsoft is a division of IBM, of course.
We've had this attitude in the business community for over 40 years now, and we're probably not going to change it. The best approach probably is to get the message out that "Linux is an IBM product". This is all that most managers will want to see, and they don't want to hear any discussion of the details. Details are for underlings.
We'll know we've won when we start hearing the media talk about linux as an "IBM product". Most of the media consists of people who also think that IBM is the only real computer company, Microsoft makes IBM software, and all those other companies are insignificant.
We can probably also add to the confusion by pointing out that IBM has always supported free software. They sell computers; those computers come with all that software at no extra charge; this has been true since the 1950's. That'll be convincing. Details like "free as in beer" and "free as in speech" is way over their pretty talking heads (though some of them will understand "free as in disk space"
Outside the geek community, fuzzy thinking and fuzzy speech is the norm.
Those who do study history are doomed to stand helplessly by while everyone else repeats it.