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IBM Launching an Open Desktop Solution
DJ_Maiko writes "IBM just announced their intent to release an open desktop solution which they're calling "Open Client Offering." The new offering will make it possible for big businesses to present their employees with a choice of running Linux, Macintosh or Windows software on desktop PCs, using the same underlying software code, which will cut the cost of managing Linux or Apple relative to Windows. If this project succeeds, it will make it unnecessary for companies to pay Microsoft for licenses for items that don't rely on Windows-based software. IBM plans to also roll this out in-house to 5% of their 320,000 employees worldwide. This sure seems like a promising endeavor. "
Wait. IBM did it. so it's good. TFM also mentions Novell. IT'S A TRAP. It simplifies license compliance. It allows commercial software. wait, what?
Slashdot suffers a mental kernel panic
I just don't see how MS have been allowed to impose their "tax" on us for so long! However, I'm remain suspicious if this is Robbin Hood or not.
Since Apple's marketshare continues to flounder down around three percent and the company appears to be more and more focused on the iPod side of the company, Apple should look for a company like IBM to sell off the useful parts of OS X for something like this.
Apple gets a big wad of cash and goes off to completely focus on digital media. IBM uses OS X/Aqua as the basis for their common application toolkit, Quicktime gets a full parity port to Linux.
OS X is going nowhere fast, and Linux application toolkits are a fucking embarrassment.
Do it Apple and IBM, make everyone happy.
Isn't this old news? I thought that the Lotes Notes client was available for Linux for ages?
Anyway, Novell has had its groupwise client available in Java for some time now. Running on linux was flawless, and not at all limited to Novell's SuSe (I've got it running here on Debian). And if you don't like Java, there's an excellent web-based client.
8 of 13 people found this answer helpful. Did you?
Lotus Notes, Sametime, Domino... ? It seems like 'Open' has officially been overloaded to the point of being meaningless.
"IBM plans to also roll this out in-house to 5% of their 320,000 employees worldwide. This sure seems like a promising endeavor. "
So out of their 320,000 employees they will have about 16,000 employees using this new open desktop solution. It would seem like a hard solution to sell to other's if the company selling it will barley be using it.
If IBM really wanted to make this a proven solution as an alternative to "big business" they should show that a company as large as them could roll out sure a large change to software to a wide variety of employee types.
TruePunk | Games
I switched to Apple so that I could run Mac, Windows, and Linux software on the same computer. It's really the killer feature of the Mac platform, so I'd expect that any computer company with sense would be trying to get on board.
Seems to me, IBM has been down this so-called "cross platform" before, being able to run REXX on an OS/2 machine for example (and SNA)
With what they did to^H^Hwith OS/2, I still hold them in a bit of suspicion, lets hope this doesn't take the same turn. (at least the OS itself from multiple vendors, that sounds promising)
"Open" has been overloaded to the point of meaningless for years, if not decades.
The Open Group, anyone?
retrorocket.o not found, launch anyway?
but, I don't think they would survive the loss of the dominance of MS Office. They can port Office to Apple, Linux, heck, Solaris if they wanted to....but if ODF takes off, and they now have to compete with Sun and IBM....seem to me that's a much bigger threat.
my 2 cents anyway
A goal is a dream with a deadline
You mean the living hell that is the Lotus Notes user interface is going to take over my entire desktop? *Head asplodes*
Didn't IBM itself try this a couple of years ago?
What about that long list of people and organizations that had this exact same goal?
I didn't see any mention of it in the article, and I don't feel like digging 'round the net to check, but who's guessing this is basically a vm or wraps a vm around the app?
This will never fly. At first after reading the summary, I thought they had figured out a way to launch native apps regardless of OS. Turns out that it's just a way to write OS agnostic apps (or similar) and deliver it to a pc in a seamless fashion. This means that you still have the massive task of convincing people to give up Office. This is interesting, but it's hard to imagine this ever really getting traction in it's current form. Perhaps they could come up with a uber OS, that can effectively VM the apps then that would be more interesting.
IBM has been trying to convince people for years to use 'alternatives' to Windows but they always do a really bad job of saying why anyone should use the alternative and then the alternatives die a horrible drawn-out painful death in the arms of the early adopters. The only real alternatives to Windows are Linux and Apple and both of those will make much better cases to prospective adopters without any 'help' from IBM. IBM does not really want anyone to use Apple because they don't play in that space and IBM has never gone anywhere with Linux even though at one time they said they were going to switch a substantial portion of their worldwide desktops over to it, which they never did.
"They can port Office to Apple, Linux, heck, Solaris if they wanted to...."
Yeah, that would be great if they would just port Office to Apple. I'd probably get a Mac if they did that. Oh and if Macs could read my PC floppy discs, and use my two button mouse, and my LCD monitor. I wish Macs could do all that; dare to dream.
They're planning on calling it "Java"
...completely unworkable. There are definite "must haves" in terms of software that a solution like this will never be able to account for. You have web applications that rely on IE in order to work. This solution will NEVER solve that problem. You have local executable applications that people need to get their work done on a day-to-day basis. If these applications rely on a specific platform, (Windows, Mac or Linux) you will not be able to solve that. Those are two really big issues that IBM will never solve with this solution.
:) The time invested and the knowledge gained far outweighs the convenience of sticking with a "standard platform". But that's only for me. For others who have needs that can't be met by alternative platforms or don't wish to invest time and energy into adapting, my route doesn't work. IBM's solution likely doesn't apply here either.
Personally, I've been able to avoid running Windows at home and at work, but I've also made an investment in time and effort to get things running on Linux the way I like. Some of it was just by moving to the FOSS alternative. Some of it was accomplished with Wine (for some Windows apps). And some of it can only be pulled off in a virtual machine. However, there are still some things even someone like me can't do unless I would actually run Windows. Fortunately I don't have those needs.
Like I said, nice idea, but...
-"...bad old ideas look confusingly fresh when they are packaged as technology" - Jaron Lanier (Digital Maoism on Edge.o
IBM is the real winner in the console wars by supplying chips to all the participants. This seems to be what they are best at. Their software? Not so good, at least not by their track record. I can't see this getting anyone in the industry excited.
They should take a clue from Apple and look for new markets. I fully expect to see Apple branded TV's within five years as they make the move from the desktop to the living room. Yes, their PC's will still exist, but they will make barrels of moneythe other way.
IBM still, somehow, has delusions of relevance in the software world.
Does it only support windows, linux, and os x, or is there the option of running code from other operating systems? Specifically, I'd like to see solaris support, because your machine running code meant for all those different OSs is really only useful if I can telnet into it.
Badass Resumes
"It seems like 'Open' has officially been overloaded to the point of being meaningless."
So's "evil", and I don't see people complaining about that.
"This sure seems like a promising endeavor." Uh, no. This sounds like a totally over-engineered clusterf***.
Want Linux? Run Linux.
Are you...Are you some kind of genius?
No, ma'am, I'm just a regular Slashdot reader.
I agree with you wholeheartedly. I mean, look at all of the indications that we see from the company today. It is obvious that Microsoft realizes that Windows isn't always going to be a big cash cow. They have expanded their business so much over the past few years to add the Xbox, ramping up the search engine, expanding tools included in Office as well as adding new applications to their arsenal. I mean, how often do you see a Windows commercial anymore? You don't ... you see commercials about their other products.
The problem for Microsoft is that people usually upgrade to the new version of Windows when they buy a new computer. There are still people running 98 (and possibly even 95)! Much to my dismay (I'm a Linux guy), Vista will gain dominance in the marketplace eventually. However, people do not upgrade their computers as often anymore just because hardware is not improving at such a fast pace as before. I guess we'll just have to wait to see what the future holds.
There's little doubt that there's significant interest in getting out from under Microsoft's thumb. Most people seem to know it, too. Why do people insist on running Windows even though they know Microsoft is hurting them? It is the classic profile of an abusive relationship. The abused party has trouble ending the relationship, even though he/she knows it's the right thing to do.
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Yeah, it's a real mystery. If the Linux community had any sense, they'd unite behind GNUStep... or at least kill Gnome and keep Linux Mono-free.
GCHQ Quantum Insert installed. If only our tongues were made of glass, how much more careful we would be when we speak
Why would anyone be happy about "Yet Another Microsoft Wannabe On the Desktop"? (YAMWOD for short)
What does it bring to the table?
This is symptomatic of why Linux and Apple are stuck chasing Microsoft's tail lights and wishing they were Microsoft. Nobody ever looks at what they are trying to achieve, they just like spinning their wheels and claiming it's "all about choice".
If Linux actually cared about being relevant, they would have figured out how to get hardware to autodetect and autoconfigure. You know, like Microsoft has been doing since around 1995. Or maybe they could figure out how to get software to install across distros without requiring moving around files and manually editing config files. But rather than do all that hard and boring work... the Linux community focused like a laser beam on making a few more text editors.
Is it any wonder Linux and Apple can't release anything but YAMWODs? But I'll give Apple props for trying: moving OS X onto a phone was a truly genius move, but sadly I can see where this is going. Rather than licensing this phone OS out and making it THE phone OS the entire industry will use (and license, of course)... Apple is going to keep it to themselves, and try to leverage their monopoly of all things Apple into another area... just like all good monopolists do. Apple envisions everyone in the world walking around with Apple Phones with MP3 players which will only connect to iTunes... and if Apple had their way, both would only work on Apple computers running OS X (they are testing the waters by not supporting Vista).
So rather than making the entire industry better and making themselves a lot of money, Apple will (as they have always historically done) rather have all of nothing rather than some of everything. So the iPhone OS is sadly doomed to failure (or, rather, marginalization), just because of the company behind it.
If ODF takes off, Microsoft would simply adopt it as the primary format for their documents. An office suite of software is far more than a document standard, it's an interface and functionality both of which appear absent from Open Office and other Microsoft competitors. If Microsoft simply adopted the format now they'd extinguish any advantage ODF gives their competitors.
Here's a short list of some of the open standards supported by Notes and Domino:
SMTP. IMAP. HTTP. HTTPS. Java. HTML. XML. SOAP. NNTP. CORBA. X.509. LDAP. SAX. DOM. ODBC. SQL.
That's why Notes and Domino can be considered open. The new Notes even more so, as it's build on Java and Eclipse.
GCHQ Quantum Insert installed. If only our tongues were made of glass, how much more careful we would be when we speak
...this is about IBM offering a business the ability to run the OS of their choice, and have unified collaborative working across all platforms. i'm presuming what this actually means is a) running notes/domino on windows, linux etc, and b) charging you out the wazoo for the consultancy they require to make it all work.
If you were to examine the size of service contracts (including software!) then they'd typically be Very Large Indeed. The fact you don't see IBM-branded applications on the shelf at PC World is not indicative of IBM "having delusions of relevance in the software world".
There's zero content in the article describing how this is going to work (or not work, more likely)
I'd pray that it doesn't use the same pile of dog crap that Lotus notes used, or anything else Java based. Every other product that IBM came up with in this realm was unusable - horrible UI, massive overheads, and disgustingly slow.
Likely this will be the same all over again - their application software engineering group is stunted in the brain.
http://www-142.ibm.com/software/sw-lotus/products/ product4.nsf/wdocs/linux
I'm schizophrenic; no I'm not.
Most IBMers (like me) live with their thinkpads joined to their hips. Do you want to try migrating 320K employees from Windows to Linux in one go? Think about organizational impact. Think about your customer base. Give some thought to the migration challenges that are illustrated in this book (of which I was the project leader)...
Linux Client Migration Cookbook, Version 2
IBM is a solutions company. A lot of us need to live (compute) within the same environments as our clients do. As more companies consider Linux on the desktop, more of our business will head that way, and consequently more IBMers will to.
So you should look at this announcement in context. This offering is a yet another clear indication that Desktop Linux is gaining market momentum, and IBM sees a need (and is making a big investment in internal transformation as well as product offerings) to be able to meet the needs of clients that are increasingly demanding more diversity in client computing solutions.
They are probably the only company with the cash and skills to "fix" everything that is wrong with Linux on the desktop. But they don't do it.
Why isn't IBM throwing money at the Ubuntu guys? Why isn't IBM basically bribing Adobe to port their apps to Linux? Why isn't IBM paying their software guys to write shitloads of GPLs drivers? Why aren't they writing *all kinds* Linux software to fill in the gaps that would make it better than Windows in every way?
I'm always amused by the companies that want to "beat" Microsoft, but don't seem to really TRY. If Linux is going to displace MS on the desktop, or even be a real competitor, then it's going to take BILLIONS of dollars and at least 5 years of development. IBM could do it. But they don't. Why not?
While I agree that people aren't upgrading as often, I don't think it's ue to lack of Improved performance, rather just lack of perceived improved performance. You know... when doubling the speed of your computer meant an operation that took 8 seconds, now only takes 4 seconds, you're gonna sit-up and take notice and be motivated to plunk down another $1000 bucks for the latest machine. However, once your going from 1/8 of a second to 1/16 of second or some other insignificant time savings, then the Average Joe, just doesn't care. Of course the fact that we're increasingly working with more complex and larger data, does help push the technology. (i.e. Average Joe who used to play with his 3 Megapixel photos on his 500 MHz machine without a problem may suddenly feel the slow down when he buys that new 8 megapixel camera.) - It seems to me that it the upgrade cycle is now linked with the adoption of other technologies outside of the PC itself, than it has been in the past. Other technologies certainly don't move at the same pace as computers. If a 1 megapizel camera was $200-300 in 1997, and if the pixel count doubled every 18 months... we would be seeing 64 Megapixel cameras in that same price range.
--Aaron Greenberg
but you run Slackware, don't you?
Check out my sysadmin blog!
a) Have you ever actually used Open Office ? How recent a version ?
b) What features were missing from OO which you use in MS Office ?
Just curious.
In order to permanently one's reflexes between 3 slightly different GUIs (4 if you have to use use both Gnome and KDE) as one goes from one system to the other ???
I am afraid I do not get the point here.
To use both KDE/Linux and (sometimes) Windows on my PC, I use the free version of VMWare. However alike the environments are, it the differences and only them that one notices, because they are so irritating.
Maybe we should once and for all consider the system like the basement of a home : we all know it is necessary, most of us prefer not to live there, and go reluctantly down only with a good reason in mind and for a short lapse of time. Come on ! The place where you "live" when using your personal computer is a place of applications. The system is just the necessary evil unavoidable to run them :-)
If you like changing your habits and lose a lot of time on irritating details, I suggest you switch your keybord from QWERTY to AZERTY from time to time. The change is small to, but just as much irritating, and far easier to implement ;-)
Signature omitted in order to save space. Thanks for your understanding.
"They are probably the only company with the cash and skills to "fix" everything that is wrong with Linux on the desktop. But they don't do it"
.. pulls together software IBM has developed in-house and with partners Novell Inc and Red Hat Inc .. We worked with the open source community and found a way to write software once that will work regardless of operating system'
'The product
was Re:IBM *could* make Linux the standard
davecb5620@gmail.com
It'd be nice if the article actually discussed HOW this works. Is it along the lines of Java, where you write it once (theoretically) and it'll run on any platform that has a compatible VM? Or are these universal/fat binaries? Or perhaps this is some way of abstracting the code so that it'll run as-is on any x86 platform (so PPC Macs need not apply?)
#DeleteChrome
Actually, they can't exactly port it *to* apple, since some of the office apps at least were originally written for apple. They can, and have, ported from apple to windows.
http://spamdecoy.net - free throwaway anonymous email - avoid spam!
I know you're being sarcastic, but since
Macs do all that.
they'd NEVER survive the death of Windows OS IMO. The reason being it has been the control of the OS and its APIs which have allowed them to push all their other software onto users. Today, they are a 3 headed snake with the Windows OS, Windows Office, and Windows Server software providing close to equal revenues and profits. BUT, you take away the Windows OS and the other two fall fast and hard.
They have, and will continue to do, anything to protect the Windows OS. With the profits of these business in the 80% range, no expense is too great. Trust me, they'll NEVER survive without the Windows OS, never. IMO
LoB
"Anyone who stands out in the middle of a road looks like roadkill to me." --Linus
Data analysis tools / common spreadsheet functions Charts Track changes / commenting true compatibility with other MS office users picture editing tools speed basic drawing tools All these features are essential and are either non existent, unstable, poorly implemented, or vastly inferior. I run office03 through cedega and it's still faster and more stable. I find both abiword & gnumeric are better than OO and I use them when I don't need to collaborate and I don't need anything technical. I've been meaning to put more effort into some of the ajax web alternatives, but I don't like the idea of remote storage. Add to that the nauseating eyesore that is the OO GUI and it is no longer worth considering.
Outlook?
oh dear I apologize about the formatting data analysis tools
common spreadsheet functions
Charts
Track changes
commenting
true compatibility with other MS office users
picture editing tools
speed
basic drawing tools
"We worked with the open source community and found a way to write software once that will work regardless of operating system. It will run on Windows, Macintosh or Linux," said Scott Handy, IBM's vice president of Linux and open source."
s/the open source community/Sun and \1
s/found a way/Sun provided a way
The masses are the crack whores of religion.
It's complete lunacy to expect IBM to invest billions in an endeavor which has no guarantee of creating a return. Heck, investing that kind of money into Lunix doesn't even have a *decent chance* of returning the investment.
What would it accomplish, aside from pissing away billions on free software? Replace Windows? How does that help put money in IBM's pocket? Also, what about IBM's history makes you view them as visionary in any way, shape, or form? Heck, what about their history even gives a view of technical competence?
IBM is all about manipulating the tech industry in order to get as much of it's money heading into IBM's direction. That's why they are a quote-unquote "solutions company"... which amazingly doesn't actually provide any solutions aside from deepening your company's dependence on IBM's teeming legions of H1B consultants, and helping American companies ship American jobs overseas to one of IBM's subsidiary companies.
but, I don't think they would survive the loss of the dominance of MS Office. They can port Office to Apple, Linux, heck, Solaris if they wanted to....but if ODF takes off, and they now have to compete with Sun and IBM....seem to me that's a much bigger threat.
Nah, I think that MS could survive open document formats or an open OS quite fine. Open Office is only used in geek homes and the odd business. IBM, Apple, or Sun could write an office replacement, but they'd have to out do office. I kinda of think of MS sort of like Walmart. Walmart doesn't kill small business like MS doesn't kill word processors / offfice suites. If you really look, there are tons of smaller word processors or office suites out there right now. They aren't competing very well with Office though. The same can be said of the small businesses that are trying to out do Walmart at what it does best. If you look around though, there are just as many small busniesses that have survived Walmart just fine. When something better comes along, we start using it. Walmart and MS are better than any other local solutions. It's up to everyone else to out compete the number one company.
Details from the Horse's Mouth (so to speak).
I simply listed the OS's in aggragate and assumed the /. crowd would be sophisticated enough to understand.
Not the I didn't expect someone unable to resisit pointing it out but..."my bad"
A goal is a dream with a deadline
Sametime, at least in previous versions, was similar to AOL's IM protocol. IIRC, some versions of the Sametime client could actually interface with AOL's service, and combine both your corporate ST buddy list, and your personal AIM buddy list. Not sure what most CIOs would think of all their employees doing that, but it definitely was there in the program.
If they're switching to XMPP it's a pretty big change, and I can imagine it would break backwards compatibility.
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
Sorry for the nitpicking, and being slightly-OT, but here goes nothing ;)
;)
Back in 1997, you could buy a 0.3 megapixel (640x480) camera for around 600USD (which back then was roughly 900CDN, which is my reference because of the varying exchange rate).
Jump to 2002, a 1.3MP camera cost roughly 300CDN, so in 5 years (3.3 x 18 months) we've seen two doublings of the megapixel count, and 1.5 "halvings" of the price, for a total factor of 3.5
Early 2007 (another 4-5 years), we have 5 megapixel cameras for 180CDN, so again, nearly two doublings in megapixels, and almost one "halving" of the cost. (Factor = 2.7)
I think that makes the "doubling every 18 months" rule still valid in this case. In theory, we should see the current crop of 10-megapixel cameras drop in price to around 300$ by this time next year. Next summer we should have them at 200$
Mind you, I'd rather see better cameras with better optics and low-light senstivity than cameras with high-megapixel counts. Check out Fuji's F31 to see what I mean about the sensitivity.
Disclaimer: I work in a photography shop.
Digging into this, it's a service based on IBM's internal desktop image, which has been deployed to all users in the company -- most on Windows but many on Linux (that's where the 5% number is coming from). The point is that IBM has figured out how to give everyone the same set of tools, irrespective of the underlying operating system. Breaking that lock frees the customer to make choices based on value and performance, not dependencies and pre-reqs. Net/net, IBM will come in and help your company do what they did; you get to choose the specific applications but IBM has certain proven combinations ready to go.
The historic challenge being addressed here is that deploying, managing and supporting so many users is just freakin' expensive, and thus has developed as a pressure point that IT departments must try to manage downward. In the 1990s most organizations subscribed (unquestioningly) to the principle that less heterogeneity will equate to better TCO, since complexity == expense, right? So they just rolled out software from the "integrated innovation" company, essentially outsourcing the management and integration of what are fundamentally disparate desktop systems.
Well we all saw how that worked in practice, as more and more money flows in one direction, and more and more dependencies and requirements are introduced that simply serve to increase exit costs. The primary vendor monetizes these costs in the form of high-margin licenses, which is what Adam Smith says they should do by the way. But Bill & Steve aren't the only smart, motivated managers in businesses or governments, so the pressure is rising for solutions that better match the value received to what you pay for it. This is one of IBM's responses and worthwhile in that regard.
Don't overthink this. If companies really are able to pick their applications independently from the OS, you can follow that thread to its conclusion in about ten seconds.
I'm looking over the wall, and they're looking at me!
You had me until the last one there...Superior? You really think you're better than everyone else? But then you also compare yourself to a movie star. I guess that's true though because you've both got your nose so high in the air that you can't tell that your turds smell the same as everyone else's. When you're ready to come down off that tower to admit that you are no better than anyone else just because you use a different computer, we'll be waiting...
Isn't this already possible? Hmmm I recall code::blocks is made with C++ and it is the same on windows and Linux...
Copyright infringement is "piracy" in the same way DRM is "consumer rape"
Does this mean MS was telling the truth when they claimed that using MS products meant a lower TCO? I thought the costs relative to MS products was already low.
Semi-automatic amateur armchair Australian philosopher; conjecture ready at any moment...
Apple will begin to appear on the enterprise desktop once these people graduate and start working in corporations, launching their own companies, etc.
If you mod me down, I shall become more powerful than you could possibly imagine.
I remember OS/2 and the debacle that happened with it.
Let us not blame the victim for what happened, and IBM certainly was the victim here. OS/2 was destroyed by it's own father, Microsoft. Microsoft deliberately sabotaged OS/2 because they had other plans for operating systems. Namely, that their plan was:
"All Your Desktop Belong To Us".
OS/2 was the first sign that I firmly recall that all was not right in the mind of Microsoft. Microsoft was looking for a way around IBM to take over all the PC market, and kill off all competitors.
Alas, my poor CP/M.
The scenario you suggest -- that systems designs which allow a graphics card udpate would reduce Apple's ability to maintain a stable platform -- is not correct. Graphics cards are upgradable in the Mac Pro tower and those systems are rock solid stable. If the device and the driver are well made and well tested, stability won't suffer. The systems will cost more and the designs will be larger and clunkier than a Mac Mini or an iMac, and very few of the upgrade slots will ever be used.
If you mod me down, I shall become more powerful than you could possibly imagine.
The short answer is that IBM (like all companies) only invest with the hope of a return. Like you stated, it will take IBM billions of dollars to fill in the gaps. IBM won't commit billions of dollars just because you don't like Microsft. IBM needs returns on its investment and an all out assault won't guarantee a break in the status quo.
You don't have to be smart to use a Mac, you just have to be smart enough to buy one
IBM invested over $3 BILLION to make Linux a viable alternative to proprietary Unix and Windows.
IBM then sold it's PC group to Lenovo. IBM does not make desktops anymore.
IBM has been working on this desktop idea for several years. It is called OpenDesktop (within IBM there are different flavors people have done for different distros, but essentially the same idea), also it could be called Client for eBusiness (c4eb). The problem is Windows sucks for the desktop, but Linux sucks waaay more. Drivers don't work, adding drivers is hard, the learning curve is insanely steep, KDE or Gnome?, where do I go for support, my apps don't work, or more likely don't exist, and that's just the start. Remember, some pieces of this started back in 2000 in public, and I was involved with some of this in 1998.
IBM is a huuuge company. The idea for IBM is to make money. IBM/Lotus never saw a customer demand for linux apps, but it could see one for Linux on the server. It now thinks that with a nudge, Linux on the desktop could start to take off, and that by the time someone gets it working, it will be ready. IBM has different pockets. To say "IBM should do x" is ridiculously simplistic. Technical geeks do NOT run the company, business people do. Lotus Notes ported to Linux existed as a side project that a Lotus developer did because he could years ago. But when you start to look at the real market for something like that, it has been too small to work financially. Another year or two? Maybe. IBM exists to help companies run better, and make more money for themselves. There are really only two ways any company can make money. One: make something and sell it for more that you paid for it. Two: spend less money on number one.
IBM's vision is to leverage Linux on all platforms as a way to standardize applications. Then the applications could be moved to utility computing. Write once, run anywhere kind of code. That is one of the reasons IBM sold desktops to Lenovo. We think they are going to become irrelevant.
What is a desktop's use? To store information and applications. If I then can run all that somewhere else, then put a terminal on everyone's desk, is that better? IBM thinks so. It sure does solve a lot of problems that businesses have. This is Utility computing. IBM can deliver all of this today, but IBM's marketing is soooo horrible, that nobody gets it. Stop upgrading. Stop buying computers. Stop wasting money. Get back to work.
Or, at least that's the idea.
Eric Collins
"The future was 10 minutes ago, where were you?"
most businesses are better off with linux desktops than windows desktops. staff can run word processors, spreadsheets, email clients, web browsers and other standard applications. without the viruses, trojans, keyloggers, botnets, spamware, spyware and other malware. and the system will be locked down, so that the users can't install games, stupid screensavers and other crap that either make the system unstable or are a vector for virus/trojan infection or both.
there's also gnucash, sql ledger, and other financial applications. or Crossover Office if they really need to run MYOB or Quickbooks (dunno if they run on Wine yet).
then their office computer will be an appliance for actually doing work, rather than a toy for wasting time and fiddling with the settings.
gamers might need windows because of the huge range of games available for windows. office workers don't.
"Open Client Offering"
"Object Code Only"
Coinky-dink? I don't think so!
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens.
See those little icons at the bottom ?
Obviously you don't have clue what you are talking about.
I have linux servers and Mac desktops, and I think you may be mistaken in 'faster'. I have a Dual G5 Powermac, where everything happens instantly, but I also have a couple 1st generation G4 Mac Mini's that were maddeningly slow with OS X.
I put Ubuntu linux on the Mac Minis and found they are now fast enough to be actually usable.
Firefox on OS X on the mini, is so slow it is almost unusable, but Firefox on the same boxen with Ubuntu is right up there with your typical low end Intel box.
Open office is usable with Ubuntu, and everything else runs fast enough not to be annoying.
There are some issues with PPC Ubuntu, like no flash, but for office use, I think it is better than OS X on older, slower Mac hardware.
Cheers
* Carthago Delenda Est *
...Comes courtesy of John Naughton's column about Google Docs: "The problem is that the platform has been reduced in status to a life-support system for a web browser."
~6 years ago I got moved from OS2 to Windows 2000. I'm sure the biggest reason for that was that our customers run windows and we need to be able to recreate customer problems on our machines, etc. The particular product I support has a version for Linux but it is not widely used compared to the Windows version. I'm sure our primary workstations will remain some flavor of windows until our customers move off that platform. An OS monopoly is a tough thing to break...
From TFA: This cuts the costs of managing Linux or Apple relative to Windows.
The article makes the assumption that Linux (Linux apps?) currently cost more to administer than do Win32 (Win32 apps?) and OS X (OS X apps?). What's the basis for this assumption? (Perhaps it's semi-subtle FUD propagation.)
Is IBM actually (in effect) saying, "Buy our stuff! Because, it doesn't suck as badly as it used to."?
Which is supposed to do/be the same thing.
Running with Linux for over 20 years!
My understanding was that at about 17MP, the pixels are as small or smaller than the Nickle (is it nickle?) particles used in film. If that is true, I would expect that somewhere around the 20MP point, we will see the shift away from MP to optics as the deciding factor. I know that better optics would make a bigger deal than higher MP count, but I also suspect that it is cheaper to improve the MP count than to improve the optics.
The value of OS X to Apple is clearly increasing, not decreasing. Selling it off would be stupid. The gap between Windows and OS X may have narrowed a bit with the release of Vista improving the security of the platform, but it is about to get a lot wider again with the coming release of Leopard.
Vista wasn't released, it escaped, leaving a trail of bloody offal all the way back to the Microsoft executive meeting room where they were forced (by the sheer weight of industry analyst, shareholder, and employee skepticism about their ability to deliver *anything*) to jettison many of the interesting features they were shooting for. Vista looks like Mac OS X because Microsoft realized they had to blow some smoke and lay some mirrors about or they were going to get their clock cleaned. Importantly, Vista doesn't lay the foundation for the next decade of computing that Microsoft initially bragged about, and the decade is more than half over.
Vista is clearly a release of desperation. Bill Gates had to lie about Mac security to get any attention for his comments about Vista in the pundit space. He's clearly depressed because all the pundits do these days is ask him about the Macintosh. Senior executives at Microsoft want Macintosh systems. (Senior executives that I know at a surprising number of technology companies are already running Macintosh computers at home, often at work as well, and in a few cases pondering how they can migrate their enterprise).
Compared to the steady forward march of OS X (and iPod) Vista (and Zune) and you see in Vista the software equivalent of a towel applied to a horrible wound. Microsoft's arms are off and, like the Dark Knight of Monty Python and the Holy Grail, they're hopping up and down on one leg taunting an opponent who really isn't even interested in them all that much, having more important things to do, like satisfy customers.
(By the way, You posted AC because you are a troll. Perhaps a paid troll even? Nonetheless, since you were modded up so absurdly high, it seemed a response was in order.)
If you mod me down, I shall become more powerful than you could possibly imagine.
I took a look at this in early beta last year. IBM is tying this to a Notes (called Workplace) client that will eventually tie you into the IBM license version of their entire stack. This is their new entry into a corporate account. It will end up with an IBM support license, and of course it will only work well with WebSphere, and DB2, and the rest of their non OS stack.
I think I might characterize that feature as "vastly inferior" to what I find in office (particularly with visio). Thankfully I allowed myself that stipulation. Good try. Go snark somewhere else.
It is difficult to compare like with like. Fast films have larger light sensitive crystals than slower films - This is why fast film looks grainer than slow film. Old black and white films use silver halide crystals. Newer films use organic dyes/pigments.
Fascinating ... thanks very much for the info. I had no idea that IBM's Haifa Lab was actually Ubique under a different name. I had thought that it seemed like there must be some "missing link" between IBM's Sametime and AIM, so now that makes sense.
I always thought that the idea of the "tour" (basically, a way to browse the web "cooperatively" with a group of people) in Virtual Places was neat; it was one of those technologies that really made it seem as if some metaverse-ish virtual world was right around the corner, in 1994. It never really caught on though, and today, I suspect that many users would find a universal "who else is browsing this page" feature creepy, because they've gotten used to it as a solitary experience.
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
.... that is not even funny.
The day you work in a big company (which you clearly don't) you'll be able to talk with a bit more authority regarding the big players in the IT world.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
I liked it better the first time, when it was called Tk.