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. "

Comments

*slashdot dies

[Brunellus]

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

Re:*slashdot dies

[BecomingLumberg]

TFM? I didn't get a manual...

Re:*slashdot dies

[Brunellus]

:%/s/TFM/TFA/g

Re:*slashdot dies

[kkrause]

manual? We don't need no stinkin' manual. I have my opinion fully formulated before I read the article.

Apple And IBM Should Make A Deal

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:Apple And IBM Should Make A Deal

[p0tat03]

OSX is going nowhere fast? Apple's desktops may be floundering due to the lack of their killer app (i.e., anything made by Adobe) for the Mactels, their laptops are selling like frickin' hotcakes. Apple is pushing more Mac laptops than ever before.

Not to mention that OSX is the *only* non-Windows OS that is commonly used by average users.

Macs as desktops are going nowhere fast, mostly because much of the desktop market is now polarizing into enterprise-level hardware or cheap shite Dell boxen. There simply isn't enough demand for a non-enterprise quality home-use desktop. Laptops on the other hand are a different story, demand for the Macbook is huge around where I live, and interest in buying Mac mobiles is higher than I've ever seen it before.

Re:Apple And IBM Should Make A Deal

[Anonymous Coward]

Posting AC to avoid the wrath of the Apple crazies.

Long term Apple has to be looking at the OS market and not seeing much of a future for OS X beyond its niche status. Vista has pretty much closed the gigantic security gap, no matter how much Mac fans don't want to believe it, and regardless of who copied who, Vista is very close to OS X in both appearance and use.

And now with running Windows on Macs being the number one topic for Apple users, the native OS X app market is in serious trouble since the lure of just having Mac users run a company's app under parallels is financially appealing, no matter how much some Mac users are abhorred by the thought.

As far as Linux goes, one just needs to look at various Linux distro boards where trying to make the various Linux desktops look and function like OS X are usually the most active and largest threads. That is an amazing indictment of just what crap the various Linux desktops and UI toolkits are.

The value of OS X is probably at a high point for Apple right now and will only go down over time as Microsoft and the various Linux distros/companies continue to get their shit together. Selling off the OS X desktop interface and toolkits/tools certainly makes business sense.

Re:Apple And IBM Should Make A Deal

[mstroeck]

Apple has been selling more Macs in the last several quarters than ever before in its entire history, and been making insane profits. They also continue to develop all of their desktop and server software at an utterly bewildering pace. I don't know exactly what you're talking out of, but I have a suspicion.

Re:Apple And IBM Should Make A Deal

[MBGMorden]

Mac desktops also have pushed themselves into extremes at every corner. If I want a decently priced Mac desktop, I've got two options: iMac or MacMini. MacMini is cheap enough for sure, but it's graphics processor is a joke, and you are stuck tacking on external hard drives if the storage space is insufficient. It's really more like a laptop with the keyboard an monitor included.

The iMacs have slightly better specs (acceptable at least), but they have the darned monitor built in. Many, many people either already have a monitor and don't want to pay for an extra one hanging off of their computer, or they want the freedom to shop around an buy a non-Apple monitor.

So in reality, what I really want is a darned tower unit with some expandability and a decent graphics chipset (or at least a slot where I can buy an after market one if I want). Sure Apple makes those, but they start right at $2500.

Seriously, Apple: make us a regular old tower (you can even throw in fruity colors or whatever) and bring it in under $1000. Heck I'd take the mini specs in a bigger case any day if they'd just give me the ability to plug in a better graphics card.

Re:Apple And IBM Should Make A Deal

[ZachPruckowski]

Long term Apple has to be looking at the OS market and not seeing much of a future for OS X beyond its niche status. Vista has pretty much closed the gigantic security gap, no matter how much Mac fans don't want to believe it

This remains to be seen. Even if Vista is safer than XP (it probably is), there's not a lot of evidence that says it works. I mean, the fact that you're safe for the first two weeks means essentially nothing. Crackers and exploiters aren't rushing to be first, they're trying to hold their exploits until there are enough people about to make it worthwhile. Spammers/botters/virus-writers pay cash for vulnerabilities. They're not going to exploit Vista until there are enough potential victims to make that cash well-spent.

With regards to parallels, your logic only holds if Mac sales don't increase. A company is going to lose sales if it wants you to buy parallels and Windows for $250ish to run its software. And they'll be wide open to competitors who decide to offer native solutions.

Finally, your idea that Windows and Linux will quickly catch up to OS X assume that OS X is a stationary target. Between now and Vienna, 10.5 will ship, and 10.6 as well, assuming Vienna ships on time (mid-2009). Vista is currently about equal to OS X in features and ease-of-use, but that won't be true 4 months from now, and it will be even less true 18-24 months from now.

Re:Apple And IBM Should Make A Deal

[EvilMonkeySlayer]

I have a minor niggle with the latter part of your mentioning about Vista and OS X. As I mentioned last year I have now bought a Macbook and owned it for roughly a couple of months.

I used Vista quite a bit during its beta/rc stages and then a bit when it got released. I'd just like to say that after having used both for a decent while that Vista may be equal in features but those features are poorly implemented. Case in point the control panel, it has been mutated into a monster.. it's nigh on impossible to find the settings you want to change without faffing about. Eventually I just turn on the classic view for control panel and make do with that.
Then contrast that with system preferences on OS X where it's well thought out without a million and one options in your face or having to go digging for some minor niggle that you want to disable or change.

Re:Apple And IBM Should Make A Deal

[vijayiyer]

What you're missing is that you represent a very small market segment of computer saavy people without money to spend. The vast majority of consumers do not care about graphics cards and expandability - they replace computers when they're old and use them like appliances. Most software developers and engineer types who use their computer daily don't find $2500 expensive for a tool they use daily. I'm not saying that you don't represent a valid market - just that a company can't target every single market. You have to pick and choose, or you lose focus on your core business areas.

Re:Apple And IBM Should Make A Deal

[p0tat03]

Agreed on all counts, and to expand on your point:

The integrated LCD is wasteful, yes, since it involves throwing out a perfectly good display whenever you change computers. That said, it is also a core aspect of the Macintosh experience. The whole point of the iMac is to take away your tower, your LCD, and the bajillion wires and peripherals that come with it. Monitor cable? None. Monitor power? None. Speaker cables (usually a huge tangle of wiring)? None. You've got a keyboard that goes to your iMac, a very short wire that doesn't loop back or tangle. You've got a Mighty Mouse that plugs into your keyboard, without a whole spool of long wire that has to go all the way over to your tower like on a PC. All in all your desk is uncluttered, there aren't wires all over the place, and when you need to move your computer it's as simple as unplug-and-move.

Wasteful? Yeah, but it is just one more thing that makes a Mac more like an appliance than a cool technical gadget that does everything, and that is exactly the type of thinking Apple shoots for.

Re:Apple And IBM Should Make A Deal

[cmacb]

"Finally, your idea that Windows and Linux will quickly catch up to OS X assume that OS X is a stationary target. Between now and Vienna, 10.5 will ship, and 10.6 as well, assuming Vienna ships on time (mid-2009). Vista is currently about equal to OS X in features and ease-of-use, but that won't be true 4 months from now, and it will be even less true 18-24 months from now."

I don't think the post to which you are responding said anything about the relative quality of Vista vs OS X. Nor did it say that Apple sales would evaporate over night. It simply stated that Apple sales may be at a peak. I think it is widely accepted, even among Windows users that OS X is a better OS. I've dealt with such people, shown them OS X and gotten the expected ooohs and aaahs, only to then be told that they depend on a particular application that they can't live without. (Even if I can eventually convince them that this is not true, not all Windows users have someone around to make that case for them.)

The weak link in the Apple strategy (but since it is intentional, maybe "weak" is a poor choice of words) is that with the shift to Intel, and the ease of running Windows applications, as was the case with OS/2 people are going to find themselves more and more just running the Windows application, and at some point they are going to conclude that they are so often in that Windows mode that they might just as well be running Windows.

It's a big big mindshare issue. Take Robert Scoble for example. He recently bragged that he had spent something like $10K on Apple computers for his family. But he NEVER mentions actually using the things, because he's just running Windows on them. When he DOES mention that Apple computers it is usually in the context of something (overheating, poor support) that has gone wrong with one of them.

I work with a small construction company that has a dozen users, only one of which is an Apple fan. Yes, her machine is more reliable and easier to use. But they also have to spend more time on the fact that Excel spreadsheets she has edited don't quite work right for anyone else, and does she HAVE to run Outlook, or can she make do with the built-in Apple mail program, etc. etc. (I'm trying to get them all switched over to Google so these issues will go away). Do you think Microsoft would intentionally poison-pill Office for the Mac (which is a separate and some say better code base). Nah MS would never do anything like that!

The Microsoft monopoly will not end as a result of one user at a time switching to Apple. It will take whole companies making that commitment, or in the case of Linux, whole countries and government organizations. Last I heard, there was no small country or city that was switching to Apple. There is almost never any news about Apple server success stories (other than a few R&D grid systems, and many if not most of those seem to be running YDL Linux), while Oracle's entire datacenter is Linux based.

In summary, I think Apple (the company) has given up on world domination in the computer space (hence the name change.) Yes, they may continue to make computers for a while, but they are positioning that as as purely an optional part of their business. By the time they get out altogether hardly anyone will notice. My guess is that they will release OS X for generic PCs as the last change they make before making that move. Apple fans will continue to love that interface, but they will find it works just as well on a Dell or Toshiba, or Lenovo, or... and some of those machines (surprise!) look an awful lot like the Apple laptops now anyway.

It will be a nice present to the Open Source community when Apple finally realizes there is no big profit to be made in supporting an also-ran OS. Like Sun with Java, they will wait far to long to release the code for OS X, but maybe by the time they do there will be enough established Linux shops that they can get the benefit of the bits and pieces that can be salvaged from the Apple lo

Re:Apple And IBM Should Make A Deal

[encoderer]

It used to be a running joke whenever anyone would predict that Apple would go out of business in the next 6/12/18/etc months. It was predicted so many times that it became a gag.

Funny thing is that such predictions are made about Microsoft daily at /. without even the hint of irony.

I'm not staking a claim on either side of the debate, but the whole "X will be a MSFT Killer" is a huge /. cliche.

Re:Apple And IBM Should Make A Deal

[jedidiah]

"need" is a curious thing. It often (probably more
often than not) an illusion mostly fueled by laziness
and ignorance.

Criticism of Lemmings is older than Linux or Windows.

That's rather the whole point of this here IBM product
offering.

Re:Apple And IBM Should Make A Deal

[jedidiah]

The flexibility of the Unix desktop is hardly a fault.

The Unix desktop can literally be all things to all people. It can achieve much if not all of the fru-fru of Macs of various eras without completely alienating people who already have well established habits and preferences.

The fact that people want to clone Macs on Linux just mean they think there's some merit in the idea in terms of the source being useful and the destination being possible. This would contrast to attempting to adapt either WinDOS or OS10. Even if you found a good idea from elsewhere, neither environment would be accomodating to the mod.

Isn't this old news?

[cerberusss]

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.

how open are...

[duranaki]

Lotus Notes, Sametime, Domino... ? It seems like 'Open' has officially been overloaded to the point of being meaningless.

Re:how open are...

[nudeatom]

Depends on your point of view The next release of the Notes client is based on the Eclipse framework and mulitplatform from the get-go. This too me is a lot more open than other offerings. It also includes ODF word-processor and spreadsheet. The Sametime chat client is bascially running Jabber, which is an open format. plugis are available for Gaim to coinnect Domino is not open, but there you go. They are making moves, and those moves appear to be a long term strategy rather than a short term publicity grab. But this is just my view. What do I know

Why use something the creators barly use?

[blanks]

"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.

Re:Why use something the creators barly use?

[jackharrer]

Don't forget that rolling it will be a major IT challenge. 5% as a start doesn't sound very well but 16,000 is quite a lot of workstations. And add servers. That's a lot of beta testers, IMHO.

Re:Why use something the creators barly use?

[hey]

I enjoy using barley.
Is it free as in beer?

Re:Why use something the creators barly use?

[teh_chrizzle]

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.

are you kidding? 16,000 users would quadruple the apple and linux userbases overnight!

Late to the party?

[BlueStraggler]

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.

Re:Late to the party?

[Chandon Seldon]

Holy shit. Are you dumb?

The Mac has the following:

• Core 2 Duo
• ATI Radeon X1600

The Dell has:

• Pentium D
• ATI Radeon X1300

The Core 2 Duo *crushes* the Pentium D, regardless of clock speed. The X1600 is also incomparably better than the X1300, regardless of video RAM.

It's people like you, buying Dell systems with shit hardware for $1000, that allow them to keep selling this trash. Now, I'm not saying that the hardware in that iMac is a good deal for $1,600 (the laptop form factor is driving the price way up)... but at least the Mac will run video games. If someone offered me that Dell for $400 I'd turn them down, but the hardware in that iMac is easily worth $700 in a generic desktop.

Where have you been?

[Andy Dodd]

"Open" has been overloaded to the point of meaningless for years, if not decades.

The Open Group, anyone?

Re:Where have you been?

[roscivs]

So true. Much better to use a word that doesn't have multiple different connotations ... for example, "Free".

Re:Where have you been?

[fangorious]

So true. Much better to use a word that doesn't have multiple different connotations ... for example, "Free".

Beer or Speech?

I think MS could survive the death of Windows...

[StressGuy]

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

Oh Noes!

[fragMasterFlash]

You mean the living hell that is the Lotus Notes user interface is going to take over my entire desktop? *Head asplodes*

Re:Oh Noes!

[FooAtWFU]

They have a new Lotus Notes interface. It's based on Eclipse. It's actually... well, umm, it's tractable, at least. Try some screenshots and some newer screenshots.

People also forget that Notes isn't really an email program. It's a distributed database access and replication suite, and email just happens to be the one sort of database that it's used for most.

IBM has been offering 'alternatives' for years

[dtjohnson]

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.

Re:IBM has been offering 'alternatives' for years

[truthsearch]

You're speaking as a home user or small business. IBM has made billions in consulting, much of it helping large companies use Linux. IBM has done a lot to support Linux, both directly (installations, code contributions) and indirectly (e.g. porting applications).

at one time they said they were going to switch a substantial portion of their worldwide desktops over to it, which they never did.

Last time I checked most employees were simply given the option, and could choose to switch to Linux if it didn't hurt their productivity (long term). Many made the switch. It's not easy getting 300,000+ people to switch without hurting productivity. They're slowing doing it.

Re:I think MS could survive the death of Windows..

[Stamen]

"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.

Re:Virtual Machine?

[oneandoneis2]

No, it appears to be software that's multi-platform collected into one big corporate-friendly package.

So in the same way that dual-booters have been using Firefox and Opera on both OSes for years, IBM is making it easy for corporations to do the same.

What a great idea.

[Weasel5053]

They're planning on calling it "Java"

Re:What a great idea.

[RPI Geek]

They're planning on calling it "Java"

This is more insightful than funny; I wish I had mod points.

IBM already makes cross-platform IT management products (or rather frequently, it buys them and incorporates them into their own high-priced products). The overall term for the many products in this family is IBM Tivoli. Interestingly, much of it runs on Java. It's a very mature line of products used by lots of high-profile companies worldwide, and it makes IBM many millions of dollars.

Nice Idea But...

[eno2001]

...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.

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. :) 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.

Like I said, nice idea, but...

Re:I think MS could survive the death of Windows..

[openldev]

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.

Re:I think MS could survive the death of Windows..

[mrsmiggs]

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.

that's not what this is about...

[RMH101]

...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.

Re:Everyone?

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Hmm, autodetect and autoconfigure for hardware works great on my Debian Etch laptop. It also worked OK on my old Mandrake desktop circa 1999. Where have you been?

Or maybe they could figure out how to get software to install across distros without requiring moving around files and manually editing config files.

apt-get packagename OR ./configure && make install . Where have you been?

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.

Oh right, you've been using Windows and pretending Linux doesn't have the features you want.

Of course there is

[j3thr0]

http://www-142.ibm.com/software/sw-lotus/products/ product4.nsf/wdocs/linux

Sanity Check -Re:Why use something the creators...

[almondjoy]

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.

Re:IBM should stick to chips

[stevesliva]

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.

As someone who works for IBM's chip development group, I find this statement pretty amusing. We've certainly had some historically great quarters recently, but the software group is growing revenues at a good clip, and their margins are like 80%.

It's really amazing to see all the opinions about IBM fly by here on Slashdot... you know, how IBM only sells services, but is the second-largest software company (yes, in terms of software revenues) after Microsoft. Or how it doesn't make computers any longer, even though it's the largest server and supercomputer seller, and leading in sales of blade computers.

And that only speaks to sales misconceptions, to say nothing of whether 18 gagillion patents are evil weaponry, a defensive posture, truly valuable, a load of crap, or good for the defense of open standards... Or how it forced customers into proprietary systems in the 1960s, but hasn't End-of-Lifed those ancient architectures, or forced radical change to the systems running applications developed 30 or 40 years ago.

You can pretty much say two opposite things about IBM in any regard and have them both be true. Anyways, back to working for my dying-since-1982 east coast anachronism of a company...

IBM *could* make Linux the standard

[realmolo]

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?

Re:IBM *could* make Linux the standard

[evilviper]

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.

What YOU are interested in Linux for, and what IBM is interested in Linux for, are vastly different things.

IBM couldn't care less about how easy Linux is to setup for your grandmother. They like Linux as a solution to be deployed on company computers, low maintenance costs, easy administration (by paid professionals).

Whether your $5 sound card works under Linux doesn't matter one bit to IBM, or to any company that has more than a handful of machines.

As far as IBM's purposes are concerned, Linux has long been ready for use everywhere they care about. You can run Linux on all your IBM servers and workstations without problems.

Re:Everyone?

[UncleTogie]

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.

I double-checked your post for any sarcasm or tinfoilhat tags. Frighteningly enough, I didn't see any.

MS has NOT been doing it properly since '95, and XP is no better. I remember the disastrous "Plug 'n' Play" we had force-fed to us; is it any wonder it was quickly renamed "Plug 'n' Pray"? Even worse, many times when at the Windows Update site it'd guess at the wrong drivers to update/install.... We lost a 2k server for a half-day due to just that. MS thought it had a 3Com NIC. It didn't.
Rather than go off on a long rant, I'll just describe the WinXP Pro and Ubuntu 6.10 installs on the very box I'm using.

• XP Pro

Run Install
Find driver for mobo
Find driver for video card
Find driver for NIC
Find driver/app for TV card
Find driver for Audigy.
Find driver for modem.
All hardware recognized; start work FINALLY!
vs:

• Ubuntu

Run install
Install Nvidia drivers
All hardware recognized; start work quickly!

Better hardware detection, my tail-side.

Re:I think MS could survive the death of Windows..

[ahg]

However, people do not upgrade their computers as often anymore just because hardware is not improving at such a fast pace as before.

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.

Re:GNUStep

[blankaBrew]

If the linux world got behind GNUStep, they would have an opensource version of MacOS X that could (potentially) run Mac apps with only a recompile. This could change linux and thrust it into the mainstream. Imagine... apps like photoshop, office and iTunes for Linux. It would be at least possible. It seems to me that the vast majority of GNU/Linux development over the past 8 years has been to make the userland more windows-like. Even the mac-like guis are nothing more than window dressing (pun intended). It's a real shame. The Linux community has a nuke in its OS war arsenal, but continues to fight with sticks and stones.

Re:No

[KokorHekkus]

Well said. Just wanted to add for those that doesn't know how enormous IBM Global Services is: in 2005 Global Services had an revenue of 47.3 billion making up about half of IBM:s revenue... compare that to the total revenue for Microsoft last year: 46 billion (according to Yahoo Finance)

See http://biz.yahoo.com/ic/103/103329.html

Re:Open

[GlobalMind]

Agreed R3/4 wasn't the best stuff going. But...you HAVE to check out Notes/Domino 8. Huge reinvestment in the UI side of the house.

Direct Link

[neiljt]

Details from the Horse's Mouth (so to speak).

stealth marketing

[Gary W. Longsine]

Apple will begin to appear on the enterprise desktop once these people graduate and start working in corporations, launching their own companies, etc.

Re:Sametime is AIM, I think.

[siegesama]

The Virtual Places protocol used in Sametime was developed by the same people who wrote AOL's initial IM client. The company was named Ubique, and were later bought by IBM/Lotus (there's more history than that, but I'm not going to go into it here). I do not believe that the protocols themselves are identical, as I distinctly recall attempting to connect via TOC to a Sametime server and having it not work at all. Having said that, while I am intimately familiar with the Virtual Places protocol, I have acquainted myself with neither the older TOC protocol, nor the newer Oscar.

One thing Sametime is doing (or can be configured to do on a per-deployment basis) is providing a gateway to other servers/services via either XMPP or SIP. This works in much the same way that it previously allowed two separate Sametime deployments to interconnect previously. But this is actually part of the server infrastructure, and doesn't change the protocol that is spoken between a Sametime Connect client and the Sametime server.

As to why I care at all, I wrote the Meanwhile library, which is used by Gaim and Adium and Kopete and Miranda to provide Sametime connectivity.

DISCLAIMER: the history of Ubique and AOL, Lotus, and IBM is all stuff I dredged from the Internet, and may not necessarily be correct. I'm fairly sure it is, but I wasn't there, and I haven't directly spoken to anyone involved in any of the mergers

Reward for the investment

[Enrique1218]

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.

IBM *did* make Linux the standard...for servers!

[CaspianHiro]

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?"

linux makes a better business OS anyway

[cas2000]

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.

This week's best metaphor

[blubadger]

...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."

Re:GNUStep

[iluvcapra]

Not to burst your bubble so fast, but Photoshop has a dependency on QuickDraw, which is not in NextStep or GNUStep. iTunes has dependencies on QuickTime, CoreAudio, and the FairPlay tech, which are not in GNUStep. Office is not built on Cocoa/NextStep at all, it's built on Carbon, which has no Open Source reverse-engineering project.

It is not Open Source and tied to Notes

[Anonymous Coward]

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.