IBM Hikes Commitment to Linux
By Mitch Wagner
Enterprises are likely to find Linux useful for bigger, more
mission-critical applications next year due in part to a $1 billion
infusion given the technology by IBM.
The company plans to devote that amount to Linux development,
marketing and consulting next year, up from the "several hundreds of
millions of dollars" this year, said Steve Solazzo, vice president
of Linux for IBM.
"We are convinced Linux can do for business applications what the
Internet did for networking and communications," said IBM chairman
Louis Gerstner at eBusiness Expo in New York City yesterday.
IBM's support will help drive the functionality, stability and
scalability needed to bring Linux to mission-critical applications,
said Bill Claybrook, an analyst with Aberdeen Group. Linux is now
used for supercomputing, Web serving, file serving, firewalls and
other infrastructure applications. But it has not yet been as
accepted in mission-critical applications except for businesses,
such as service providers, in which the infrastructure is the
mission-critical app.
The hope is that IBM's infusion will enable Linux to gain
maturity to be a player in mission-critical applications, such as
large databases and online transaction processing.
The investment will be aimed at several areas. The company will
port Linux to all its server lines, including Intel-architecture
servers, RISC servers, the AS/400 and mainframes. It will rewrite
its applications to run on Linux and double the size of the
100-person team that writes open-source code and determines what IBM
software and technology should be released to the open source
community. It will increase investment in assisting independent
software vendors to support Linux, add Linux-dedicated sales staff
and service support through IBM Global Services.
The support from IBM will make IT managers more likely to deploy
Linux, said Keith Oliverson, a project manager for Convergys, a firm
which provides outsourced telephone support. Convergys is evaluating
Linux.
"If we decide that we need to go for a large project where we
might need a mainframe, IBM is in a position that they could assist
us in deploying that," Oliverson said. "That would make it a more
attractive option rather than starting from scratch." IBM offers
Linux on its mainframes.
IBM also announced a big customer for its Linux products:
petrochemical giant Shell International Exploration and Production,
which will deploy 1,024 IBM Intel-architecture servers in a
supercomputing cluster to run seismic and other geophysical analysis
for oil exploration.
IBM made two customer announcements recently. Telia, a
Scandinavian service provider, will run Linux on a mainframe, and
Japanese convenience-store chain Lawson will run Linux on in-store
Internet access kiosks.
