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IBM Backs Linux with $100 Million

By David Worthington, BetaNews

February 18, 2005, 9:14 PM

IBM is backing up its ardent advocacy of Linux with cold hard cash. Over the next three years, Big Blue will invest a total of $100 million USD to broaden the use of Linux technologies within its Workplace product family and assist customers in constructing end-to-end Linux-based solutions that fit a variety of devices.

IBM's financial commitment came in response to double digit-growth among customers that deployed the company's collaboration software on Linux in 2004.

The funding will be disbursed to finance a series of service ISV support and technical programs, marketing initiatives and Linux research and development designed to boost the adoption of Linux, cross platform-support and cost control.

"This wouldn't be the first time IBM has made an investment in Linux. Significance would depend on where the money is spent," Jupiter Research senior analyst Joe Wilcox told BetaNews. "Hypothetically, an investment related directly to the Lenovo purchase of IBM's PC division and expansion of Linux availability in the Pacific region would be significant. Elsewhere, the investment would merely extend IBM's already strong commitment to Linux."

IBM's Workplace suite of programs centrally manages business data and provides device agnostic remote access to business applications available from any desktop computer, PDA, cell phone, laptop, or terminal. The Workplace portfolio of products consists of WebSphere Portal, Lotus Notes/Domino, and IBM Workplace. Many of those products already have elements of Linux support.

"Since customers have been looking for ways to extend the value of Linux to the desktop, IBM felt the time was right to deliver a fully-supported Linux client alternative," said Ambuj Goyal, general manager of Workplace, Portal and Collaboration Software at IBM.

From a historical perspective, the company's support for Linux and open source has been ongoing. In 2001, IBM announced a 3-year $300 million USD commitment to Linux that resulted in Linux platform support for many of its products. Last month, IBM offered up 500 patents for open use in accordance to the Open Source Initiative (OSI).

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By Maxwolf

posted Feb 21, 2005 - 9:44 AM

Keep on pouring the sand down it.

Score: 0

By eunichman

posted Feb 19, 2005 - 11:46 AM

Most of you are too young to remember this but us old timers who kept up on ALL the industry back then still do...

IBM has a history of making promises for future moneys and never delivering....

they did it to hardware manufacturers way back when trying to corner the market on their microchannel technology (incidentally, they got a BIG black eye on that one, getting busted by the feds for monopolistic business practices)

Years later they promised to give cash incentives to software developers such as corel and adobe and other big names - to develop for OS/2. the software developers did and IBM never shelled out the cash..

I will wait and see if they folow through this time

Score: 0

By wellyuk2001

posted Feb 20, 2005 - 12:45 PM

about time there was a big corp getting on the linux bandwagon i am a linux user and the sooner everyone realises that the windows program is s*** the sooner we can get rid of bill gates yippee linux is foreverhow many people windows would of crashed on them by now

Score: 0

By robin_v

posted Feb 19, 2005 - 5:12 AM

BIG BLUE has spoken! It is gratifying to see that the PC industry is finally realising the potential long term rewards of supporting freeware projects and, rather than harness the creativity of the PC community at large, to become an active participant and supporter. It is written, "As ye sow, so shall ye reap." and I have a feeling that BIG BLUE will reap a plentiful harvest by taking this stance.

Score: 0

By spiked

posted Feb 19, 2005 - 3:36 AM

Remember that IBM invested $1 billion into OS/2.

Score: 0

By mjm01010101

posted Feb 19, 2005 - 9:02 AM

And they earned it back eventually, which is why THEY STILL SUPPORT OS/2. 1 billion is chump change for IBM, a services company.

Score: 0

By eunichman

posted Feb 19, 2005 - 11:50 AM

not to the hiome user they dont, and only to a limited degree on the enterprise level. and they sold the rights to os/2 a few years back :)

Score: 0

By robin_v

posted Feb 19, 2005 - 5:19 AM

This is different, spiked. OS2 is a commercial IBM product. Linux is not.

Score: 0

By spiked

posted Feb 20, 2005 - 3:20 AM

Read closer. IBM is not investing in generic, all-purpose Linux (which would include me & you running Fedora or Ubuntu on our home computers). IBM is investing "to broaden the use of Linux technologies within its Workplace product family ...[consisting] of WebSphere Portal, Lotus Notes/Domino, and IBM Workplace. Many of those products already have elements of Linux support."

In other words, IBM doesn't mind if the overall Linux movement benefits from the visibility created by IBM's investment into its own commercial products, but don't be fooled into thinking that this is altruism. A huge chunk of what IBM has already "invested in Linux" has gone for things like porting Linux to its ESA/390 mainframe architecture. At best, that investment resulted in media exposure and press for Linux, but none of that work offered anything of value to be backported to x86 or even PPC.

Sure, IBM is giving patents to OSI, but does it really have a choice if it wants to use those technologies in its own Linux implementations? Their PR people have taken ordinary GPL requirements and spun them into seemingly generous donations.

Score: 0

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