Topic: IBM cancels Microsoft Windows contract - and other things.

[Nemesis]

Link to full article

Andreas Pleschek also told that IBM has cancelled their contract with Microsoft as of October this year. That means that IBM will not use Windows Vista for their desktops. Beginning from July, IBM employees will begin using IBM Workplace on their new, Red Hat-based platform. Not all at once - some will keep using their present Windows versions for a while. But none will upgrade to Vista.

Last year, IBM changed their business model after a Gartner study told them that 19% of the software market will move from commercial, proprietary software to open source software over the next five years. IBM's new philosophy is to take the best from both worlds. They will use open source for the commodities, i.e. things that everyone need, such as file zippers, browsers and word processors. On the other hand, he said, proprietary software is better for specialized software - mainly because there is not enough community interest to drive a complex, fast development for something that only a few people need. He said that there is a pendulum motion between the two, so the border between what is best solved by Open Source and what is best solved by proprietary software moves all the time.

[Mr_Tricorder]

This is a bold move.  I like it.  I hope some other companies follow in IBM's footsteps.

[Dracho]

Isn't the PC and Printer part of IBM actually owned by a Chinese company now?

[Bonk]

Ack! not redhat! Anything but redhat!  Its as bad as windows in my opinion. I predict IBM cancelling redhat contracts in the future... 


 

Edit: redhat is not even Linux... it is something different altogether.

In general, the more popular an OS becomes the more it tries to satisfy everyone with one click installs and driver compatibilities for half-arsed cheapy hardware... this leads to bloat and eventual self-destruction.

If your hardware is not on the FreeBSD hardware compatibility list, then stop being so darn cheap and by some real gear!

http://www.freebsd.org/releases/6.0R/hardware-i386.html

http://ftp.x.org/pub/X11R7.0/doc/html/manindex4.html

Typical redhat user: typical consumer goes out and buys cheapest machine that supposedly meets the stats of current standards (neglecting to be aware of chip caches and the like - software modems are a classsic example) User wants an OS that will run on said cheapy hardware. User is limited to Windows and Redhat which make concessions to this cheap and nasty hardware... that ultimately degrade the stability and performance of the OS...

 

If the machine won't run FreeBSD or QNX I wont buy it. If the retailer or distributer cannot tell me that it will, I will not but it. Thus I build all my own machines with real brand-name hardware components. Thus I can run real OSs. 

sigh... you'd think IBM would know better...

[Mr_Tricorder]

Ack! not redhat! Anything but redhat!  Its as bad as windows in my opinion. I predict IBM cancelling redhat contracts in the future... 

At least it's easier to switch from Redhat to another distro than it is to switch from Windows to Linux.  Besides, it's not plain Redhat; it's only based on Redhat.  Maybe they've made some good fixes and changes to it.

[Bonk]

I suppose, perhaps IBM has impoved it.

I just object to redhat for many reasons, not the least of which is taking quality free open source software, mangling it, and then having the gall to ask for money for it... un-fricking-believeable. 

[Nemesis]

Isn't the PC and Printer part of IBM actually owned by a Chinese company now?

Yes.

Here they are talking about their own internal operations.

IBM makes a lot of money off of support services and software sales.  Here they are saying we use Linux on the desktop, its ready for the desktop and we can sell you support in moving to it.  It is a very big selling point in favour of Linux on the desktop for a lot of companies.  The IBM name backing Linux on the desktop has a LOT of selling power.