“Key to addressing these areas is standards adherence, Gerstner
said, and this is where Linux comes into play. IBM will invest $1bn
in 2001 to step up its Linux work, he told attendees. He said IBM
will spend some of this money on initiatives already in the works
for the 1,500 IBM developers currently Linux-enabling IBM’s
products and helping customers move Linux into production.”
“We’re convinced Linux can do for business applications what the
Internet did for enterprise applications,” Gerstner said. In short,
“delivering on any-to-any computing”.
“Gerstner made no bones about the fact that IBM’s decision
to bet big on Linux also is an attempt to slow the growth of IBM
competitors Microsoft, Sun Microsystems, and EMC, three companies
which have distanced themselves from Linux. “Sun, Microsoft
and EMC are running the last proprietary plays of this business,”
Gerstner quipped.”