“IBM is betting that its increasing support for Linux on
mainframes, combined with the ability of those systems to run
multiple data-processing workloads simultaneously, will help drive
big-iron machines into new kinds of applications this year.”
“The computer maker is predicting that it will sell about 1.6
million mainframe MIPS during the course of this year. At least
half of that total is expected to go into new application areas
such as enterprise resource planning, e-commerce, customer
relationship management and server consolidation, said Dan Colby,
IBM’s general manager of enterprise servers, at the company’s
PartnerWorld 2001 conference here this week.”
“And the open-source Linux operating system will likely drive
much of that new business, Colby said. He added that IBM is hoping
to attract users through the ability of mainframes such as its new
zSeries 900 to run virtually thousands of Linux server applications
within a single box. It also plans to attract users with the
increasing availability of Linux-enabled mainframe tools and
software.”