“Is Windows 2000 becoming a serious challenge for IBM? How
does Linux fit into the IBM strategy? What does the future hold for
Lotus and Tivoli? How successful is IBM’s software business? At the
beginning of December in Somers, New York, c’t discussed these
subjects with John M. Thompson, Senior Vice President and Group
Executive of the IBM Software Group.”
“The market is growing, and much more quickly than many people
expected. This is a big opportunity for us and this is why we are
supporting Linux. We are importing our middleware and telling our
customers that they can expect the same capacities from us as on
all platforms. If you look at the market, you first of all see
Linux with academic users, in science and education. Secondly – and
this is particularly interesting for us – a great many ISPs
(Internet Service Providers) and ASPs (Application Service
Providers) use Linux and Apache as a basic platform. This is an
important market for us and I was really surprised to find how
strong Linux is in that market. Thirdly, I have to say that at
present we are still seeing very little commercial use of Linux.
There are individual applications, but these are mostly personal
initiatives, “bottom-up” if you like…”
“… Software manufacturers are looking for a simple answer to
the problem of how they can get their applications on UNIX, without
having to import onto several UNIXs. So it could be that Linux
defines a set of APIs which are then supported by AIX, Solaris,
Monterey and so on.
“… Linux binaries will run on Monterey. Taking this further, I
therefore believe that Linux is developing “bottom-up”. The
applications will come from below. The applications will then draw
up the rest of the stack and the other UNIXs.”