The Register: IBM dubs Linux as realistic champion against NT

“Big Blue is embracing the open source movement in general, and
Linux in particular, with a vengeance, and no doubt with the
painful lessons of their spectacularly unsuccessful OS/2 still in
mind. The company is moving ahead with ambitious plans to produce
various network systems built around Linux, which it will be able
to license at a considerable savings compared with Windows
NT/2k.

And Linux is not just cheaper, it’s better, especially for the
applications of the next decade. It is in fact the ‘ideal platform’
for the next generation of Internet-based computing and information
technologies, IBM Technology and strategy VP Irving
Wladawsky-Berger asserted Thursday at the LinuxWorld conference in
New York.”

“We are persuaded by the wisdom of this approach already. By
licensing an open source OS, Big Blue can make a very favourable
impression on the thousands of small-to-medium sized business users
for whom the cost of licensing NT is prohibitively high. IBM
may indeed make inroads into Microsoft territory. And if so, they
will finally redeem the colossal folly of OS/2…”

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