FairfaxIT: IBM sticks with that penguin

“US sharemarkets have soured on companies selling the nearly
free Linux operating system after anaemic profits have demonstrated
that it is harder to make money from Linux than was previously
thought.”

“But this reality hasn’t affected the enthusiasm of IBM, which
sees Linux as a dream come true and has become the platform’s most
vigorous commercial backer after investing some $US1.3 billion
($2.3 billion) in Linux development in the past six months. That’s
quite a vote of confidence from the world’s largest producer of
information technology, but one that illustrates how desperately
IBM has been looking for a way to bridge the substantial gaps
between its existing OS/390, AIX, OS/400 and Windows NT/2000-based
servers.“

“In the past, customers have had to choose one of IBM’s
platforms and stick with it, since each is an entity in itself and
it’s difficult to transfer applications from one system to the
other as the business grows. But because free access to Linux’s
source code means that it can be tailored to each of IBM’s servers,
Linux will provide a way for customers to move applications easily
between servers as their needs mature.”

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