“Jockeying to cut to the front of the Linux world, IBM has
demonstrated an uncanny affinity for the once-renegade operating
system, sinking not only dollars and engineering time but also
unimpeachable corporate reputation into Linux products and
enhancements.”
“IBM is apparently hoping to see a string of deals like the one
signed by Japanese convenience store Lawson, which agreed to buy
15,000 IBM servers running Red Hat Linux last month. Lawson,
headquartered in Osaka, plans to use Linux-based terminals to offer
customers multimedia downloads throughout its 7,600 stores.”
“Longer-term, IBM is hoping to meet some broad goals. The
technology giant hopes it has in Linux what Microsoft potentially
sees in Windows: a single operating system popular across the
entire computing spectrum, from desktops, laptops and PDAs to
wireless devices and other emerging computing environments.”