"Nearly a billion dollars. That's the amount that IBM CEO Lou
Gerstner says IBM will spend on Linux next year. Gerstner made his
announcement in a speech at the mid-December eBusiness Conference
Expo in New York City, during which he mentioned the L-word a dozen
times -- underscoring the importance that Big Blue is placing on
Linux in its overall strategy...."
"Vaughan, the senior news editor at ITworld.com, and I had the
opportunity recently to discuss the plans for that money with
Daniel Frye, director of IBM's Linux Technology Center. For those
of you who might have been wondering: no, the billion dollars does
not include funds for purchasing or creating a Linux distribution
of IBM's own. Frye says the company has no interest in having a
distribution."
"We did learn that the money represents the budget allocations
earmarked for Linux for all IBM divisions next year. It includes
things like training, programmer salaries, research, marketing,
support of open source projects, and funding. The funding is for
things like the Open Source Development Lab announced in August by
IBM, HP, Intel, and NEC, which will give Linux developers the
opportunity to test their code on top-end equipment."
