"Is IBM's support isolated? Yes. Is that support impactful in
and of itself? Perhaps not. But with the recent layoffs and stock
devaluation of various Linux distributors, the Big Blue nod acts as
a vital impetus to boost momentum in the open-source development
community. At the very least, IBM's move serves to indicate
that old masters of the proprietary game, such as Sun and
Microsoft, must certainly take heed."
"But it's really the price tag more than the capabilities that
has made Linux so attractive for distributing workload. As
high-bandwidth, on-demand application delivery becomes increasingly
pervasive, Linux's low cost will become the leveraging factor to
effectively meet the scalability challenges taxing our enterprise
resources."
"Linux has to go a long way to win the complete confidence of IT
professionals. But with increasing commitment from open-source and
industry heavyweights, it might gain the impetus it needs to prove
its mettle in 2001."
