IBM pun "terjun" ke bisnis LINUX. Saya ambil dari artikel ZDNet hari
ini...
IMW
NB : masih inget email saya ttg future dari Linux...? , apa bukan
sekarnag
saat yang tepat untuk beralih belajar LINUX ?
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IBM to offer 24 x 7 support for Red Hat Linux?
Mon, 21 Dec 1998 07:00:00 GMT
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IBM could play a central role in the defining moment for Linux and
freeware. Indeed, the main stumbling block to widespread corporate
adoption
of Linux -- the lack of 24 x 7 service and support -- could melt away,
if IBM Corp. has its way.
For the past month, channel sources have expected IBM to announce a
sweeping service and support agreement for Red Hat Software's Red Hat
Linux. Red Hat officials would not comment on the rumor, but did say Red
Hat is in the process of staffing up its own call center to handle
service
and support calls starting in January. IBM officials declined to
comment, as well.
But what's really held IBM back from an official support alliance with
Red Hat, say sources close to the company, are legal issues. If IBM
supports
Linux the way it supports other operating systems, it will need to tweak
the operating system itself, and that could raise liability questions
neither
IBM nor its many partners want to deal with.
The question is how to do it without exposing IBM and its partners,"
says one source familiar with IBM's plans. "With a general public
license,
there are some exposures with liability and how open are the patents if
you modify the code. The best way to solve this is by cleaning up the
license. IBM has been asked by the distributors (such as Red Hat) to
support Linux. You can expect something to be in place by midyear."
The source noted that IBM does not view Linux support as a means of
combating Windows NT. Instead, Big Blue sees the freeware as a growing
opportunity in the education and government markets, as well as
corporate departments-where it is used for Web serving, as well as file
and print
services.
IBM is no stranger to open source in general, and Linux, in particular.
The company has discussed publicly its ports of DB2 Universal Database
and MQSeries middleware to Linux. Also, commercially available versions
of Linux run today on IBM RS/6000 systems.
Additionally, IBM's Netfinity group is quietly providing service and
support for Linux on Netfinity servers on a case-by-case basis, company
officials confirm. An IBM Netfinity spokesman says IBM currently is
receiving 8 to 10 requests for Linux preloads per month.
We don't quite have all the support pieces there, like drivers," says
the IBM spokesman, "but our Business Partners are loading it. You can
get
[Linux] support from IBM, and resellers can sell you that support." The
spokesman confirms, however, that the primary forces holding back IBM
from going whole-hog with Linux support are unanswered
intellectual-property concerns. "What does the freeware model do, from
an
intellectual-property perspective? There's a group within the Netfinity
team assessing market demand, potential business impacts and the like.
So far, we haven't seen a tremendous amount of demand from our business
partners and customers, but there is a lot of interest."
IBM's data-management group, likewise, is watching to see whether the
Linux market will grow sufficiently to warrant consideration as another
major OS platform from IBM. In December, IBM made available for download
a beta version of DB2 for Linux. It is evaluating whether and
when to port other data-management components -- including Visual
Warehouse, DB2 OLAP server and data-mining tools -- to Linux,
according to Jim Kelly, VP of data-management marketing with IBM
Software Solutions.
Not all IBM divisions are equally jazzed about Linux, however. The AIX
software group is taking care to distance itself from Linux. "The
average
AIX and Linux customers are very different," says a corporate spokesman
for the AIX division. "Linux users want to do their own thing and have
the time and technical knowledge to play with the code. AIX users want
an OS that will be backwards-compatible and has overall business and
technical reliability, plus full support throughout."
Reported by Mary Jo Foley., Ed Sperling. and Esther Schindler.
IBM's Linux Targets
Definite:
DB2 UDB 5.2, Q2 1999
ObjectREXX, available now
Jikes, announced earlier this month
MQSeries client, available now
ADSM v3.0 client (unsupported)
Netfinity
Under Consideration:
Tivoli Management Framework
Team Connection (a.k.a. CMVC)
VisualAge for Java/C++
WebSphere/Apache
Data management/mining tools
OLAP
Lotus Notes
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