IBM: Linux must be commercialized

It is predicted that the Linux installation customer base will be dominant in both the client-run (COE) and server-run (SOE) environments with Windows in the next four years. It is naturally difficult for IBM to ignore the huge commercial profits of this fast-growing market and this open platform.

Previously, Because IBM servers have always taken UNIX as the architectural standard, most of the solutions and software products are also centered on UNIX, IBM's Linux strategy has been widely questioned by the industry, at this Linux world Conference, IBM expressed its confidence in Linux with actual initiatives.

During the meeting, IBM announced that new customers and ISVs were using or supporting Linux running on POWER processor-based systems. Previously, the IBM eServer p series, a UNIX server that is one of the IBM trump card product lines, started to apply Linux policies based on the POWER architecture at the beginning of this year. Currently, both IBM eServer p series and I series can run SUSE and Red Hat Linux operating systems on IBM POWER processor-based system architecture.

Brian Connors, vice president of IBM Linux on POWER, said, "IBM promises to provide customers with the most standard-based technical options by porting Linux applications to the POWER platform, ISV has two different customer groups, and customers of series I and Series p have more options."

IBM also announced that it would donate more than 0.5 million lines of relational database code (codenamed Derby) to the Apache Software Foundation (ASF) for actual support to open-source code organizations and partners. It is said that this is only one of the more than 150 projects that IBM donated to the open source code organization, and IBM originally planned to earn more than $0.5 billion in revenue by selling the software.

According to IBM, Derby is a Java-based relational database with a fully embedded 2 MB capacity without management support, without the need for enterprise-level database systems, developers can use this software to easily build and deploy applications and workloads. IBM's goal is to occupy a 30% market share of enterprise database solutions.

"This is a major initiative made by IBM to promote open computing. It also provides developers and customers with new options for developing Java-based embedded database functions, and hopes to promote the commercialization of Linux more quickly, "Zheng Miao-Qin, General Manager of the IBM China Software Development Center, said:" Linux is only available after commercialization."

IBM also announced that Derby has received support from 12 business partners and Linux distributors such as Red Hat, Novell/Suse, Turbolinux, and Red Flag. Once Derby is officially approved by ASF, IBM plans to develop IBM Cloudscape products using the same technology as developing Apache code and commercialize them to open up the market.

Andrea cotter, global marketing director of IBM Linux, made it clear: "We strongly support commercial software because it is at the core of the business of the IBM software department. Our business is rewarded by providing value to our customers ."

From: SINA