a great response from IBM
|
| Author | Content |
|---|---|
| gus3 Sep 29, 2007 5:36 PM EDT |
I attended the Ohio Linux Fest today, and dared to ask one of the IBM reps: "Do you have any plans to port AIX to an Intel-based platform?" The rep I was talking to got a horrified look on her face, but without missing a beat, another rep standing nearby answered, "We already have it. It's called Linux." |
| dinotrac Sep 29, 2007 5:49 PM EDT |
IBM has been on board with Linux for a long time. Back at the beginning of 2000, I went to Linuxworld New York and had the chance to chat with a number of IBM folk. The conversation that most struck me was a visit I had with some mainframe guys who were there beating the drums for Linux on the Z-series. At that point, mainframes were seen as a technology in decline, dinosaurs slowly dying off. In fact, new customers had ceased to buy mainframes. New mainframes went to existing customers, period. The IBM guys told me that, thanks to Linux on the mainframe, they had recorded their first conquest sales, sales to non-current customers, in quite some time. I knew at that time that IBM had seen the light: Microsoft had screwed them over on OS/2, but free software could make them great big piles of money. Oddly, a former editor-in-chief of this site got real huffy over this story. He tried to tell me I didn't know what I knew, that IBM was yanking everybody's chain. He's welcome to his opinion, of course, but I don't think that ensuing events support it. |
You cannot post until you login.