Archive for the 'Red Hat' Category
Thursday, March 4th, 2010
Elliott Associates, Novell, and primetime IT market speculation
There’s obviously been a lot of talk and speculation since the Elliott Associates announcement. I had started drafting a post looking at the key scenarios and add my own take on how this could play out when I ran into Andy Updegrove’s take over here. Andy nails it. The only part that I’m not “in the boat” on is his take on the Microsoft importance. I actually wonder if this isn’t exactly what a certain person in Redmond wanted though I’ll keep my reasons to myself. ;-)
One thing is for sure – this is going to be a roller coaster ride for Novell execs and employees. Novell actually has a lot of cash relative to its revenues so it was only a matter of time before someone would go raiding. Elliott is in it for a flip profit … and the financials are lined up perfectly. (or someone behind Elliot who is in it for other reasons ;-) This is a savvy move, but also as Andy says a potentially dangerous game – if they win and overpaid.
If you’re reading any analysis of the situation, make sure you read Andy’s take in the link below. At the end of the day, the GPL, Suse, the technology, etc won’t matter – this is going to be a nasty game billion dollar chicken game for profits.
http://www.consortiuminfo.org/standardsblog/article.php?story=20100304051547830
I haven’t seen any article yet, though, that describes in detail how the high stakes game of tender offers is played, and how the usual process maps (and doesn’t) to a high tech company like Novell. So I thought I’d provide an overview for those that haven’t had occasion to follow a tender offer in the past, and also my thoughts on what may happen over the next several months in this particular game of cat and mouse.
Monday, November 9th, 2009
Red Hat makes “strategic investment” in EnterpriseDB (backer of Postgres)
I’m not quite sure how I missed seeing the news until today, but I just noticed that Red Hat made a “strategic investment” in EnterpriseDB – the company behind PostgreSQL. I think this is a very interesting move.
http://www.infoworld.com/d/data-management/red-hat-invests-in-enterprisedb-eye-oracle-and-mysql-855
Many seem to have their concerns or at least questions about Sun+MySQL, but with Oracle in the mix those issues appear to have snowballed into an avalanche. Even the EU has shown its concern. I think a key issue for the Linux community is whether Oracle will create enough impetus to move people away from MySQL’s technology platform or not enough impetus which will make MySQL clones attractive. It’s harder to move wholesale to a new database technology than it would be to move to a different open source clone. But then customers (paying ones) get into the issues of support, fidelity, and roadmaps. The all too repetitive issue of forking will inevitably take center stage.
Two thoughts: 1) what does this mean for a community Linux FOSS database solution and 2) why Postgre SQL?
As for question 1), at the end of the day, I think a strategic question has to be answered. That is whether a FOSS database is important enough to have maintained by an independent community organization/foundation similar to Apache, Eclipse, Mozilla, etc. Not like CodePlex which is a front for 1 company, but a foundation where multiple companies, invested community members and influencers provide some level of guidance/control. MySQL’s code could become that base, or it could be Postgre SQL. However, the current situation is no foundation-led free and open source database platform – which appears at odds with what the community seems to expect out of the “MySQL poster child” for a FOSS database. MySQL is a company and should be treated as such (although it remains to be seen how Oracle treats it…).
As for question 2), I think the savvy move by Red Hat is around Postgres Plus – the “Oracle compatibility” that EnterpriseDB commercially licenses for a fee. (what does Oracle compatibility mean is answered here) Postgres Plus also allows a customer to migrate Oracle-based applications to use a Postgres database engine that “looks like” an Oracle database. Now consider customers constantly complain about Oracle’s license fee increases and consider that at least 20% of any customers Oracle environment is “low priority” Oracle applications that they could pilot moving to another platform and now EnterpriseDB is starting to sound attractive.
I don’t have a crystal or Magic 8 ball to say where this will lead, but I’m sure we’ll all have fun watching ;-) One thing is for sure – MySQL is under pressure from all sides and there’s a viable alternative to Oracle’s core database platform. Now Oracle just needs to figure out if it can fix the mess it’s in with the EU ;-)
Friday, August 7th, 2009
Ohio LinuxFest 2009 Sept 25-26
Just received an email notice from the Ohio LinuxFest team today.
———————————–
It’s only a little more than a month from now, the seventh Ohio LinuxFest. This year we will be celebrating 40 years of Unix!
If you haven’t heard, we are very excited and proud to have Doug McIlroy give a key note address this year. Doug was the head of research department at Bell Laboratories where Unix was invented and is credited for the inventing Unix pipes as well as writing many of the Unix tools we still use in some form today.
Shawn Powers of the Linux Journal will give an address on the current state of Linux, 40 years after the invention of Unix.
Dr. Peter Salus, Bdale Garbee, and Elizabeth Garbee will be returning this year, and more speakers will be announce shortly.
Again, as last year, a set of training classes will be held on Friday before the main conference. These classes are available with the Professional Package registration, and if you are interested, you may upgrade your registration online at ohiolinux.org. Space is limited, so please register early.
Classes include:
* LPI Certification Level One Cram
* Black Magic: Troubleshooting and System Administration
* Disaster Recovery – Will You Survive?
* Spam Filtering With Open-Source Tools
* Linux Terminal Server Project Administration
* Advanced Security – A Self-Assessment Study
* Introduction to LDAP: Provisioning, Managing, and Integrating
See http://www.ohiolinux.org/olfu.html for information and details.
A Diversity in Open Source workshop will be held on Sunday September 27. Please join the conversation on how to improve the way we work together and attract much needed talent to the open source development model.
We are quite pleased to announce Novell is a Platinum Level sponsor Digium as a Gold Level sponsor of Ohio LinuxFest 2009. Other sponsors include Hurricane Labs, Zenoss, Scalable Informatics, Linux Fund, Red Hat, and Peak 10. There is still time left to be a contributing organization. Please send sponsorship inquires to sponsor@ohiolinux.org.
As we are a 501c3 non-profit organization, we depend on sponsorships and attendee registration fees to hold the Ohio LinuxFest. Given the current economic downturn, we are proud to move forward, but if you haven’t done so, please consider purchasing the Supporter Package. With the valuable support from you, we can continue the tradition of Ohio LinuxFest.
Finally, we would like to make an appeal to you to help us get the word out. Time is short! Please tell your friends, coworkers, fellow students, and fellow LUG members about the Ohio LinuxFest. Send emails, post blog entries, and invite people. We have banners and audio at ohiolinux.org and please feel free to use and distribute.
Thank you and see you in Columbus, Mike
PS.
I want to send out a thank you to the people that made Ohio LinuxFest 2009 a reality:
Beth Lynn Eicher, Greg Boehnlein, Dennis “Bear” Palmer, Robert Ball, Moose, Klaatu, Dan Chen, Carol Rutz, Makenzie Morgan, Scott “Skippy” Merrill, Paul Ferris, Kevin Otte, Nicholas Schembri, Sabrina Downard, Jon “maddog” Hall.
Tuesday, February 24th, 2009
IDC’s Al Gillen Covers the Red Hat / Microsoft Virtualization Announcement
I just saw Al Gillen covered the news from Red Hat and Microsoft on virtualization. Note the differences between this announcement and the Novell-Microsoft announcement. Two approaches that both achieve the same general customer result – which approach is better is up to you to decide/discuss ;-)
What’s also interesting is that so far, Red Hat has only submitted for Windows certification on KVM and not yest on RHEL/Xen (which is currently shipping).
http://www.idc.com/getdoc.jsp?containerId=lcUS21686409
The Red Hat and Microsoft agreement simply is about cross-validation/certification and does not have any IP or financial implications.
Wednesday, September 24th, 2008
Red Hat beats estimates and Ohio Linux Fest is Almost Here
I can’t make sense of the “all eggs in a Solaris basket” strategy Sun is on especially when I see Red Hat just launched economic concerns back into the faces of Wall St. analysts by posting 24% growth over last year. Jim Whitehurst seems to be doing just fine in the new role – the Qumranet buy was also brilliant. I have high hopes for what we might see come from the acquisition.
And in other news, Oracle launched its own branded storage hardware product (made by HP) that is based on Linux. All around it’s been a positive day for accelerating growth of Linux.
And for those who haven’t registered, Ohio Linux Fest is coming up soon. I’m proud to say that IBM is once again the primary platinum sponsor (thanks for the funding Alena!). You can sign up here. I can’t say for sure yet, but it looks like Brian Warner from IBM’s Linux Strategy team will be joining me in person. If you’ll be present, send me an email and let’s meet up. There’s a great list of speakers for the event. I’ve never met Joe Brockmeier but I’m hoping to introduce myself at some point.
Thursday, September 4th, 2008
Red Hat Acquires Qumranet For $107M
Red Hat announced today that it will acquire Qumranet, the company behind KVM. Now Qumranet does not make its money on KVM, instead it uses KVM as part of its desktop virtualization solutions. Qumranet is also behind the very efficient SPICE protocol. I think this is a great move on both sides and I’m excited to hear a former IBM colleague’s bold move into a startup has paid off. I knew it would only be a matter of time before Qumranet was acquired, but it’s great to see it finally went through. Great ideas and technology leadership deserve to be rewarded.
I think you can expect to see an increase in KVM usage in RHEL going forward ;-)
I saw the press release here:
Monday, August 18th, 2008
BusinessWeek “Open Source: An Open Question for Red Hat and Others”
Wow, some great quotes are included in this BusinessWeek article on Red Hat and open source software. It’s great to see Jim taking control at the helm. Certainly I agree with much of his views, however, I also see Red Hat in a business that needs to continue contributing to community efforts. While I know he’s guiding that as well, it does not really come out in these comments.
I definitely agree with Aaron about the bleak future for those open source companies who “don’t get it”. I talk about the blunders I see all the time, but I suspect over the next couple years we’ll finally see them go under. I was less inclined to buy into Aaron’s comments inferring that having a free version hurts the market opportunity for selling. That “free version” running on a server the customer deamed not necessary to support is exactly why Red Hat is in the position it is today.
http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/aug2008/tc20080815_938079.htm
Meantime, life has been rough for many of the companies that have bet their business more specifically on open source.
“Open source is not a get-rich-quick scheme,” says Marten Mickos, the former CEO of MySQL and now a senior vice-president at Sun. “You have to have patience.” He adds that the company was 13 years old when it sold.
Many investors won’t wait that long. Venture capitalists invested $196 million in U.S. open-source software companies last year, after pouring in $265 million in 2006, according to market researcher Dow Jones VentureSource.
…
Whitehurst, [..] is shifting engineers and marketers away from nice-to-have projects toward areas where Red Hat gets paid. He’s pulling resources out of consumer desktop Linux, and he shuttered an online store that sold other companies’ open-source programs. “I took a look at that and said, ‘We’re not eBay,’” he says. “Red Hat is open source, but that doesn’t mean we do everything in open source.”
…
“A pure service business is not particularly defensible,” says Whitehurst. “Some open-source companies have not truly figured that out.” If the open-source movement, now in its second decade, is to realize its promise for vendors and investors, more of its purveyors will need to get the message soon.
Wednesday, July 2nd, 2008
The Register Open Season Podcast
This was another interesting podcast. I’m obviously a fan of Mr. Vance (has anyone ever called him “Mr.”?) – maybe I’m the first. I also need to meet Matt Asay at some point… have much to discuss.
Tuesday, June 24th, 2008
Shameless Analyst Report Plug: “IBM & Linux – 9 Years Later”
A colleague sent me a link to this analyst paper today that takes a look at whether IBM has made good on the Linux promises it made back in 1999. I’m obviously biased, but I’m interested in hearing if anyone has thoughts on this topic.
Here’s the report: ftp://ftp.software.ibm.com/linux/pdfs/GCG_IBM_and_Linux-9_years_later.pdf
The opening teaser:
In 1999, IBM issued a series of announcements fully committing the company to supporting Linux. IBM vowed to Linux-enable all of their hardware platforms, including their non-x86 based mainframe, mini, and RISC-based systems. They also promised to release Linux versions of their software products and develop
Linux-centric service practices. Moreover, they pledged significant resources to the Linux community with the goal of advancing Linux and open source technology.So, nine years later, did IBM deliver on these promises? Was their commitment to Linux genuine or just lip service? This report examines IBM’s current Linux products, services, and community support in light of the promises they made in 1999…
While I think it’s obvious IBM has been a huge investor in the Linux community, one thing that I noticed reading the report is just how much IBM is actually different from other community members. There are some noticeable differences in the investments and approach to supporting the Linux platform and community. I often forget to just take in all the Linux technologies IBM has been heavily involved in from Xen, KVM and libvirt to filesystems, to systemtap, kprobes and then there’s RAS, scalability and performance enhancements.
Another interesting thought to reflect on is just how important it has been that there are multiple investors in this field. If this report captures just what IBM did, think of the industry combined. IBM couldn’t have done anything this big with Linux if it weren’t for co-creating with a community of enthusiasts, researchers, governments, Intel, AMD, Google, Nokia, Motorola, Oracle and thousands more. What would the report look like if you compiled all the investments and work the entire community leveraged across the industry. Linux is “bigger than huge” when you stop to think about it. This is also why I’ve said for a couple years now when you extend the investment model 3 to 5 years into the future, Sun and its anti-Linux, Solaris push against the tide of the industry loses in the end. I think we’re starting to witness that now. Sure, OpenSolaris is a great idea… it’s just 9 years late and it’s too late to matter now.
I’m interested in outside perspectives too – where do you think IBM stands? Has the community development and investment model worked? Where will this lead in the future and what will be the next evolution of the model? Red Hat seems to think the model will evolve to include increased customer co-creation – I tend to agree. Why? Because the incentive model to invest aligns very well – and when you have alignment, it almost naturally will happen.
Friday, June 20th, 2008
Red Hat bridges patents to the GPL – without coupons
Red Hat made a very interesting move in resolving patent litigation and opened a new intellectual property bridge between GPL software and patent rights. Red Hat fought for the community on this one settling with provisions to also protect up/downstream developers and distributors. This really was a crafty move and the SFLC appears to have blessed it as well. Groklaw quotes Eben saying:
“Red Hat’s settlement of outstanding patent litigation on terms that provide additional protection to other members of the community upstream and downstream from Red Hat is a positive contribution to the resources for community patent defense. We would hope to see more settlements of this kind–in which parties secure more than their own particular legal advantage in relation to the third-party patent risk of the whole FOSS community–when commercial redistributors of FOSS choose to settle patent litigation. SFLC welcomes Red Hat’s efforts on the community’s behalf.”
I need to spend more time thinking about all the implications of this, but one thing is clear… Steve Ballmer was not required to build this “bridge” ;-)
Tuesday, April 29th, 2008
Shameless Plug: IBM Next Generation Linux Event in NYC
If you’re in the NYC area, IBM is hosting a great “Next Generation Linux” event at the Hilton on Church St. It should be a great day of speakers discussing where Linux is heading, what makes Linux unique and “special”, and what workloads are great for running Linux. It’s a packed session from 9-12 (breakfast at 8 if you’re an early riser).
You can register here:
https://www-950.ibm.com/events/wwe/grp/grp017.nsf/agenda?openform&seminar=692H5MES&locale=en_US/
| Time | Description |
|---|---|
| 8:00 am | Registration & Continental Breakfast |
| 9:00 am | Welcome & Introduction |
Linux and Innovation
|
|
| Break | |
Linux for Business-Critical Workloads
|
|
| Break | |
Breakout Sessions
|
|
| A Customer’s Perspective: Linux for Business Critical Workloads | |
| 12:00 pm | Wrap Up & Q&A |
| RSVP for Lunch! Take this opportunity to chat with the speakers and to network |
Wednesday, April 23rd, 2008
Ubuntu 8.04 “Hardy Heron” arrives tomorrow
Unless you’ve been without internet access for days, you should know by now that Ubuntu’s next release is due tomorrow and that is always an exciting time. So fire up your fastest mirror tomorrow and see how much bandwidth you can grab before a billion others do the same ;)
I really like the direction Mark is taking with Ubuntu on the server. One, it offers a competing model for the industry compared to the RHEL/SLES model, two Ubuntu is pushing the technology further (e.g. KVM) and making it very easy for users to adopt (ala Microsoft Windows), and finally, it’s one platform that does well in many circles from desktop to server (ala Windows). So while Red Hat, Novell and Oracle fight over what’s left of Sun’s Solaris install base and grab some of the Windows opportunity, Ubuntu is driving straight into the Windows Vista SP1 Party with a fresh alternative. Now let’s just get those “Apple-like” Ubuntu systems we need with all the Adobe apps on them ;-)
Ubuntu article: http://www.linuxworld.com/news/2008/042108-ubuntu-linux-takes-on-enterprise.html?page=1
P.S. I claim absolutely no insight into what amount of sheer stupidity or drunkenness led to that Microsoft video link. I think sogrady said it best with just, “words fail me”.
Thursday, April 3rd, 2008
Are April Fools’ posts for fools? Are you fooled? I pity the fool
Ask a good IP lawyer you know whether Jonathan *could* do this if he suddenly wanted to… ask your IP savvy lawyer to read the Solaris 10 license, then the Contributor Agreement, patents that could cover Solaris and explain to you what IP a vendor could still control or use against you if you were to start making OpenSPARC chips, ship Solaris around the world, etc… You may also look at what Solaris products you actually might use on a server… and the IP/licenses associated there. Have you seen anyone benchmarking Solaris 10 and publishing results online? Oh, that’s right, it’s not allowed (See the post from emantion near the end). Was that a surprise to you considering all the “open” messaging you may be hearing? Did you confuse OpenSolaris with Solaris 10?
Then consider that while the CDDL isn’t too bad, it was intentionally developed to be incompatible with the GPL and the only open source OS to really matter, the Linux kernel. (Sorry BSD guys… I know… you’re hurt, but … sorry) Once you have an answer from your astute lawyer, I’d ask, would having all that power and control in one vendor concern you? Could they take it away?
http://blogs.sun.com/jonathan/entry/a_new_strategy
I pity the fool.
Now ask your lawyer to read the GPL license that comes with RHEL, Debian, Ubuntu, Asianux, OEL or SLES (ignoring MSFT/Novell for the moment). Simpler? Want to post a benchmark comparing any Linux distro’s performance? Go right ahead. Can any 1 vendor stop you? No…
Continuing this line of thought, now look at where all the other industry vendors participating in mass open source collaboration are heavily investing right now, today, and tomorrow. You can read about this over at the Linux Foundation (yes, the second plug for this fine work). Or you can look at Apache or even one that surprises me daily, Eclipse.
http://www.linux-foundation.org/publications/linuxkerneldevelopment.php
And some actually are still surprised that Red Hat keeps growing amid pointed attacks from Sun, Microsoft, and Oracle? “First they ignore you, then they ridicule you, then they fight you, then you win.”
Winning was just the next step ;-) Congratulations Red Hat, Novell, Debian, and Ubuntu.
Thursday, April 3rd, 2008
Who really writes “Linux”? A special report from the Linux Foundation
Steven posted a good eWeek article summarizing the recent Linux Foundation report on who writes and contributes to the Linux kernel development. Too many have written blogs with titles like “who writes Linux” that I had to put “Linux” in quotes in my title. The reason is that this document/report is about the Linux kernel and there are many things that people commonly associate with “Linux” that are outside the kernel. Think of Gnome which is written by the Gnome community, KDE which is sponsored by Trolltech, package management tools from Red Hat, Debian or Novell (e.g. YaST, Apt Yum), a multitude of libraries, and even OpenOffice which is still controlled by Sun, but now with contributions from IBM.
So I would agree this report is fantastic – it provides a view into what’s going on beyond what we “think” happens. The Linux kernel community is a great success story in what Amanda calls “mass community collaboration” – even more ironic because there are many competitors, vendors, academics, hobbyists, customers and other random experts collaborating in one place.
Read the report (it’s “free as in beer”) and find out everything you wanted to know about Linux kernel development (including perhaps that IBM is the #3 contributor to the kernel). The story this report tells is a truly unique feature of the Linux community. You won’t see it anywhere in the communities or practices of other OSs, no matter how “open” they proclaim to have become.
The report is interesting in how it also debunks some myths that somehow get spread around. For instance, some have said “kernel development will slow down as the features catch up to UNIX/Windows”. Not true.
Some have said “Linux is just IBM” or “Linux is just Red Hat” trying to position Linux as dominated or caused by one entity that they’re not fond of. Again, not true (see the section of the report on Contributors).
Finally, take a look at how some end user companies are participating and reaping the benefits of a true collaborative development community. Did you know your next VW will be powered by Linux? Did you ever think the same features that make an auto’s systems “crash-proof” could also help on a server or mobile phone? The VW bullet is a pure example of innovation being applied to adjacent spaces – it would never happen in Windows, AIX or Solaris.
- Companies like Sony, Nokia, and Samsung ship Linux as a component of products like video cameras, television sets, and mobile telephones. Working with the development process helps these companies ensure that Linux will continue to be a solid base for their products in the future.
- Companies which are not in the information technology business can still find working with Linux beneficial. The 2.6.25 kernel will include an implementation of the PF_CAN network protocol which was contributed by Volkswagen. PF_CAN allows for reliable communications between components in an interference-prone environment – such as that found in an automobile. Linux gave Volkswagen a platform upon which it could build its networking code; the company then found it worthwhile to contribute the code back so that it could be maintained with the rest of the kernel. http://lwn.net/Articles/253425/ for more information on this work.
So with that I will end my praises and simply point you to the source over at the LF website here.
Friday, March 7th, 2008
Red Hat adds strong talent to its legal team
Nice move by Red Hat picking up two well respected attorneys for its team:
http://www.linux-watch.com/news/NS5130424739.html
Wednesday, February 27th, 2008
SELinux really does work as intended (and mitigates casualties)
Just saw this interesting update on some of the real world successes of SELinux.
Linux security experts are reporting a growing list of real-world security situations in which the US National Security Agency’s SELinux security framework contains the damage resulting from a flaw in other software. These so-called “mitigations” are showing that a Linux feature that began as an esoteric security measure is starting to prove its worth.
The article also references Dan Walsh’s LiveJournal entry here.
Wednesday, February 13th, 2008
Linux Foundation Collaboration Summit Speakers are Lining Up
Speakers for 2nd Linux Foundation Collaboration Summit Announced!
We are pleased to announce the speaker line up for the upcoming Linux Foundation Collaboration Summit at the Austin Supercomputing Center. The speakers, like the attendees of the summit, represent leaders from the developer, industry and end user communities surrounding Linux. Don’t miss the opportunity to collaborate with these individuals on April 8-10, 2008 at the UT Austin Supercomputing Center.
Speakers for the Panel and Keynote Showcase on April 8 already include:
- Kernel maintainers and developers James Bottomley, Jon Corbet, Dave Jones, Christoph Lameter, Ted Ts’o, Chris Wright and others will discuss the state of the Linux kernel community
- Dan Frye, head of IBM’s Linux Technology Center, Christine Martino, vice president of the Open Source & Linux Organization at HP and Wim Coekaerts, vice president of Linux Engineering for Oracle will share their perspective on what Linux means to their companies and where it’s headed
- Senior representatives from LiMO, Open Handset Alliance, Moblin, OpenMoko, LiPS and others will discuss Linux and mobile: why it’s so strong and where it’s going
- Linux is now shipping on multiple hardware offerings. Hear from John Hull of Dell, Bdale Garbee of HP and representatives of ASUS, Acer, Everex and Lenovo on why they chose Linux and what they need from the Linux community to make it succeed
- IDC Analyst Al Gillen will share important new data on Linux deployment worldwide
- MySQL CEO Marten Mikos will discuss his company’s recent billion dollar acquisition by Sun Microsystems and MySQL’s continued commitment to the Linux platform.
This is truly an unbelievable assortment of people. The Collaboration Summit will have representatives from all the big names in Linux from Intel, AMD, HP, Texas Instruments, Google, NTT, Fujitsu, Hitachi, Dell, Red Hat, Novell, NEC, Sony, Motorola, Mozilla, GNOME Foundation, Nokia, Bull and dozens more. Additionally, the first day is an opportunity to meet press and analysts from eWeek, InformationWeek, BusinessWeek, Gartner Group, IDC and more.
Last year’s event filled up quickly. Please apply to attend this event if you feel you should be there:
ttps://www.linux-foundation.org/events/collaboration
This unique, invitation-only event bring together the brightest minds in the Linux ecosystem from the kernel, end user, desktop, legal and vendor communities to collaborate on the advancement of the Linux platform. Attendees can expect purposive discussion, examination and debate through engaging plenary session content and workgroup meetings. Breakout sessions contain all the domain expertise and key
players necessary to make immediate contributions to the platform.
You can see more detailed agenda information here:
https://www.linux-foundation.org/events/collaboration/program/agenda
This is a *free* event for LF members or key individuals needed to advance the Linux platform.
Additional benefits include:
• Special networking evening reception “Shark vs. Penguin” on Tuesday night in downtown Austin. Food, drinks and transportation provided.
• IBM Reception and Solutions Experience Lab Tour on Wednesday evening, including food and drinks.
Saturday, January 26th, 2008
Coverage on IBM’s Open Collaboration Client Solution with Ubuntu
Saw a few articles today on IBM’s OCCS announcement with Ubuntu.
Satyadas said IBM thinks that this year, it will happen. “All the stars are lining up,” he said. “Everybody has been saying that since 2001 except IBM. We never said that, but we are saying that now.”
It’s easy to overlook IBM’s announcement that its Lotus Notes and Lotus Symphony suites will run on Ubuntu. I think this would be a mistake. IBM is not a dumb company. It’s not in the habit of wasting resources. For IBM to be partnering up with Ubuntu says something about the enterprise mindset on Ubuntu.
By porting key software to Linux, IBM is looking to give businesses one less reason to buy products from rival Microsoft — which IBM said offers “a proprietary desktop model.” IBM’s Linux efforts will “further address customer demands around choice,” said Inna Kuznetsova, an IBM executive with responsibility for Linux, in a statement.
Monday, January 21st, 2008
Ubuntu and IBM bring enterprise collaboration to a user friendly Linux desktop
I read this news release with great excitement and will take a shameless opportunity to plug what I think is a fantastic partnership. The news? IBM’s Lotus group has announced support of its Open Collaboration Client Solution (OCCS) for Ubuntu Linux. OCCS is a layer of rich client communications apps including IBM Lotus Notes 8.5 (Calendaring, Email), Sametime 7.x (Instant Messaging), and Symphony (OpenOffice in an Eclipse RCP form). I’ve switched to Ubuntu for my primary system at home for well over a year now and while I took a very short break to dabble in Fedora 8, I’m back on Ubuntu again. I’ve been using a RHEL5 base at work for over a year as well but now that we have Ubuntu support coming, I’ll probably switch to Ubuntu once the OCCS solution is released (yes, I work in a strategy group in IBM and I don’t use Windows or MS Office – and most people can’t tell). The thing about working in IBM is that everyone uses Notes, Sametime, and ODF is even becoming more popular so there’s very little that prevents anyone from using Linux (or a Mac). Heck, many users can probably get away with an iPhone.
IBM also expanded the OCCS platform support with Red Hat EL Desktop and announced more partners around OCCS on Novell’s Suse Linux Enterprise Desktop (SLED).
What makes all this even better? Enterprise applications delivered in a rich client environment. Take for instance SAP, who today announced a joint product set with IBM that will be delivered through Lotus Notes (which we now know runs well on Linux)
The product, codenamed Atlantic, will allow users to access SAP’s Business Suite applications for workflows, reporting and analytics through IBM’s Lotus Notes desktop software.
So the ecosystem and vision is starting to come together. It’s early, but I would be remiss if I didn’t mention again that 2008 will be the year of the enterprise Linux client ;-) How many users will we be saying this for? :-) (Note, I didn’t say ‘desktop’ specifically, and I said ‘enterprise’). As we’ve been saying all along, there are certain segments of users that can easily do their work on a Linux client (many won’t even know it’s not Windows). Those companies who take advantage of user segmentation have a lot to benefit from both on pure cost alone, but also in the next round of negotiations on your non-Linux client systems ;-)
Friday, January 18th, 2008
Mike Strosaker Takes on Sun’s Predictive Self Healing Claims
Mike Strosaker has a couple points to make about Sun’s claims of predictive self healing relative to Linux. One thing I’ve noticed is that Sun (and Microsoft) always compare one of their features to Linux on Intel/AMD and ignore the capabilities of Linux on Power, Itanium or Mainframe platforms (which, btw are growing faster than Linux on x86). It’s time to wakeup and realize that Linux runs anywhere and takes on the capabilities of the hardware platform.
Check it out Mike’s comparison here for the details: http://zombieprocess.wordpress.com/2008/01/10/predictive-self-healing-on-linux-on-power/
Sun frequently touts their “predictive self-healing” implementation in Solaris 10. I wonder if that bullet point would be further down the list if they were familiar with the error detection, prediction, and correction capabilities of Linux on POWER platforms. In fact, the Linux on POWER implementation precedes the Solaris 10 implementation by at least a year (Solaris 10 was released in January 2005; SLES 8 had this solution for POWER in 2003, and RHEL 3 had it in 2004 at the latest).
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