IBM dumps MS

[a12ctic]

IBM switching to Linux destops in Germany according to a Linux Forum 2006 presentation by their head of open source and Linux sales in Germany.

Interesting news from LinuxForum 2006

During a presentation on IBM's involvement with Open Source, Andreas Pleschek from IBM in Stuttgart, Germany, who heads open source and Linux technical sales across North East Europe for IBM made a very interesting statement...

"Andreas Pleschek also told that IBM has cancelled their contract with Microsoft as of October this year. That means that IBM will not use Windows Vista for their desktops. Beginning from July, IBM employees will begin using IBM Workplace on their new, Red Hat-based platform. Not all at once - some will keep using their present Windows versions for a while. But none will upgrade to Vista."

The question is, does this only apply to IBM in Germany, or IBM world wide?

If ALL of IBM switches to Linux desktops and OpenOffice... that would be a very significant loss to Microsoft; not only in direct licensing revenues, but also in speeding adoption of Linux by other companies. After all, if IBM can run on Linux desktops...

No ms licenses, very impressive im really interested into were this will head...

Link: http://www.neoseeker.com/news/story/5436/

[CodeRoot]

Hopefully, others will follow...

[techieMoe]

Just to be the devil's advocate: it's in Germany. If IBM were planning a *worldwide* switch that would be one thing. This is no different IMO than Massachusetts adopting the ODF standard for their government documents: it's great for MA (and in this case Germany) but unless a lot of other people follow suit it's relatively insignificant in the long run.

[George Harrison]

Just to be the devil's advocate: it's in Germany. If IBM were planning a *worldwide* switch that would be one thing. This is no different IMO than Massachusetts adopting the ODF standard for their government documents: it's great for MA (and in this case Germany) but unless a lot of other people follow suit it's relatively insignificant in the long run.

He's correct. I read the article a day or so ago on slashdot, and it's only for IBM in Germany. This is a good start though.

[bidi]

And this is why I think you should always get a second opinion:
http://www.informationweek.com/news/...ection=Columns
Paragraph 5, specially, pertains to this thread.

[techieMoe]

And this is why I think you should always get a second opinion:
http://www.informationweek.com/news/...ection=Columns
Paragraph 5, specially, pertains to this thread.

That makes a lot more sense. For those who don't want to read the article, here's some excerpts:

"The Linux plan is for people who have a need for Linux, as part of their jobs, [and they will be the ones who] will use it," Kaplan said. "We have not made Linux available to the general employee population and there are no plans to do that."

IBM started standardizing on Red Hat's Enterprise Linux product last year, after signing a deal in which the Linux distributor would provide support, Kaplan said. IBM does not plan to switch employees currently using Windows to Red Hat.

Andreas Pleschek, head of open source and Linux technical sales across Northeast Europe, was erroneously quoted this week as saying IBM had cancelled its Windows contract with Microsoft as of October, and did not intend to upgrade to Vista, the next major upgrade of the operating system, Kaplan said.

As to whether IBM would upgrade to Vista, the company was in the process of evaluating the OS and had not made a decision, Kaplan said.