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IBM, Silicon Graphics move on Linux

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CIOL Bureau
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At the start of the LinuxWorld Expo in New York this week, Silicon Graphics

made a dramatic commitment to the upstart Linux operating system, while IBM

added to its already strong endorsement of the open source software as a viable

corporate solution by announcing that its line of Network Station thin client

computer terminals can now run Linux and Linux applications residing on powerful

network servers.

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Silicon Graphics said it has re-assigned some 300 employees to support the

company's new Linux-based products and support services. SG will open 23 Linux

service centers around the world offer classes on using Linux and offer a range

of Intel processor-based servers from a basic $4,600 Internet server to a

$125,000 machine with 32 processors to manage a wide variety of corporate tasks

from e-mail, file serving, Web hosting, video streaming and data management.

"Nobody else is as committed to Linux as we are. If you look at what

other companies are doing, they plan to run Unix on Intel or NT on Intel. Intel

and Linux is our strategic future," said Jan Silverman, marketing vice

president of Silicon Graphics. Analysts, however, said SG is late entering the

Linux space and will be competing with IBM, Dell and Compaq who declared their

support early on. And until the Linux OS become more robust in large enterprise

applications, the commitment also appears a bit risky.

Unlike other companies who have make a business out of the free Linux OS by

bundling it with hardware or adding new features to the OS itself, SG wants to

offer "plug-and-play" solutions to help transform Linux from a

hobbyist/small business OS to a mainstream corporate networking operating

system. "A lot of companies are interested in Linux because it provides a

very cost-effective solution and because they can modify it to meet their

specific needs. You can't do that with Solaris or NT. But they don't want to

spend time and effort developing, installing and maintaining a Linux solution.

So we'll do that for them," Silverman said.

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Meanwhile, IBM said it has posted details on configuring the Network Station

servers and clients for Linux. "We are definitely embracing Linux where it

makes sense. We're working with the Linux community to make it a better

operating system," said Irving Wladawsky-Berger, vice president of

technology and strategy for IBM's enterprise systems unit.

Besides the Network Station Series 2200 and 2800, IBM previously made Linux

available for its ThinkPad notebooks, IntelliStation workstations and Netfinity

PC servers. Additional announcements are expected in the coming months as IBM

has pledged to support Linux for all of its server lines. IBM also announced

last week that is has made key Java software components the company has

developed for its own computers to leading distributors of Linux, including Red

Hat, Caldera and TurboLinux.

Both Silicon Graphics and IBM are using Linux to help the company fight

business battles on two fronts; Microsoft and its Windows NT network OS on one

and Sun Microsystems and its Solaris OS on the other. IBM hope its support will

help accelerate the ability of Linux to establish itself as a third option for

running computer networks, while struggling Silicon Graphics hopes the low-cost

solution of the Linux OS platform will give the company a competitive edge over

Sun, HP and other competitors in the Unix market.

With its low-cost open-source distribution system, Linux is expected to

compete effectively with Windows NT/2000 in the market for small and mid-size

companies, while Sun appears to have a solid position against either in the

higher enterprise and Internet markets. "For the Internet space, Linux is

the direction of the market," said Wladawsky-Berger. "We see Linux

doing for applications what the Internet did for networking. And Linux is very

popular around the world, so we can go hire programmers in India, Europe or

China."

But even Wladawsky-Berger conceeded that for now, the small and mid-size

market is where Linux will have the bulk of its impact. "The software

system will require a lot of work before it can be made ready to handle

industrial-strength business tasks. We cannot look out ten years to see if Linux

will develop into the dominant operating system for heavier operations, but we

are positioning well if it does."

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