Building upon the company's commitment to help clients transform businesses, IBM (NYSE: IBM) rolled out its next generation blueprint and roadmap to advance key Linux development priorities and support for open source business models.With the announcement, IBM unveiled eight key open source initiatives beyond Linux, aimed at accelerating the adoption of open standards and extending existing product lines to reach new customers. IBM also announced new work with the open source community to improve the development of general Linux kernel functionality, expanding its Linux focus around virtualization, Cell processor technologies, and security.
"IBM is going to be as bold and aggressive with open source as we are with Linux, more broadly and permanently transforming our company with the open movement," said Scott Handy, Vice President Linux and Open Source, IBM. "IBM is expanding our commitment to the open community by extending our development focus in key emerging areas as well as defining our open source business priorities."
Company Targets Key Open Source Business Opportunities Beyond Linux
Building upon the strong success of its Linux business, IBM plans to now seize upon the market opportunity for customers benefiting from open source and open standards technologies and business models beyond Linux. Targeting eight open source business opportunity areas beyond Linux, IBM's software, hardware and services organizations are using open source business models and a new collaborative development blueprint, modeled on its extensive experience with Linux, Eclipse and Apache. This business strategy is aimed at accelerating the adoption of open computing, creating additional revenue from both open source and private source offerings, and extending IBM's value and reach to new customers.
The eight new disciplines focusing on open source business opportunities include:
o Client-side Middleware - Supporting the Eclipse Rich Client Platform project for hosting cross-platform applications.
o Development Tools - Built on Eclipse, a universal open integration platform of frameworks and exemplary tools.
o Web Application Servers - Based on Apache open source projects like Geronimo.
o Data Servers - Building on the open source Apache Derby and no-license fee IBM DB2 Express-C.
o Systems Management - Including open source Aperi storage project.
o Open Hardware Architectures - Community-driven collaborative innovation with Power.org and Blade.org.
o Grid Computing - Expanded support for Open Grid Services Architecture and the Globus Alliance.
o IBM Research/Business Consulting and Technology Services - Enabling customers to innovate with open source-based solutions and development models.
IBM Linux Technology Center Targets Key Kernel Initiatives:
The market opportunity for Linux approached nearly seven billion dollars in overall revenue, growing some 35% in 2005. Linux grew five times faster than Windows and eight times faster than the overall server market. [1] Moreover, in 2007, Linux is expected to surpass Windows as an operating system for which developers write applications according to a recent survey of developers working with open source software conducted by Evans Data Corporation. [2]
IBM is the largest contributor to open source community projects including work at IBM's Linux Technology Center, which has some 600 engineers in 40 locations worldwide, of whom more than 300 work full-time on Linux as part of the open source community.
"The latest innovations being integrated into the Linux kernel represent some of the most significant development initiatives underway at IBM's Linux Technology Center since like-minded opponents of vendor lock-in made source code freely available to anyone to use fifteen years ago," Handy said.
With today's announcement the company is focusing on a blueprint that includes these and other key development innovations:
o Integrate Cell BE processor Into Linux Kernel - - IBM developers are integrating support for Cell BE processor technologies in the Linux kernel and creating Cell software development tools available for download. Additionally, IBM is working with select customers to refine and validate design choices and develop new Cell BE processor-specific tools and plug-ins for application developers. Support for Cell hardware will be provided through standard Linux distributions. IBM will develop Linux on POWER for Cell systems to help customers refine and validate design choices and offer new Cell BE processor-specific tools and plug-ins for application developers. The company's Quasar Design Center will provide product support for the cell hardware roadmap and support through standard Linux distributions.
o Further Next-Generation Security - - Addressing customer demand for easy-to-use application, user, and data protection, IBM developers are working with the community to extend Security-Enhanced Linux. This security underpinning of the Linux kernel compartmentalizes applications and services into distinct security domains, providing a highly secure platform for applications or data. Key initial adopters include government and financial services. The company is working with Red Hat on Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 compliance with Common Criteria Evaluated Assurance Level (EAL) 4+, Labeled Security Protection Profile (LSPP), Role Based Access Control Protection Profile (RBAC), and Controlled Access Protection Profile (CAPP). Developers are also collaborating with Novell on AppArmor application confinement, and driving the development of an enterprise class native encrypted file system.
o Extend Open Source Virtualization - - IBM technology experts are working on key components of open source virtualization software with focus in the areas of systems management, security, and POWER architecture enablement. The move builds upon IBM's 40-plus years of virtualization experience on the mainframe. IBM recently contributed code from its IBM Director systems management product to the community for the management of virtual systems. IBM's work is designed to help accelerate a common management module that spans across both the physical and virtual infrastructures.
IBM will also continue to work with partners in the community on a vast array of additional Linux initiatives such as improving kernel performance through a SystemTap toolkit, expanding support for Linux on the desktop, Samba, kernel scalability, customer testing, and countless other projects.
Company Surpasses 15,000 Linux Customer Engagements Worldwide
With today's news, IBM announced Brazilian-based online gaming pioneer Hoplon Infotainment, Nationwide Insurance, CommX, and RealPlus, are among those pushing the company's estimated number of Linux-related customer engagements to more than 15,000 worldwide.
Customers using supercomputers, to gaming technologies and desktops and mobile phones are benefiting from the low cost of ownership, security, and reliability of Linux and open source software running on standards-based IBM hardware and server platforms. The company is particularly committed to expanding growth in IBM's Linux-related customer engagements in emerging markets including Brazil, Russia, India and China.
Hoplon Infotainment, for instance, is beta testing its new massive multi-player TaikoDom game hosted on an IBM mainframe computer at the IBM Service Delivery Center in Hortolandia, Brazil managing purchasing transactions with WebSphere and DB2 database software running on Linux. Millions of players worldwide can challenge each other in online games like TaikoDom and interact with other users in real time requiring a highly scalable IT infrastructure. The IBM DB2 Universal Database solution running on Linux delivered a significant percent performance increase over an Oracle solution that previously served as the technology middleware.
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