IBM's $1B Linux Bet Creates Momentum

IBM is investing $1 billion over the next year to Linux-enable its products, including the iSeries, formerly known as AS/400.

Solution providers say the IBM investment is a big opportunity to boost Linux's momentum, particularly in Web-hosting environments.

IBM is LInux-enabling products such as the iSeries.

Shannon Scott, chief technology officer at Infusion Technology Group, a $10 million network integrator in Birmingham, Ala., says he will consider applying for authorization to carry the iSeries. Infusion sells IBM Netfinity servers and recommends Linux Red Hat Web server solutions, Scott says. He expects his Linux business to grow to as much as $2 million next year from the current $400,000.

"This is very dramatic," Scott says. "We weren't doing any Linux one year ago. Now 90 percent of the Web hosting and Web serving we are doing is on Linux. The stability and total cost of the solution is really appealing." The open-source Linux product comes in at as high as 50 percent less than a similar NT- or Windows 2000-based solution, Scott says.

IBM has assigned 1,500 developers to create Linux products and services.

In spring 2001, IBM plans to introduce the capability to do multiple Linux server images on the iSeries in much the same way as on its current mainframe line, says Buell Duncan, general manager for IBM's midmarket servers.

Also on tap for the iSeries is LPAR dynamic partitioning, which allows for full and partial partitioning of system processors to reallocate system resources to different applications without shutting the system down, Duncan says.

IBM last week said it will install a supercomputer-scale Linux cluster,which it touts as the largest commercial Linux installation in the world,at Shell International Exploration & Production.