How Open Source Drives IBM's Systems Unit

IBM recently formed its Systems Unit, which encompasses middleware, servers and IBM's complete storage portfolio.

"We recently took our next step as a company in transforming ourselves," Power Systems Vice President and General Manager Douglas Balog said.

Balog said the Systems Unit aligns with IBM's mission of continuing growth around commerce, security, cloud, analytics, Watson and health care.

"Underpinning each of our system's brands is this commitment to open source," he said.

In the middleware space, where IBM proudly claims the No. 1 spot, Balog highlighted IBM's use of Apache and Docker tools as "so critical to success."

IBM's mainframe business is another area where Balog said the company has demonstrated faith in open source, and now depends on it.

"Fifteen years ago, we made the decision to bring Linux into the mainframe. In fact, this was the first $1 billion commitment IBM made to Linux back in the year 2000. And I’d like to think, in some small way, we helped bring Linux to the enterprise with that commitment of over 15 years ago," Balog said.

Now, with servers like the new z13, "more and more of the capacity is a Linux-based workload," Balog said.

PUBLISHED JULY 1, 2015