Does IBM really support Linux/open-source?
I have a small consulting firm based in Europe. In the country I am currently working, the government have been keen to deploy open-source solutions for both data center and desktop. Taking the bull by the horns I approached two government departments with Linux based solution for desktop. Delighted with an offer of an open-source solution the staff at these organisations asked me to start gathering information on available products for immediate evaluation.
Both organisations were running very old Dell hardware so a decision was made that a hardware upgrade was the best route to take. After looking at several manufacturers open-source policies we decided that IBM had great involvement in open-source development. IBM were an icon for the defense of open-source in their pending legal battle against SCO. I called IBM and talked with the local sales manager about my plans and the customers, he was just delighted to get involved.
The first step for me was to become an IBM business partner, so I made the application and the ball was rolling. Next thing to do was to buy in some hardware and start testing different distros to see which one would most suit the installation ( value etc ). Working with the government system administrator, we decided the best system would be a Think Center A30 desktop system and the best distro SuSE Linux 9. ( SuSE was chosen for it's user friendly GUI tools. )
We put the package together and presented it to the managers and some of the staff. Everything went quite well, but there was a few issues pointed out with regard to the build quality of the system. However, nobody could argue that this was a very cheap all round package. During discussions with IBM, the sales manager had maintained that IBM sells systems with no operating systems for even less than the XP pre-installed system.
We then approached the distributor to start pricing these blank systems. I was amazed when the distributor told me that we would have to pay extra money to buy a desktop system without the operating system and the best thing for us was to buy the systems with XP pre-installed. When I went back to IBM to ask if this was correct the sales manager suggested that I work with the government staff to consider XP instead of Linux. He also suggested that I drop the idea of open office and offer to sell the customer Lotus smart suite instead. I was appalled, all IBM's advertisments about supporting Linux in the enterprise were a farce. I decided that my loyalties were with the customer and I reported to them what IBM were asking me to do.
Both organistations decided that they would not use the IBM products as they clearly had no interest in supporting open-source solutions, I agree.
I would be delighted to hear from any other linux advocates out there that have experienced similar situation.
All was not lost, we found a manufacturer dedicated to open-source, a manufacturer who have contributed more to open-source than any other single entity; Sun Microsystems. We are now looking at deploying Sun w1100z and Fedora Core 2 and OpenOffice 1.1.
Last edited by mrhyde; 11-07-2004 at 04:40 PM.
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