Trends

HP Takes Turbolinux PCs to Asia

"Computer giant Hewlett-Packard said Tuesday it is expanding its line of PCs sold in Asia that run on the Linux operating system, the latest threat to Microsoft's shaky grip on that market.

The Palo Alto company announced that it will sell corporate desktop PCs running Turbolinux, a version of the open-source operating system, in 12 Asian countries, including China, Japan and Korea. HP, as well as other PC vendors including Dell and IBM, already sells desktops based on different versions of Linux -- a strategy that has become even more prominent in Asia, where the demand for such machines is growing. The Linux-based machines are targeted mainly at small and medium-sized businesses and corporations.

'The Asian market is looking for an alternative, and they found that in Linux,' said Martin Fink, HP's vice president for Linux. 'We've been working to make Linux available on all our platforms.'"

Reported at SFgate.com, March 16, 2004

 

IBM aims for 40,000 Linux desktops in-house by 2005

"IBM hopes to have 40,000 Linux desktop users within the company by year's end, but that doesn't necessarily mean that the computer giant thinks everyone should move to the Linux desktop, an IBM executive said today at the Open Source Business Conference in San Francisco.

Already, about 15,000 of IBM's more than 300,000 employees have moved to the Linux desktop, said Scott Handy, IBM's vice president of worldwide Linux strategy and market development. While Handy believes that the Linux desktops are costing IBM less than the $5,000 to $7,000 per year that analyst firms typically ascribe to the maintenance of Windows systems, the switch to a Linux PC may not be a great deal for everyone. 'We're not going to see as much traction in the traditional desktop space,' Handy said. 'If you look at the TCO characteristics of [Linux and open-source software] vs. Microsoft Windows and Microsoft Office, it's not that great.'"

Robert McMillan, reporting in Computerworld, March 16, 2004 

 

Sun to launch Red Hat version of Java Enterprise System

"In a meeting Tuesday with reporters in Boston, company executives said technological innovations such as a tool to convert macros from Microsoft Office to its StarOffice suite and an upcoming version of Java Enterprise System software that runs on Red Hat Linux will increase Sun's market share, especially outside the United States and Europe."

Paul Roberts, reporting in PCWorld, March 16, 2003