December 6, 2008 by James Oliver
From the beginning or 2009 IBM will make an alternative operating system to Windows available to its corporate clients. The system will centre on Ubuntu Linux distribution, Lotus Symphony production suite and virtual bridges. It will be available for considerably less than the standard Windows package.
It is thought that numerous people within the business community are unhappy with Microsoft, for a range of reasons from price, to performance, to adaptablity. IBM’s plan is to take advantage of this anti Microsoft feeling whilst offering a cost effective alternative in a harsh economic climate.
They are pitching their system as a “Linux-based, security-rich, Microsoft-desktop alternative,” and promising all the necessary features a corporate computer system requires. These include, word processing, spreadsheets, email and other communication features, and even social networking to all PCs, laptops and mobile devices on the company network. This initiative was actually announced in August. At which time Novell and Red Hat were known to be involved, so it wouldn’t be surprising to see some of their software provided as part of the system, though no one can be certain at this point.
So how much cheaper is IBM’s new system? Well, IBM say that companies can save as much as $800 in licensing costs as well as more from not making hardware upgrades necessary to run the latest Windows system, using less power to run their computer and less air conditioning to cool them.
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