Comment Articles

It's time vendors ate their own penguin food

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Linux Desktop

Andrew Donoghue ZDNet.co.uk

Published: 15 Jan 2004 17:04 GMT

The news last week that IBM had challenged its internal tech team to roll out desktop Linux throughout the organisation by the end of 2005 seemed like a real shot in the arm for the whole open-source-client alternative to Microsoft -- right up to the point when IBM began back-tracking faster than Tony Blair discussing Ken Livingstone.

A November memo from CIO Bob Greenberg, leaked to the Inquirer news site, reportedly said IBM chairman Sam Palmisano had "challenged the IT organisation, and indeed all of IBM, to move to a Linux-based desktop before the end of 2005." But in a furious bit of spin management, IBM spokeswoman Trink Guarino jumped all over the story and said that IBM was merely evaluating the idea of desktop Linux. "IBM has no plans to move all of its employees to Linux desktops by 2005," or even a majority of them, she said.

So just when it seemed that someone was prepared to put their head above the parapet and give the desktop Linux movement a hefty leg-up along comes the PR machine and yanks them down safely behind the battlements again. That's really inspiring for anyone thinking of trialling the technology, and surely a marketing triumph for Big Blue.

There must have been a furious exec meeting after the news of the leak broke, where IBM had a choice of three paths. One: stand by the document and its gutsy message; Two: fudge it and be non-committal; and Three: deny everything. Well, Big Blue settled on the middle road and showed once again why Microsoft has managed to dominate the desktop for so long. IBM UK wouldn't even comment on the story. Impressive.

But what about the rest of the big vendors? Well, Novell has made some of the right noises but hasn't as yet summoned up the courage to commit to a time-frame for a wholesale internal adoption. Speaking with Novell's UK managing director this week, I heard that the UK organisation was "aggressive" about adopting Linux, and welcomed the chance not to have to pay Microsoft any more licence fees, but wouldn't be drawn on when this might happen.

Which is kind of frustrating, because if anyone has got the motivation and opportunity to make the grand gesture to the rest of the industry and start eating its own dog food then it's Novell. This is a company that bought Linux tool vendor Ximian, followed by its very own Linux distributor in the shape of SuSE, and which has a very turbulent history with Microsoft. Novell should relish the opportunity to hit the Redmond boys where it hurts and be seen as a real gutsy innovator at the same time. The best I could get back from the MD was to wait and see what turns up at BrainShare in March when the company traditionally makes most of its big announcements.