IBM Drops Two Bombs on Microsoft 24 comments
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More than a decade after IBM’s (IBM) OS/2 lost the corporate desktop wars to Windows, Big Blue is back. And this time, IBM is aiming to knock Microsoft (MSFT) Windows AND Microsoft Office off of corporate desktops.
The strategy involves a partnership with Canonical (maker of Ubuntu Linux) and Virtual Bridges (a virtualization software company). The trio has developed a "virtualized" Linux release -- complete with productivity applications. The software system costs a scant $49.00 (US) per user for 1,000-user deployments. Prices fall further if customers buy in greater bulk.
Moves like this have got to drive the folks in Microsoft crazy. The old per-seat PC Windows tax is on its death bed, folks.
- In the consumer market, low-cost Ubuntu Netbooks (from Dell and others) are putting the squeeze on Microsoft Windows margins.
- In the corporate market, thin clients from folks like Wyse and Novell (NOVL) are selling fast, and Novell’s year-over-year Linux sales are up more than 30 percent.
- And now again in the corporate market, IBM is changing the rules of the game by placing all the horsepower on servers that deliver virtualized Ubuntu to corporate deskops.
And it’s not just an attack on Windows. Remember, the $49.00 price point also includes Lotus Symphony productivity applications that compete with Microsoft Office.
Will all businesses switch to virtual and physical Linux desktops? Certainly not. But some will certainly give IBM’s pitch a try.
Microsoft Windows' market share recently fell below the 90% mark, according to The Raw Feed, a gadget blog I follow closely. (Full disclosure: I used to work with The Raw Feed's editor, Mike Elgan.)
Are we looking at 85% market share for Microsoft Windows within three years? I sure think so. And even Red Hat (RHT), our resident blogger believes, must be starting to wonder if they should have found more aggressive or progressive ways to promote Linux desktops.
Disclosure: no positions
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This article has 24 comments:
Face it: Linux is a better server platform, because it's modular and can be configured without the bells and whistles to churn our web pages very efficiently. You can't really do that with a Windows server. With Windows Server you still carry huge bulk on your back, and you can't take it off. Alas, your server performance suffers. Windows Server is convenient for some applications where you have a few users and a complex application, but otherwise, Linux will perform better.
But desktop is a different beast.
IBM's attempt will do no better than OpenOffice. OpenOffice is used by anarchist geeks the world over. However, the sales/marketing types, who produce many more Office documents and control software purchasing budgets will always go for the market leader.
As one of our sales people put it: "You mean someone at Procter & Gamble may not be able to open my quotation/presentation because I created it in OpenOffice and they use Microsoft?"
LOL. Nikola, you nailed it on the head. I'm retired from P&G IT that THAT exactly is what caused the standardization on the Windows/Office environment.
BTW, desktop virtualization -- running the OS on a server and just presenting a virtual OS to a user. Microsoft Windows has been available this way for some time. The question you should be asking yourself, if your an IT manager, is this: what provides the best balance of user experience/capability for employees and efficient allocation of resources for the enterprise (factoring network, hardware, management costs, etc.).
It's not rocket science. If you're planning to put a desktop with a hard drive and computational power on everyone's desk, you'll want to put the OS on it in most cases. Or you can plan to put limited capability terminals on desks instead of PCs -- e.g, without a hard drive or without the normal amount of processing power. These can work for some types of employees, but they only work for some user profiles. Does the user need a laptop they can move between rooms, buildings, take home, or work offline? Are they doing computationally intensive tasks like working with sophisticated spreadsheets and models? Do they ever work with media? What old legacy applications do they need to use -- will they work in the new environment?
Once these sort of questions are answered, it turns out that there are some employees who typically can get by with the virtualized desktop approach, but going down that path introduces an additional layer of management complexity at a time most enterprises are trying to standardize and simplify -- you now take on a whole new class of machines that need to be managed, including the new task of allocating the right kind of machine to the right kind of worker, changing machines when worker changes jobs (or how they do their job -- e.g., want to institute a telecommuting policy, check with the desktop infrastructure to see if you can, etc.).
Net-net: treating PCs as distributed computation resources that are centrally managed offers far more benefits (flexibility for almost any situation, enterprise agility, management simplicity, employee satisfaction, fully loaded cost) in most instances than centralizing computing power and just offering the virtual instance of a PC.
That said, there are cases when you might have task workers with very specific and limited computing needs, and where the profile of legacy apps fits with desktop virtualization. In these cases, the question is what offers the best path. Do you want to virtualize with Windows, an OS that people already know, and which you are probably already adept at managing? Or introduce a new OS with new application compatability issues, additional patching and management requirements, extra help desk support complexity, etc?
Ha Ha, sounds like the old mainframe-centric model and TSO terminals.
The more things change, the more they remain the same.
In the comments, I read that MSFT is responding or has already fixed the weaknesses the article described and also pointed out how the Two Bombs are actually recycled ideas.
The Two bombs to drop on IBM is they are recycling their old business model and the price point reflects market weakness.
On Dec 05 05:10 AM Nikola wrote:
> I run a virtual Linux dekstop. It has just as many problems as Windows.
> It's not faster or more stable.
>
> Face it: Linux is a better server platform, because it's modular
> and can be configured without the bells and whistles to churn our
> web pages very efficiently. You can't really do that with a Windows
> server. With Windows Server you still carry huge bulk on your back,
> and you can't take it off. Alas, your server performance suffers.
> Windows Server is convenient for some applications where you have
> a few users and a complex application, but otherwise, Linux will
> perform better.
>
> But desktop is a different beast.
>
> IBM's attempt will do no better than OpenOffice. OpenOffice is used
> by anarchist geeks the world over. However, the sales/marketing
> types, who produce many more Office documents and control software
> purchasing budgets will always go for the market leader.
>
> As one of our sales people put it: "You mean someone at Procter &
> Gamble may not be able to open my quotation/presentation because
> I created it in OpenOffice and they use Microsoft?"
>
Software works really well in a controlled environment. But the consumer desktop is chaos. It's always going to be a tough job.
On Dec 05 12:23 PM FreeRange wrote:
> You need to remember that Microsoft has been at office a lot longer
> than OpenOffice and the Linux marketplace. Open source will catch
> up - they have already come a very long way. The advances in the
> world in forcing open standards for documents will help continue
> to drive this trend.
On Dec 05 10:57 AM User 197175 wrote:
> >>And now again in the corporate market, IBM is changing the rules
> of the game by placing all the horsepower on servers that deliver
> virtualized Ubuntu to corporate deskops.
>
> Ha Ha, sounds like the old mainframe-centric model and TSO terminals.
>
> The more things change, the more they remain the same.
No, the circle is completed. After having been troubled by the negative effects of the client server model users might be tempted to opt for the "god old stuff" that has proven to work much better. :-) - especially when you consider all the improvements in technology and TCO (Total Cost of Operations) that the mainframe platform has been offering lately.
1 it is not 90% of the market , it is 90% of machines that are online, and not hiding behind something or on intranets.
2 it is only machines that visted Net Apps sites or partner sites, which are mostly click through sites and does not include the billions of machines that dont visit them.
3 Linux is free! that a lot cheaper than $49 and every couple of years we hear how its growth is so fast that it take over very soon.
4 I predict will shall have an american on mars before 85% real market share.
Maybe Joey Panettieri has been eating a little too much ravioi?
This provides the fuctionality of windows + office, and, it will be (of course) FREE.
I would guess that Google will probably produce it as both a thin client version and a traditional OS version. This OS completes their capture of the entire food chain; it's the only missing piece. It explains a lot of the engineering Google put into Chrome, multi threaded java, etc.
THIS will be the death of the windows seat tax for corporate users. Whether a corporation has 5 or 500,000 seats to pay for, the price of "free" looks pretty good.
On Dec 05 05:10 AM Nikola wrote:
> I run a virtual Linux dekstop. It has just as many problems as Windows.
> It's not faster or more stable.
>
> Face
it:
> Linux is a better server platform, because it's modular and can be
configured
> without the bells and whistles to churn our web pages very
efficiently.
> You can't really do that with a Windows server. With
Windows
> Server you still carry huge bulk on your back, and you can't
take
> it off. Alas, your server performance suffers. Windows Server is
convenient
> for some applications where you have a few users and a
complex
> application, but otherwise, Linux will perform better.
>
> But desktop is a different beast.
>
> IBM's
attempt
> will do no better than OpenOffice. OpenOffice is used by
anarchist
> geeks the world over. However, the sales/marketing types, who
produce
> many more Office documents and control software purchasing
budgets
> will always go for the market leader.
>
> As one of our
sales
> people put it: "You mean someone at Procter & Gamble may not
be
> able to open my quotation/presentation because I created it in
OpenOffice
> and they use Microsoft?"
>
On Dec 05 07:59 AM Roger Knights wrote:
> Too bad Apple didn't find a way to be IBM's partner. That's the dream
team.
> But both parties--especially Apple--would need to be big enough
to
> be small. (I.e., not be hard bargainers.)
I also hang with forward-looking transition-town types on the Upper Left Coast. Nobody takes minutes with anything other than Apple laptops. Even the coffee shops are full of Apples.
Once in a while somebody will have a new low-end little machine running Linux or Google's stuff, but as yet they are playing with them. I couldn't tell you for sure these are really going to go.
Then there are the artsy, music-enabled types. I don't have to tell you what they use in their studios and warehouses.
Vmware's "view" (new naming for VDI apparently) will allow you to work in "offline" mode as well - i guess this is not new either but it somehow spoofs a feeling of freedom to roam and be mobile whilst having the apps sitting in DRAM.
My personal opinion is that local apps on your laptop/handheld/deskto... whatever should be as lightweight as possible - The direction Google is taking with Chrome on that account is definately spot-on but it should also be portable into the enterprise DC realm - but that's just an observation //
Now you have the crash. I assume the same will happen with MS and software in US. The constant pressure set on companies will finally lead to companies not being able to provide the Software with US labor and development will be in India.
MS is not that bad, and as many posts mention, the people using it don't care about freak opinions, and just use it for work, and they have got acquainted to how the box works. My pc gets delivered with MS and office, if used for 4 years costs somewhere 5 $/month/user. I wonder if this is worth the hassle. I think there are many other topics in the US which need to be enhanced.
People need more training for using computers. As with my boss, he was of the opinion just because he is the boss the computer should do what he wants. It was hard for me to make him understand that this is a machine, programmed by people to do something in a certain procedure. No matter who and what, you have to sit down and learn how it works, and then do it. Many people do not bother to do this. I did not do it with Linux or Mac, and I always get very confused when working with them, cause I just don't have a clue how the system is set up. So in matter of fact it does not matter discussing over this issue. Pay for Software and it will work, be maintained and jobs stay in US.
Rather save on one burger a month.
Please remember this in 10 years if everybody is puzzled why Software has disappeared from US.
1. Excel
2. Outlook
3. Exchange
The "sleeper" is Exchange. It's like a Sherman tank... nearly bulletproof.
This offers any decent size corp the opportunity to shave a large percentage of their fixed IT costs.