IBM Lotus Strategist Sees Linux on Netbooks Making Inroads vs. Windows in 2009 (
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With just a little over two weeks to go until the New Year,
technology strategists and pundits are revving their prognostication
engines to predict what 2009 will usher in.
But unlike the last handful of years or so, the economic environment is
dreadful, with thousands of high-tech layoffs by parched startups
seeking exit strategies after coming up dry at the venture capital
wells all over the country. Bellwethers may suffer layoffs, but they
will largely remain intact should the recession deepen.
IBM
is one of the vendors that sees the harsh economic climate as a
catalyst for opportunity, particularly for Web 2.0 software in the
workplace. Doug Heintzman, director of strategy for IBM's Lotus
collaboration software unit, discussed technologies and trends that
will change the way we work in 2009.
The answers comprise the usual mixed bag we've come to expect from IBM.
UCC (unified communications and collaboration) is getting stronger,
supported by SAAS (software as a service), cloud computing, mashups,
Web browser technologies, free software and, of course, Linux and open
source. Expect to hear more about all of these at Lotusphere 2009 next
month.
However, Heintzman said IBM has changed its tune with regard to Linux,
noting that the emergence of netbooks -- those cheaper, tiny laptops --
have opened a crack in Microsoft's Windows operating system hegemony.
Indeed, given Microsoft's Windows control "we've been pretty cautious
about declaring Linux as viable on the desktop," Heintzman told eWEEK,
adding:
We may well be at an inflection that, with distributions like the
Ubuntu distribution, with the rise of popularity in the Mac OS
platform, maybe the market starts to fragment and the monopoly loses
its power. The Vista launch didn't help matters much. Netbooks, where
people are using a basic set of capabilities on the desktop but are
storing photos and music files and editing their documents in much more
in an online way.... All these factors combined suggest that this may
be an important inflection for this new class of ultralight laptop
computers, the Asus Eee PCs and Everex CloudBooks
of the world. You're dealing with price points and memory- and
processor-size restrictions that make them extremely attractive for a
Linux operating system as opposed to a Windows operating system.
Heintzman, who admitted to being won over when one of his colleagues
let him play with it, predicted that as more and more people begin to
use netbooks for play, more robust netbooks and even desktops based on
Linux will rise up as more cost-effective, secure and durable machines.
Noting that Lenovo, Dell and HP are getting into this game, Heintzman
said "these whole class of cloud notebook may be the thing that
changes the viability of Linux on the desktop."
As Microsoft Watch's Joe Wilcox
notes on one of his many blog posts regarding threats (and
opportunities) to Microsoft, manufacturers shipped 6.5 million
mini-notebooks during the first three quarters, according to IDC, which
predicts full-year shipments of 10.88 million, up from 181,000 last
year.
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