Yeah, but will cute animated animals sprout out of the servers?
Posted on 12/04/2008 7:18:52 AM PST by Ernest_at_the_Beach
IBM says it has created a "Microsoft-free" virtual desktop -- a complete suite of applications that run on a backroom server and don't require Microsoft software or costly desktop hardware.
The software package, available immediately, uses the Linux operating system and a set of IBM office applications that can be displayed on so-called thin clients, which don't have processing units or hard drives.
IBM, based in Armonk, N.Y., says pricing for the Virtual Linux Desktop would range from $59 to $289 per user, depending on what software and service level the customer chose.
IBM estimates that a corporate customer licensing the software would save $500 to $800 a year per user, compared with buying a license for Microsoft's Vista operating system, Office suite and collaboration tools.
Microsoft declined to comment.
(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...
IBM seems to outsource their software to China and India and it shows. The misspellings, the failure to adhere to visual design standards, etc. all signal no one is wating what is produced at IBM, not more than anyone is watching at Microsoft.
My observation:
Leaving the dumb terminal philosophy, and moving to Personal Computers — was the downfall of many a good companies.
In case you didn’t notice, now-a-days most employees spend more time on other endeavors on the Internet than they do on their jobs.
Sad, but so true.
The dumb terminals were perfect for getting business done.
Microsoft? LOL!
If I remember correctly, IBM was like over a 100 times bigger than Microsoft just a couple of decades ago, and it was IBM that tried to quash Microsoft like a bug then, only for Gates to outsmart them. Time for IBM to move on.
It's a bit pathetic for IBM to be still trying to fight WW II, long after it's been over. Time for IBM to move on.
I remember one of their earliest attempts to compete with the big M.
PC-DOS
You’re right about that. I figure that Solitaire is probably the second most widely used program in the average office, right behind IE.
Right now, there are dozens of versions. That makes it nearly impossible to do serious computing because of the various flavors of support software.
Offices need compatibility. That is what drove MS to open up some of their code to competitors in the 1980s, when they were trying to dominate. Businesses told them to be compatible with other software or take a hike. They hiked for a while and lost allot of momentum. They did later regain it.
LOL!
I recall just a few years ago IBM trying to unload a bunch of ‘new desktop computers’ that were little more than the old 8086 processers (IIRC).
IBM has always been about half-a-decade behind the tends/technology of the desktop market.
Which is the model for most internet and ERP applications. It works great for some things, terrible for others. Word processing and spreadsheets are in the other category.
How do you get Office for $30? Even with a corporate discount and a student discount, I had to pay more than that.
Yeah, but will cute animated animals sprout out of the servers?
Well,...never seen that under the many raised floors I spent so much time in!
I liked the airconditioned work atmosphere....was nice and cool during the summer!
Win4Lin won’t run Windows applications unless you install a licensed copy of Windows 2000 or XP within the Linux environment. Perhaps the apps do operate more securely within the Linux sandbox, but you haven’t escaped the necessity of Windows itself. Not a big improvement, to my way of thinking.
At Newegg, for $80 you get three home and student licences.
ping
Unless they're rolling out the VT100-Millenium Edition, I'm pretty sure there's going to be a CPU in there.
No, actually PC-DOS was a Microsoft product. They just called the copies they sold direct to the public MS-DOS. At least it was originally, and IBM continued to call it that after they split the sheets with MuSoft.
IBM takes on VMware virtual desktop
******************************EXCERPT************************
IBM is taking on VMware's virtual desktop infrastructure with its own Linux and Lotus-based virtual desktop.
VMware's VDI, recently re-launched as View, ships a virtual Windows or Linux desktop to desktops, notebooks and thin client devices, and is built from a golden master file and linked clones, stored on a VMware ESX server's disks.
PC-DOS
Funny you should mention that. I was just talking with someone at work the other day about PC-DOS 7, which finally brought a real batch language to PCs when they included REXX. OMG, it was absolutely fantastic stuff, especially compared to the clunky and extraordinarily limited batch language that Windows still ships with. You could actually do real things with REXX that were impossible to do with DOS batch files without using extra tools to process keystrokes and stuff.
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