[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

fyi

[ComputerGuy]

So we’re back to dumb terminals, huh ?

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

IBM's software package comes with virtualization software from Virtual Bridges Inc. of Austin, Texas, and Ubuntu Linux from Canonical Ltd. in London.

[gridlock]

Go Big Blue.

It is a sad state of affairs when you start rooting for IBM as sticking up for the little guy.

[Dahoser]

Lotus Notes and Sametime? Gee, thanks.

[Paladin2]

"thin clients, which don't have processing units"

Huh, there's gotta be something there. GPUs these days can do plenty of CPU work.

[CodeToad]

IBM products like their Rational suite are the WORST products ever made. We just upgraded our Rational suit and there are so many bugs the products are nearly useless. Every single grid, or spreadsheet type display, opens with the columns collapsed to 10 pixels wide. Every time we have to resize the grid to see the data. I could go on and on about the bugs in IBM’s products but I don’t have all month to do that.

[DesertSapper]

Ugh. IBM terminals again??? Guess we’ll have to re-learn to “IPL” rather than “reboot”.

[js1138]

Virtual Linux Desktop would range from $59 to $289 per user

That's very interesting. Windows adds about $50 to the price of a Dell or Gateway computer.

Office in corporate licence quantities adds maybe a couple hundred.

For home users, Office costs under $30 per computer.

Google, Yahoo, Microsoft and IBM are all hoping to sell software as a service rather than as a package. Read "return to mainframe computing." Good luck.

[TomGuy]

I remember one of their earliest attempts to compete with the big M.

PC-DOS

[TomGuy]

Linux will never be more than a tinkertoy for aficionados and geeks until it becomes serious and centers on a singular version.

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.

[martin_fierro]

IBM estimates that a corporate customer licensing the software would save $500 to $800 a year per user

Yeah, but will cute animated animals sprout out of the servers?

[HawaiianGecko]

ping

[ShadowAce]

[Still Thinking]

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.

Unless they're rolling out the VT100-Millenium Edition, I'm pretty sure there's going to be a CPU in there.

[webschooner]

No comment from Microsoft?

Comeon Mr. Balmer, are you going soft? You recently trashed the Android mobile phone system when it came out, but you have no comment on Big Blue invading your turf?