Posted on 08/23/2005 4:10:05 PM PDT by Golden Eagle
IBM Woos the World's Geeks - Big Blue will let software developers in Brazil, Russia, India, and China use company products for free.
IBM announced an initiative Monday to encourage developers in emerging economies to work on the computing giant’s open standards technology, a computing framework for which hardware and software specifications are publicly available.
As part of the initiative, the Armonk, New York-based company said that for the first time, developers in Brazil, Russia, India, China—popularly known as BRIC countries—will get instant access to IBM’s hardware and software portfolio from their desktop at no charge.
(Excerpt) Read more at redherring.com ...
I don't see this as any different from Microsoft offering free downloads of SDKs to developers. Both companies are trying to promote use of their technologies.
You mean they were charging their employees before? Holy crap.
Just so I don't get flamed, I've worked on several IBM projects, including IBM Federal in DC. Though I cannot stand government intrusion in the private sector, I believe that Uncle should have a conversation with the wigs in Armonk.
I don't think Microsoft gives much of anything away for free, that at least doesn't require one of their other products to operate, or especially only to foreign countries.
This deal seems to include everything, including hardware, and isn't available to people in the US or North America. I'd call it very unique and extreme in most every aspect.
You mean you thought this was for their employees only? Unbelievable.
Something your ping lists may be interested in.
You thought I was serious? Typical.
After dealing with the crapware that is Internet Explorer, I'd have to agree with that. Nyuk-Nyuk-Nyuk.
Only the new minimal "student" .NET development tools. The best bargain they offer is the MSDN Universal subscription - $2,500 a year, but you get developer licenses and installation DVDs for just about every enterprise product they sell.
I just somehow KNEW Golden Dodo was going to make an appearance today
He's like a low-tech tomagotchi, isn't he? Just say "Linux" and watch him overflow with all sorts of Redmond rhetoric peppered with idiosyncratic nonsense. Hehehehehe.
Thanks, so do I. IBM has been giving lots of software away to everyone lately, but to make it exclusively available to foreign lands is highly questionable. Thanks to Bill Clinton, who IBM management absolutely loved, there is little to no export control over anything software related, and these foreign goverments can use some of this new software to build "supercomputers" from clusters of cheap PC's these days. Speaking of which, IBM sold their PC division to the Chinese government earlier this year, for 1/10 of its yearly gross. Hopefully at some point these givaways will be stopped.
Microsoft gave the source code for their Windows OS to the Chinese. You think government should stop doing business with Redmond now?
Ah, the air of false sanctimonity and genuine pomposity. It's just so...you, Brass Buzzard.
Thanks, that's what I thought. Unfortunately some posters are so obsessed with Microsoft they try to change the subject whenever the dangers of these givaways by IBM and others to foreign countries are discussed. If Microsoft suddenly gave all their software to the world for free, they'd suddenly love them, since that's obviously their ultimate motivation.
That's not what they did. In response to IBM's complete givaways, they have allowed governments to view portions of the Windows code under strict circumstances. I don't agree with it, but it's certainly not a point you're enabled to make, since you support the complete givaways by IBM.
They sure as hell did. Lying about it doesn't help your cause, sport.
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