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IBM mainframe on Linux
by Nikola Strahija on January 29th, 2002 International Business Machines(IBM) will sell a lower-priced mainframe computer that runs only the free Linux operating system, as the company promotes Linux for use by a wider range of corporations.
The new machine, which will sell for almost half the price of a standard entry-level mainframe, will help companies trim the cost of housing, powering and managing large "server farms" that run growing Web sites and manage files and printers.
IBM hopes to take sales from such rivals as Sun Microsystems, Hewlett-Packard and Microsoft, which sell servers or proprietary server operating systems, analysts say. Linux is cheaper because it can be copied without charge, and clients don't pay additional software license fees as they add computing capacity.
IBM is trying to capture the mind share of a lot of smaller and mid-range business users.
