Curbing some Linux enthusiasm

However, that unbridled enthusiasm, while understandable, is a bit premature and misplaced. Although Workplace Client Technology has great potential as a platform on which to bring multiple operating systems together on equal footing for application development, it's far too early for such claims.

'Quite frankly, it's a simple announcement: What IBM is saying is that, now, with the IBM Workplace strategy, along with the new rich client technology, we can provide customers with choice as to how they choose to deploy their application; choice as to whether to have a Windows or a Linux environment (or both) on their desktops; choice as to whether they want to provide browser or rich client access to their applications; choice as to what combination of those the customer wishes to deploy to different users in their organization,' says Jeanette Barlow, IBM Workplace Client Technology
market manager.

'That's not to say the choices and capabilities are all available right now, but as the client technology evolves, more and more applications and tools will be supported with Workplace Client Technology and, as a predicted result, more and more Linux applications.'

Why IBM champions Linux

To understand why IBM is starting to bring more applications to Linux clients, it helps to revisit how today's IT environments have evolved and why, now, companies are asking for more choices when mapping out their IT infrastructures.

IT infrastructures have evolved from the days of green-screen 3270 terminal computing, where users had to use what was in front of them and a simple application change required months for a specialist to administer.

The terminal computing model evolved into a distributed environment, where a client model featuring PC clients housed applications such as 1-2-3, SmartSuite and Office. Although more flexible and user-friendly than the terminal computing model, the obvious limitation was the lack of a central repository.

Users had all this information on their PCs, but the PCs couldn't talk to each other. Then came the client server model. Though again an improvement, because it allowed users to talk to servers, client server ultimately produced silos of applications that couldn't talk to each other, forcing users to respond by opening application after application.

Finally, the idea of portals and integrating applications across an enterprise, with browser access to applications, emerged. The advantages on the back-end in this model are substantial, but it sacrifices, in some instances, usability, because of the limitations of browser environments.

For example, although IBM supports Linux through the Mozilla browser, for certain types of applications, such as e-mail, Mozilla and other browsers can often be ponderous and slow. Additionally, browsers don't typically allow users to work offline.

However, with Workplace Client Technology, users can build applications that execute locally on the machine. They can synchronize or replicate, work offline and then get back online and synchronize later.

Web-based model leverage

Moreover, users can still leverage the benefits of the Webbased model in that they can provision and manage from the server. And IT administrators don't need to arm themselves with CDs, trying to load software on everyone's PC.

'What this next evolution does, with the Workplace Client Technology component, is take all that we've learned and benefited from on the Web-based portal framework and extend that out to the clients,' says Barlow.

'Whereas all the previous evolutionary developments of IT infrastructures typically
occurred out of necessity-with companies basically
forced to adopt new technologies and models just to stay competitive-now IBM is trying to drive the next evolutionary step by providing choices which, it could be argued, is also a necessity.'

Because it incorporates a standards-based middleware infrastructure, delivers standard file formats and a flexible architecture that accepts plug-ins, Workplace Client Technology basically provides customers with a conduit with which they can start to standardize in an open way on the back-end.

'Part of the appeal is that Workplace Client Technology gives Linux users the chance to use really robust client-side applications that are server-managed, which has traditionally been where Windows has dominated,' says Amy Reuss Caton, marketing manager for the IBM Workplace Client initiative.

'Linux is getting the chance to be a player in the client realm. And Linux is also big on total cost of ownership (TOC) because you don't have to touch those desktops to deliver rich client applications since they're all server-managed. It definitely has some selling points over Windows, although it's not being positioned to compete with Windows directly. Still, it's a choice that wasn't previously available, which is a big message to Linux users.'