IBM matches Power with Linux (page 1 of 2)

IBM's Power architects and forward-thinking partners extol the future of Power Architecture in all its manifestations: licensing opportunities for manufacturers; a development focus based on the collaborative model; and all-round opportunities for innovation. What does all this ubiquitous Power mean, though, for Linux on Power?

Nick Donofrio, senior VP, Technology and Manufacturing, Irving Wladawsky-Berger, and Bill Zeitler, speaking at the event, all touched upon the significant impact that Linux brings- not only to POWER technology's present feats, but to the POWER design potential.

More than several years ago, when Linux detractors and naysers still preferred to declare Linux as "going nowhere," IBM visionaries like Irving Wladawsky Berger, Vice President of Technology and Strategy at IBM, saw the potential of Linux as a disruptive technology "going everywhere."

He and others at IBM could see its far-sweeping effect on IT users' economies of scale and partner progress strengthened by open architectures. In the business sector, from business users of PCs costing under $500 to those managing the world's most powerful servers costing millions, Linux became a name first to watch, and subsequently to trust.

IBM's bold move subsequently to adopt Linux across all its platforms and portfolios helped drive that trust, on Wall Street and for manufacturing titans, down to the smallest startups. That same instinctive, big-picture perspective is echoed in the IBM view of Power Architecture: significant in its far-reaching scope from embedded devices scaling up to the most powerful supercomputer that one can imagine.

Power Architecture is a phrase used in reference to micro-processing technology that delivers on 64-bit, powering everything from game consoles to small-business servers to high-performance computers.

In turn, Linux on POWER amounts to bigger, better, more affordable ways to do business for a growing Linux ecosystem of partners and business users of all sizes. Many leverage making Power Architecture in IBM's eServer line, in the form of pSeries, iSeries, and Blades, as part of their portfolios.

"The POWER5 chip has more integration than any other product we've ever delivered," said Bill Zeitler, IBM Senior VP and Group Executive, IBM Systems and Technology Group, at the Power Everywhere conference. "We are convinced that there's enormous opportunity as technology moves from a world driven by megahertz and gigahertz to a world driven by the level of integration."

The lesson of Linux

IBM's lessons from Linux are manifest in plans to explore an open collaboration model for Power Architecture. IBM's leaders know that an open development environment ensures a pace and level of progress that are not otherwise possible.

Irving Wladawsky-Berger and team first declared that Linux represented fundamental discontinuity and that is the word picked up on by Zetler: "We listened, adopted Linux, and put it on all out platforms, and that is why we went up in market share-because of the way in which we responded to this discontinuity."

IBM's architects have once again responded to the pulse of discontinuity with Power Architecture. One of the significant announcements this year about IBM's POWER strategy is that IBM is to explore a community model to guide the future of Power Architecture.

High noon for collaboration

IBM's plans to explore an open collaboration model for Power Architecture is particularly significant to its future.