IBM Senior Executive Says Open Movement will Transform e-Business and Society

IBM Senior Executive Says Open Movement will Transform e-Business and Society

Internet will Become Platform for Grid Computing

ARMONK, NY - 30 Jan 2002: In a keynote speech today at LinuxWorld, New York, William M. Zeitler, senior vice president and group executive of IBM Server Group, predicted that the innovation of Linux and the open movement will transform e-business, ending forever the days when vendors can use a proprietary platform to retain control over customers.

As Linux gathers steam with businesses in a variety of industries, the next major open technology to drive e-business will be grid computing, Zeitler said. "The Internet began as a platform for communicating, but going forward it will evolve into a platform for computing -- grid computing."

Open grid computing will connect computing resources worldwide over the Internet and enable computing on tap -- e-business on demand, Zeitler said.

Zeitler credited the open community for revolutionizing the industry. "For decades, the proprietary model of computing has defined the computer industry. That day is over, and those who don't realize it's over are on the wrong side of history," Zeitler said.

As part of the keynote, Zeitler also announced that E*TRADE Group, Inc. has begun moving its entire financial services platform to IBM eServer xSeries* running Linux.

E*TRADE ( www.etrade.com), a global leader in personalized financial services offering value added financial products, services, information and content to its more than 3 million customer households, has begun migrating from a proprietary server platform to an open Linux environment that includes IBM eServer xSeries environment running Linux. Running Linux on IBM eServer xSeries enables E*TRADE to maximize cost efficiencies while simultaneously providing a superior customer experience using open, standards-based architectures.

"The growing importance of Linux as a server operating environment has been a clear finding of IDC's system software studies conducted in 1997, 1998, 1999, and 2001," said Dan Kusnetzky, IDC's VP of system software research. "IBM is clearly responding to customer needs by throwing its weight behind this platform as it sees increasing use in important applications throughout the enterprise."

IBM is now engaged with more than 2,500 Linux customers worldwide, with solutions ranging from web serving to some of the largest supercomputers in the world doing genomic analysis. In addition, the company is running Linux on more than 800 servers inside IBM, including the IBM website, www.ibm.com.

About IBM
IBM is the world's number one server company and information technology provider, with 80 years of leadership in helping businesses innovate. IBM helps customers, Business Partners and developers in a wide range of industries that leverage the power of the Internet for e-business. For more information, visit www.ibm.com.

# # #

*IBM's eServer brand name consists of the established IBM e-business logo with the descriptive term "server" following it.

IBM, the e-business logo, Websphere, xSeries, and zSeries are trademarks or registered trademarks of International Business Machines Corporation.

Linux is a registered trademark of Linus Torvalds.