My job these days is being the computer nerd for a small civil engineering company (four offices, about 150 employees). In the main office, right now we have three servers - one Novell server called BLACK, Netware's my bud, big old Peterbilt pulls twenty tons; one NT server called GOLD, for those Windows-specific network type of things; and our latest is a Linux server called RED, which we just bought specifically for internet type of stuff. (I could do all that on one single Netware or NT or Linux server, but computers are cheap and down time is expensive.)
We're not just pinching pennies or doing Linux as self-indulgence - it's the best platform for what we want it to do. We even buy all-legal copies of commercial software for our employees and all. As Linux speaks internet without any foreign accent at all, since it's the native tongue, lots of business customers want to run Linux servers these days. It's nice to know that your new server will be hardware compatible with the operating system software you plan to run on it. You'd gladly pay a premium rather than have to spend the time figuring out hardware incompatibilities yourself. There are a lot of little guys selling preconfigured Linux servers - you could do that too if you have a wholesale license and a Philips-head screwdriver - but companies like to buy name brand computers for servers.
So IBM's bundling Linux? Well, here's an opening in the market and they're just trying to keep the customer satisfied. IBM is one of the few big manufacturers of Wintel machines in the world with so much moxie that they can look that shark Gates in the eye (backed up, today, by the U.S. Department of Justice) and say "no." I'll bet both Dell and Compaq will start shipping servers with Linux installed (they'll sell like hotcakes) if they haven't already. Compaq in particular is pissed at Microsoft. As I read it, the DOJ vs. Microsoft antitrust case began with Compaq bucking the Microsoft monopoly over preinstalling Netscape. It wasn't little bitty (at the time) Netscape who kicked so hard it got the DOJ's attention, it was multi-billion dollar market leader Compaq who refused to buckle under Microsoft's extortion, where Microsoft threatened to penalize Compaq by hundreds of millions in increased Windows license fees if Compaq didn't agree to freeze Netscape out.
I don't want to end without mentioning my end-user's personal impression of using Linux: what an unexpected delight it is to run a system where you are allowed to know. You wouldn't guess that aspect would be so pleasant for an end-user. For a ill-trained small-business network admin, resigned to repeatedly banging his forehead against the commercial software business's brick wall of secrecy, some problems are insoluble with proprietary software. You might be just an inch away from your answer, but as the vendor's income must be protected, you are not allowed to know. There's a lot in Linux (everywhere else too, I guess) I don't know yet, and there's a lot of stuff I'm not smart enough to ever figure out, but at least using Linux you just aren't ever going to slam into that aggravating, man-made, profit-motivated barrier. It feels so great, kind of like being asthmatic all your life, then relocating to Tucson.
Yours WDK - WKiernan at concentric.net