IBM, Red Hat and Canonical Gang Up Against Microsoft Office
Jan. 27th, 2009 by The VAR Guy
Lotus Symphony 1.2.1 — IBM’s open source office suite — is now available for Mac OS X, according to a trusted source. The release — along with IBM’s expanding Red Hat and Canonical partnerships – could give Microsoft Office a virtual (and real-world) headache. Here’s why.
First, the simple facts. Lotus Symphony (available at http://symphony.lotus.com) has generated three million downloads worldwide. That won’t kill Microsoft or Office. But Symphony will cause Microsoft some nagging pain.
IBM and Red Hat
On the Linux front, IBM and Red Hat on January 21 announced a joint initiative to help enterprise clients move from Microsoft-centric desktops to Linux-based desktops. According to IBM:
This migration package will be delivered by joint channel Business Partners supported by IBM and Red Hat technical experts. Qualifying Business Partners in North America may apply to Red Hat for reimbursement from Red Hat for these professional services/implementation services provided to customers.
Translation: IBM and Red Hat appear willing to pay solutions providers to inflict pain on Microsoft.
Calling In Canonical
But the efforts don’t end there. IBM and Canonical in December 2008 announced a partnership that virtualizes Ubuntu desktops on centralized IBM servers. The net result: Customers can more easily manage centralized systems, even as users remotely access virtualization Linux desktops.
Not to be forgotten, IBM has indeed shipped Symphony on Mac OS X — so IBM has a free, cross-platform software suite and intends to surround and conquer Microsoft Office, even if it takes decade to do so.
Somewhere, Apple’s Steve Jobs is smiling — even if it means a few Microsoft customers opt for Linux/Symphony rather than Mac OS X/Symphony.
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Your point about Red Hat assisting desktop migrations made me curious to know if Red Hat has renewed its desktop Linux efforts in a serious way.
Fedora Man: Red Hat has made it pretty clear to The VAR Guy that the company isn’t pursuing lots of Linux PC pre-install deals. But the relationship with IBM shows that Red Hat does have a corporate desktop Linux push.
There has to be a desktop Linux push. That’s how Microsoft got successful in the server space. So, I’m glad to see that Red Hat does consider the desktop important, even if they themselves aren’t focusing specifically on it (Canonical and Mandriva are doing a fine job there, no need to reinvent the wheel).
I think it’s a good and proper strategy on both IBM’s and Red Hat’s part. Focus on your core, but support related ideas/initiatives that can help your core.
It should be crystal clear by now that the prize to be coveted is not today’s PC-based desktop (creaky old clunker that it is) but tomorrow’s virtualized, accessible-anywhere desktop. Microsoft knows this, and so does IBM. Linux is well positioned to be there. Windows and Office are not.
The pressure does seem to be mounting on Microsoft. But the prize isn’t any particular market. The prize is getting investors to spend their cash on your company.
That’s why Microsoft is cutting costs and shedding jobs. To impress shareholders and potential investors.
The so called “cloud” has existed since computer networks were put into large scale use. We used to call the “cloud” the internet. Before the internet we had the client server model. A big giant room sized mainframe computer running UNIX served up data and applications to dumb terminals. That’s basically what the “cloud” is. The server serves up applications (SaaS) to the dumb terminal (your PC).
It’s all about investors spending money. Markets are just a means to an end. I’ll stop rambling now.
I regularly use OpenOffice. I once tried to download the Lotus Symphony from the IBM web site and I was turned off by unfriendly and confusing error messages. I have never encountered this before and I download and install software quite often.
“. . . so IBM . . . intends to surround and conquer Microsoft Office, even if it takes [a] decade to do so.”
It’s about damned high time!
I think RH is building new bridges for RHEL6
It will be their first release which could be marketed as desktop system for oem vendors…
Microsoft has been securing its place in corporate America starting years back. It did it by providing Sharepoint, and from within Sharepoint, some forms of collaboration. Sharepoint ties you to Office 2007, and to a series of packages that Sharepoint’s tenacles reach out to.
IBM and Red Hat are in reaction mode, as opposed to Pro-active mode. Sorry guys, even UBUNTU recognized what you were missing and took action at least 2 years ago.
I have a feeling that RH is quietly working on something in the background that, once finished, will provide a more complete business Linux desktop offering, replete with similar features competitive with AD. Don’t get me wrong, they’d better outdo MS in that area since simplicity isn’t necessarily the overwhelming feature in dealing with AD.
Yes, I know a Linux admin worth their salt will have a network of Linux desktops locked down and up-to-date with scripts that would boggle the mind.
However, if RH is truly trying to gain more and more market share, I would expect them to flesh out (Free)IPA and make it dead easy to _securely_ integrate a whole network of Linux desktops into one unit with the ability to control them with policies or something similar.
Does this matter to SOHO, SMB, or individual users? I’d dare say not quite as much immediately since their installations are pretty simple to manage with the tools already in place. In a huge enterprise setting, well-written scripts do OK but the knowledge of those tools usually leave with the admin unless they’ve done their job documenting well enough. Shoot, even if there were pointy-clicky tools, a replacement admin would have a hard enough time figuring out the architecture unless the former admin documented correctly, perhaps a subject for another time.
Have you seen that commercial for a well-known bookkeeping application where the wife points at her husband’s head and says, “Our company’s finance records are all right here”?
Anyway, all that to say I get an overwhelming feeling that RH has something in the works that is going to open the doors for RH to offer a business desktop again. You and I may already believe it’s feasible and viable, but RH isn’t quite sold yet.
If you are worried about Sharepoint lock in, try Alfresco labs. We’ve installed it just to give it a go. Point Office at it and Office thinks it’s Sharepoint (thanks EU).
Finally, a way out
Darren: Your comment provided the perfect opportunity for The VAR Guy to remind readers that he’s already blogged about Alfresco competing with SharePoint.
TK: The VAR Guy thinks Red Hat will use its recent virtualization acquisition to centralize corporate user desktops up on servers.
Microsoft persiguiendo a los partners de Digium…
La política de Microsoft pasa ahora por invadir las conferencias sobre “Open Source” en lugar de ignorarlas, tal y como nos tenía acostumbrados. John Frederiksen, director general de negocio para Microsoft Response Point, realizó unas charlas ayer…
Please donate your old boxes to a church-group or some needy student in these hard times! To comply with the law, and with Microsoft’s leasing policy, you can now replace Microsoft OS with the free (download from the net) Ubuntu OS, which can be set to erase the hard drive of all traces of the “illegal to give away ” Microsoft system and your private information, before donation! Now, explain to your lucky recipient that all the manuals they will ever need are available for free on the internet! Just ask for them in Google! OpenOffice, which is installed already is plenty adequate for homework assignments and with a little exploring, everything else can work well too! Happy computing!