Interview: Linux branching out, says IBM exec

IDG News Service - In an interview with IDG News Service, Adam Jollans, Linux strategy manager for IBM, discusses how he sees Linux adoption evolving across vertical industries and in businesses both small and large, and how IBM is adapting its own Linux strategy to mesh with those trends.

How is IBM's Linux strategy changing? We've been involved with Linux for about seven or eight years now. The initial state we saw Linux being used was for edge-of-network department servers and Web servers, but we've seen it more recently used for mission-critical applications, for business applications and as part of larger solutions.

In what industries are you seeing the most traction for Linux? We see it especially big in finance; Wall Street has been using Linux for some time, and that's really about being able to do computations faster. We're seeing it starting to be used in some of the banks, as they refresh their branches and look at how the branch is part of the whole way you engage with the customer. So a customer may go to a branch one day, go to a phone system one day, and a Web system the next day. The second area we're seeing is retail, where again you're going through a technology leap there in terms of the branches and shops. But what we're finding with Linux is people want to customize so if you're doing a checkout, for example, they want to be able customize quite heavily. And the third area where we're seeing adoption is government, where you try to reduce costs and provide new system services at the same time.

What are the different challenges around Linux for small and midsize businesses versus the enterprise? With SMBs, they're very interested in cost reduction and flexibility, but they want support and they want integration and they want the applications. So, key to the SMBs is the partner network. Enterprise customers are looking at costs, but also at how do they mix together open-source and commercial software.

Have you seen more adoption among SMBs or enterprise users around Linux? The majority of the adoption we've seen so far has been in the enterprise space. We're now starting to see the SMB space move to Linux.

What are you doing to grow your partner network around Linux for SMBs? I think the last counts I saw in business partners on Linux was around 5,000 to 6,000. We're not so much focused on growing that total number, as helping those partners grow their business.