[LINK] IBM readies Microsoft-free desktop

[Crispin Harris]

On Fri, Dec 5, 2008 at 8:57 AM, Jan Whitaker <jwhit at melbpc.org.au> wrote:
> At 10:39 AM 5/12/2008, Bernard Robertson-Dunn wrote:
>>An article in The Wall Street Journal claims that the firm has developed
>>a virtual desktop system that runs in a virtual environment on servers
>>in the back office. It is based on Ubuntu Linux and includes a suite of
>>office applications and collaboration tools based on IBM's Lotus
>>software products.
>
> Whose 'back office' servers? Is this one of those client server
> applications models? I would assume the data resides on the local disk, though.
>
> Jan


I would say that there is a strong possibility that this is a
Virtual-Desktop/Thin-Client type environment.
Not all that dissimilar to Sun Java Desktop, VMWare VDI or Citrix Desktop.

These environments do not need to store user-based information on the
local disk.

Some of these are even available through web-browsers and so can be
implemented with no need for "desktop hardware"(*).

It sounds to me like IBM have managed to generate a "Shrink-Wrap"
thin-client environment that avoids Microsoft-license software. The
biggest acheivement here is in the (appologies in advance)
productizement (**) of Microsoft-free Server-based-computing for a
corporate environment.

Cheers,
  Crispin


NOTE: (*) - not that this would be recommended for any general deployment.
   (**) use of the 'z' IS deliberate


-- 
Crispin Harris
crispin.harris at gmail.com
"Well, you know... most Catholics are so boring, you kind of expect
them to be fairly reasonable and not, say, frothing papal fanboys with
the IQ of a turnip. So he had me fooled. Not any more, though."
Thanks to Eric The FruitBat (etfb.livejournal.com)