Citing increasing customer demand for open applications, IBM has launched a new Open Software Client Services blueprint for customers in Brazil.
Big Blue said it plans to take a “consultative-based approach” in the retail, financial and government sectors in order to help Brazilian business migrate to an “open” environment. The new offering will target niches that might be easy-sells for deploying Linux, such as call centers, kiosks, ATMs and point-of-sale terminals.
The IBM Open Client Desktop Services are also designed to extend IBM’s existing support of Linux distributions such as Red Hat , Novell/SUSE
as well as Latin American distribution Conectiva Linux. The full gambit of IBM services applies: installation, deployment, migration, porting and specific industry configurations.
“With the success of Linux on the server, the shift to deploy Linux on technical workstations, as well as a growing array of applications that run under Linux, many customers are seeing the productivity and cost benefits of these types of open platform services,” said Peter Nielsen, director of Linux services strategy, IBM Global Services, in a statement.
“IBM is leveraging its own industry consultants and worldwide services expertise to respond to growing customer demand in these emerging countries and niche segments of the market.”
Linux is no stranger to Brazil. According to a press release issued by the Brazilian CIAB 2004 Technology conference (held between June 2-4 in Sao Paolo), Linux is already in use in by over 64 percent of the countries leading companies. Reuters also recently reported from the same conference that Linux is currently in use by 42 percent of the 160 banks based in the
country.
In its first quarter 2004 report IBM noted that it had enjoyed double-digit growth in “emerging markets such as China, Eastern Europe, India and Brazil.”
