One day after IBM Corp. gave its some cash, TurboLinux Inc. said it would
support Big Blue’s entire embattled eServer line.
IBM’s new e-business server last week became the target of a small firm
called Technauts, which sued the giant because it said it holds a patent on the name “eServer,” the
title of its flagship product.
TurboLinux’s decision, it says, is beneficial to its own customers: IBM’s
new eServer line offers TurboLinux customers a way to manage end-to-end
growth, risk and expense, while offering application flexibility and
enhanced server performance.
TurboLinux will be available across the IBM eServer line, which encompasses,
from highest- to lowest-end, the z, p, i and x series.
“Working with IBM to offer TurboLinux from network appliances up to
mainframe computers is a real breakthrough for customers who want to
develop, deploy and manage applications and solutions across their
enterprise,” said T. Paul Thomas, president and chief executive officer of TurboLinux.
TurboLinux’s deal with Big Blue follows IBM’s participation in a $30 million
third-round of funding for TurboLinux. Though specific cash details of the
15 or so financiers were not made public, the round was important as the
Linux firm plans to go public in the next few weeks, a source close to the company told InternetNews.com Wednesday.
For itself, IBM has openly embraced the open-source technology. Linux will
be the first operating system to run on all IBM servers, supporting a wide
range of e-businesses.
Scott Handy, director of Linux solutions marketing for IBM, told internetNews.com Thursday that the partnership was a logical exntension for his company, which first tethered TurboLinux in 1999.
“Linux is very important to IBM’s strategy — it’s the fastest growing operating system in the world right now,” Handy said. “They’re one of our strategic partners, so we were happy to invest in them when they asked us for money. For TurboLinux, the deal is beneficial because they needed the middleware to deliver e-business applications — we bundled our DB2 dataserver with their operating system.”
IBM’s eServer line also secured the support of industry leader Red Hat Inc. this past Monday. That agreement stemmed from a deal the firms
struck in August, which calling for Red Hat and IBM to jointly market,
distribute and support bundled IBM, Lotus, Tivoli and Red Hat software
offerings.
