IBM’s Linux blitz

IBM last week at LinuxWorld launched a variety of products and software that will make it easier to incorporate Linux into enterprise-size environments.

For the first time, IBM will support Linux clients for Lotus iNotes Web Access, allowing users with Linux desktops to access calendaring, e-mail and scheduling applications through a Web browser. Lotus iNotes will now support the most recent Mozilla browser and give users access to Lotus Domino applications.

IBM has incorporated Linux into Tivoli Automation for Linux, which provides policy-based computing and self-healing for server clusters. The software automatically identifies clusters that may fail and notifies whomever needs to fix them. IBM Tivoli System Automation for Linux runs on IBM zSeries, pSeries and xSeries computers.

IBM is also upgrading the eServer x345, an Intel-based, two-processor rack-mounted server. It now uses the Intel Xeon processor running at up to 2.8 GHz.

Plus, the company announced the p650 with Linux. The p650 is a midrange server with two, four or eight processors, and from 4G bytes to as much as 16G bytes of RAM. It starts at $30,000 for a two-processor model.

Separately, IBM unveiled several iSeries computers that use the Power4 processor. These servers feature On/Off Capacity Upgrade on Demand, which lets users pay for only the resources they use. They feature as much as an 80% price/performance improvement over previous iSeries servers, according to the company. The new servers also support Windows, Linux, Unix and OS/400 operating environments and can have 32 Linux or OS/400 partitions per server, giving users increased access to applications. The new iSeries servers start at under $10,000.