IBM and Linux: The next billion dollars

IBM has been moving towards making Linux more important on its flagship Unix/AIX Power Systems over the last year. In May 2012, IBM introduced its first Linux-only Power Systems, the Power 7 rack and blade servers. Then, this year, IBM introduced a new high-end Power Linux system, 7R4 server. This was quickly followed by IBM porting Linux’s native virtualization, KVM, to Power and IBM, Google, and Nvidia founding the OpenPower Consortium to open up the Power chip family to other vendors.
What IBM wants for all these moves, and the $1 billion it will be investing in Power and Linux, is not to convert its existing AIX customers to Linux. Instead, Dan Frye, IBM’s VP of Open Systems Development, said Linux on Power is meant for new big data, cloud computing, analytics, and datacenter customers.
IBM also believes that Linux on Power will be more affordable for datacenter customers. Lisa Orr Johnson, IBM’s VP of Worldwide Marketing, said, “One Power processor can replace 10 Intel CPUs.” This, in turn, will drastically reduce datacenter power and cooling costs.

is not to convert its existing AIX customers to Linux

said Linux on Power is meant for new big data, cloud computing, analytics, and datacenter customers.