According to Computer Reseller News, IBM will unveil broad support for the freeware Linux operating system in March. IBM’s primary market is in servers and mainframes, both the hardware and the applicable software, although Linux can run on workstations - that is, individual terminals -- as well. In August 1998, Linux had 10 million users worldwide - that number may well have doubled since then.
IBM’s action underscores an unprecedented shift in the hardware sector’s attitude toward Linux, even as the Department of Justice maintains that its target du jour, Microsoft, has a monopoly in operating systems. Dell, Compaq, Silicon Graphics, and now IBM have all announced varying but substantial levels of support for Linux. While IBM’s announcement may not much affect the home users who spend most of their computer time playing solitaire, the Internet servers and backbones those home terminals increasingly are connected to will notice. If Linux’s much-touted performance advantages over other Unix-based operating systems and Windows don’t come at too much user-friendliness expense, the erosion of Microsoft’s hard-fought territory may continue into the home.
Clearly vendors see some sort of advantage in offering Linux broader support, and in re-thinking the limits of dealing only with Microsoft. And once one of them decided to support Linux, the avalanche began. How could it not? In a competitive marketplace, customers - in this case, system assemblers and hardware manufacturers - rule. Even the hint that customer tastes or desires have changed signals firms to change along with them.
As seen in the browser wars, some firms will profit less under a new customer regime (in that case, a customer base willing to choose a free product over brand loyalty and the costs of switching browsers). And it is those firms who have the most vested interest in vigorous antitrust enforcement, as Netscape and others demonstrated. If someone else takes your customers because he saw more clearly what they wanted, then go to the government to accuse him of unfair business practices.
In this way, the software industry is a magnifying glass for the follies of antitrust - this sort of thing happens in most every industry affected by antitrust, but not nearly so quickly and obviously. By the time the judge rules on the Microsoft matter, there may already be a separate market verdict. If the axe falls on the folks in Redmond, we can only hope that they’ll turn the other cheek, and not resort to antitrust litigation - the new tool in the programmer’s toolbox.
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