The LinuxWorld conference provided a forum for vendors to further hype the open source. IBM made clear its intentions to be a leading promoter and integrator of Linux, while other vendors unveiled distribution and co-development partnerships with Linux tools companies.

IBM yesterday outlined sweeping plans to integrate Linux into several of its products, as well as to offer global technical support for all major versions of Linux. The company will team with four major Linux distributors--Caldera Systems, Pacific HiTech, Red Hat Software, and Suse Holding AG--to co-develop and market Linux products and provide training and support to customers. IBM will include in its offerings the IBM WebSphere Web development products, including two application servers. Also to be included are Linux-based offerings of IBM's Host On-Demand Java-based emulator for Web-to-host connectivity and an On-Demand Server that manages E-business applications. The company is also working on porting Linux to selected IBM RS/6000 models.

While IBM is unabashedly supporting Linux now, the company was originally hesitant to back the platform because of legal issues, according to Dwight Davis, an analyst at Summit Strategies. Davis believes there's always a possibility of Linux's containing proprietary code, and that the general public license that Linux is distributed under would make a larger corporation the easiest target of a lawsuit should something go wrong with the system. But those fears are now being pushed aside, as Linux has reached a critical mass point where seemingly everyone wants to be a player in the market, Davis says.

Computer Associates also joined forces with Red Hat yesterday, outlining plans to release the Unicenter TNG framework integrated with the Red Hat Linux operating system. The companies say they intend to co-market and co-sell CDs carrying both companies' offerings by midyear. CA and Red Hat will share technical resources in developing Unicenter TNG and Linux, but won't be sharing support services. Meanwhile, Intel and VA Research followed the lead of Hewlett-Packard as the two companies announced plans to port a fully configured Linux operating system to the IA-64 architecture.

Yesterday's announcements follow the trend of vendors rallying behind a platform that promises lower cost and higher reliability for IT organizations. But Summit's Davis notes that Linux isn't a profitable proposition to established vendors, and that users shouldn't expect to benefit from open source when there's no competitive motivation to offer Linux. "There's a fundamental disconnect when you're dealing with open source, which is a services-based business model, and a $100 billion software industry based on intellectual property," Davis said. It will be difficult to replace intellectual property income with services or systems integration income, he added. "I don't think intellectual property is going to disappear. [Open source support] is a nice story to tell, especially if it hurts NT, but they're not going to hurt their middleware sales."