[luau] IBM To Open New Linux Center for Financial Firms

[W. Wayne Liauh]

http://www.newsfactor.com/perl/story/18327.html


Taking aim at Microsoft <http://www.microsoft.com> and Unix server 
vendors, IBM <http://www.ibm.com> has announced plans for a new center 
in New York City that will provide Linux solutions, training and 
education for financial services companies that want to begin using the 
open source Latest News about open source 
<http://www.newsfactor.com/perl/search.pl?query=%22open%20source%22&siteorcat=all> 
operating system.

IBM said its Linux center, with an initial investment of more than US$1 
million by the company, will include support for hardware and software 
services from IBM as well as from its partners and other participants -- 
including SunGard, J.D. Edwards, Veritas and Sybase. The goal will be to 
help financial services firms evaluate and plan Linux implementations.

"We're able to bring together not only what we're doing but what our 
partners are doing as well," IBM Linux strategic manager Adam Jollans 
told NewsFactor. "As customers move from pilot projects to real 
deployment, this will be a way to test that."

Jollans added that the center also will provide a gateway to the Linux 
and open source community, which may hold user meetings at the Manhattan 
location.

While IBM would not disclose which customers are on board with its new 
center, Giga Information Group <http://www.gigaweb.com> analyst Stacey 
Quandt told NewsFactor that a number of financial services companies are 
embracing the open source standard.

"Merrill Lynch, UBS Warburg, Lehman Brothers, E*Trade and Credit Suisse 
First Boston -- all of those companies have been actively porting 
applications to Linux," Quandt said.

IBM did say that more than 40 of its customers in the financial services 
industry are deploying Linux and the company expects that number will 
grow, along with the availability of Linux services and support at the 
center.