[Wylug-discuss] Next Meeting - IBM Linux in Business......

[Jim Jackson]

Our next meeting is 10th November and we have an IBM Presentation on Linux
in Business. Please could you circulate to this press release to
colleagues, contacts and anyone you think might be interested in the
general business community.


PRESS RELEASE
=============

        Linux In Business - Time for West Yorkshire Businesses
                   to consider the alternatives.
                   =============================

West Yorkshire Linux Users Group are proud to announce that at the next
meeting on November 10th Cliff Brereton, IBM Services Consultant - Linux
Impact Team will be giving a presentation entitled:

                      "Linux in Business: Where are we now?"

The event is total free to attend (as are all our meetings), and provides
a great opportunity for people within businesses in West Yorkshire to
listen and ask questions about the viability and support available for the
deployment of Linux within Business.

Linux has matured since its humble beginnings in 1991 when Linus Torvalds
a second year student of Computer Science at the University of Helsinki
and a self-taught programmer decided to design his own UNIX like operating
system for his new computer.

"Proving all the warning and prophecies of the sceptics wrong, Linux has
completed more than a decade of development. Today, Linux is one of the
fastest growing operating systems in history. From a few dedicated
fanatics in 1991-92 to millions of general users at present, it is
certainly a remarkable journey."
              (The history of Linux: http://ragib.hypermart.net/linux/)

Big businesses have 'discovered' Linux, and have poured millions of
dollars into the development effort, denouncing the anti-business myth of
the open-source movement.

"In late 1999, Samuel J. Palmisano, then head of IBM's server group and
now the company's CEO, asked his staff what the next big trend would be in
servers. Their answer: Linux. Within a matter of weeks, intensifying
during what became known as the "Christmas meetings," IBM decided to make
Linux a pillar of its strategy. During the next year, it earmarked $1
billion to retool its software and computers to run on Linux and devoted
250 engineers to working with the open-source community."
   (The Linux Uprising:
http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/03_09/b3822601_tc102.htm)

"IBM's expanded practise includes a larger army of consultants able to
work with open-source software such as Linux, in which the software source
code is publicly available. More than 3,000 employees in IBM's services
wing now have certified skills in open-source technologies, a 10-fold
increase since 2001. IBM also is improving the ability of small and
medium-size businesses to test Linux systems, and Big Blue is sweetening
an incentive plan for partners that create Linux-based products for
medium-size businesses using IBM software."
   (IBM revs up Linux business: http://news.com.com/2100-1016_3-5059306.html)

Commercial enterprises are no longer wary of Linux. With a large number of
vendors providing support for Linux based products, it is no longer a
'do-at-your-own-risk' thing to use Linux at the office. As for
reliability, Linux certainly proved it during the nasty attacks of the CIH
virus in 1999 and the love bug a year later, during which Linux based
machines proved to be immune to the damages caused by these otherwise
quite simple computer viruses. Linux start-ups like Red Hat
(http://www.redhat.com) received a cordial response as they went public.
And even after the dot-com bust of the recent years, these companies
continue to thrive and grow. With this added confidence, many large and
small businesses have adopted Linux based servers and workstations as an
integral part of their offices.


Some other links for information
--------------------------------
http://www.ibm.com/linux (Linux at IBM)
http://www.redhat.co.uk/ (Major Linux distribution)
http://www.suse.co.uk/ (Major Linux distribution)
http://mtechit.com/linux-biz/ (Linux in Business)


From
----
West Yorkshire Linux Users Group (WYLUG) http://www.wylug.org.uk/

WYLUG is a group of individuals who use or are interested in GNU Linux and
Open Source software. Our aim is to offer informal help and guidance to
GNU Linux and Open Source software users through events, meetings, our
email lists and the website.


Event
-----
Monday 10th November 2003 WYLUG http://www.wylug.org.uk/meetings.html

Presentation by Cliff Brereton, IBM Services Consultant - Linux Impact
Team entitled:

"Linux in Business: Where are we now?"

This talk will cover: Linux evolution in the business community, Linux
"tipping point", Current Linux deployments - including case examples and
The future.

There will be a questions and answer session at the end of the
presentation, and a chance to talk directly with Cliff Brereton.

Contacts
--------
Mark Spink Meeting organiser dmspink at aria.uklinux.net, tel: 01422 263233
Jim Jackson WYLUG ordinator jj at comp.leeeds.ac.uk, tel: 0113 3436794