By week's end, IBM's stock had risen almost 20 percent. This week, Sun finds itself beating back more IBM good news, as the company trumpets the first version of the powerful Unix operating system that natively runs freely available Linux applications. Unix systems have largely taken on jobs once reserved for mainframe computers, such as massive transaction-processing systems. It's a validation of our strategy. A spokesperson for Sun dismissed IBM's market growth, saying it's more a reflection of how small IBM's share was last year.
Some analysts agree.
Even with the poor results, last year they grew about 40 percent, then 60 percent, and IBM was nowhere. IBM doesn't make anything on the software, since Linux is free, but it does get the hardware sales. The announcement comes even as Big Blue has begun aggressive marketing campaigns touting the old company's hip Linux image - the ads include chalk drawings of a peace symbol and the familiar Linux penguin appearing on busy San Francisco sidewalks. First, commercial facilities running IBM's server hardware can now practically look to the open-source community for software solutions. Currently, Linux applications generally don't run on Unix-based operating systems without at least some painstaking tweaks.