IBM Chases the Corporate Desktop

IBM is once again promoting an effort aimed at putting more of its own and its partners' software--and less of Microsoft's--onto corporate desktops.

The company recently launched the Open Client Solution, an offering that lets business customers pick and choose from a set menu of components to create a full desktop suite capable of running on the Linux or Mac OS operating systems, as well as Microsoft Windows.

The available components include most Lotus Notes and Domino offerings, a word processor based on the Open Document Format, the Firefox Web browser and the Red Hat Desktop Linux Suite or the SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop.

IBM says any combination of the desktop components will be OS-agnostic because of the included Lotus Expediter, software that provides cross-platform compatibility.IBM and Microsoft have a long history of battling for desktop dominance. The latest effort recalls IBM's ill-fated campaign of 2003, Lotus Workplace, a set of server-side productivity tools and applications that office workers could access using a browser. IBM has largely abandoned that effort due to technical complexity and meager customer uptake.

Open Client may fare better. More than 100 companies--including Novell and automaker PSA Peugeot Citroen--are piloting it, and IBM is using it on more than 15,000 internal workstations. --Paul McDougall, [email protected]