Linux, Cloud, and Next Generation Workloads

Overview This talk presents IBM's decades-long commitment to Linux and open source, tracing the evolution from a billion-dollar investment in 2000 to current strategic initiatives. The speaker argues that the explosion of data across enterprises, power grids, medical systems, and other sectors requires open collaboration rather than single-vendor solutions.

IBM's Linux History IBM began its Linux initiative in 2000 under Irving Lowrie Berger's leadership. Despite initial mixed reactions, Berger evangelized the platform at Linux World Conference in February 2000, articulating the core vision: "Linux is not just another OS, anymore than the internet is just another network." He emphasized Linux's unique property of running on every platform regardless of vendor. Over the past two years, IBM's commitment has accelerated with investments in projects including the Open Daylight Consortium.

Open Power Consortium A major initiative extends open-source principles to hardware by making IBM's Power chip IP openly available to innovators. This addresses the industry trend toward chip-level innovation. The consortium includes an initial core set of partners and is launching with a complete open-source software stack including firmware, hypervisor, OS, and management tools—enabling innovation at both chip and system design levels.

Watson and Applications Watson, famous for winning Jeopardy, is being repositioned for medical applications. Partnership with Memorial Sloan Kettering and WellPoint enables interactive real-time cancer treatment analysis, where doctors input patient symptoms and Watson provides treatment recommendations. The system updates dynamically as new patient information emerges. Watson is also being applied to call center operations. All Watson systems run on Linux and Apache stack.

Market Position and Technical Advantages Linux surpassed Unix in market size within the past year and continues growing; Unix remains relatively flat. IBM positions Power Systems as server-quality hardware designed from the ground up—featuring industry-leading cache size and thread density—to handle emerging big data and application workloads more effectively than commodity x86 systems.

Investment and Developer Initiatives IBM announced a new billion-dollar investment in Power Systems and Linux over 4–5 years, including development center expansion (including one in Montpellier, France) and a Linux developer cloud for rapid hardware access. IBM operates 400+ software products on Linux, employs 600+ Linux developers, and has donated patents to protect the Linux ecosystem.

Takeaways Linux and open source are essential to solving industry-scale data and integration challenges. Open Power Consortium and expanded Linux on Power initiatives represent IBM's strategic bet that diverse, community-driven innovation—particularly at the hardware level—will outpace closed systems. Watson demonstrates real-world impact on critical domains like healthcare. Developer-friendly initiatives aim to grow the Power Linux ecosystem.