There is the small matter of DB2 support, as Simon Scullion reminded me this morning. Doh! I assume DB2 supports Ubuntu as part of its ambitions to foster better developer penetration. Under the leadership of Janet Perna DB2 was the least developer savvy software brand at IBM. Today, on the contrary, the database folks are all about developers, and are leading now IBM SWG leaders in areas such as PHP support. I see a call with the Information Management people in my future. Anant Jhingran the CTO is the guy to ask.
That said it could be that Ubuntu really just isn’t seeing much in the way of enterprise adoption as yet, given all the noise came from the original announcement in 2005. RedMonk talks to a lot of development and Web people about Ubuntu but enterprise developers and architects not so much. the RHEL lock remains hard to pick. Stephen’s thoughts from Ubuntu Live last week are here. I think we need to dig into the Ubuntu adoption question some more, to get beyond developers as leading indicators thinking.
Ubuntu is still an evaluation platform, if Alfresco’s numbers are anything to go by – 22% of evaluations are on Ubuntu. Production- not so much. Like I say though we’ll continue to dig in.
disclosure: IBM DB2 is a client. Stephen is an Ubuntu fanboy.
Simon Scullion says:
July 31, 2007 at 10:22 am
Interesting that you link the Ubuntu support for DB2 to a need to please the developer community. If you’re right, that can only mean good things for the Lotus dev folk! 😉
Looking forward to hearing what you can dig up on this!
Neil Ward-Dutton says:
July 31, 2007 at 10:39 am
James, you should speak to Dale et al about putting a survey together…
Simon Scullion » IBM support for Ubuntu says:
July 31, 2007 at 11:29 am
[…] James followed up this morning, and wonders whether Ubuntu really just isn’t seeing much in the way of enterprise adoption as yet […]
stephen o'grady says:
July 31, 2007 at 3:08 pm
“I assume DB2 supports Ubuntu as part of its ambitions to foster better developer penetration.”
IIRC, Ubuntu actually self-certified for DB2.
Ed says:
August 5, 2007 at 12:19 pm
For years the founders of Peningo Systems has been involved in supporting DB2 / UDB for years, as well as, supporting DB2 / UDB under various flavors of Linux. While the popularity and acceptance of UBUNTU is still suspect for larger enterprises, Peningo has Consultants with the DB2 and Linux implementation and support expertise.
Edward
Peningo Systems
Providing IT Consultants to the Business Community with expertise in WebSphere, Tivoli and DB2 – UDB for years