IBM switching to Linux destops in Germany according to a Linux Forum 2006 presentation by their head of open source and Linux sales in Germany.

Interesting news from LinuxForum 2006

During a presentation on IBM's involvement with Open Source, Andreas Pleschek from IBM in Stuttgart, Germany, who heads open source and Linux technical sales across North East Europe for IBM made a very interesting statement...

"Andreas Pleschek also told that IBM has cancelled their contract with Microsoft as of October this year. That means that IBM will not use Windows Vista for their desktops. Beginning from July, IBM employees will begin using IBM Workplace on their new, Red Hat-based platform. Not all at once - some will keep using their present Windows versions for a while. But none will upgrade to Vista."

The question is, does this only apply to IBM in Germany, or IBM world wide?

If ALL of IBM switches to Linux desktops and OpenOffice... that would be a very significant loss to Microsoft; not only in direct licensing revenues, but also in speeding adoption of Linux by other companies. After all, if IBM can run on Linux desktops...