IBM's infernal Linux desktop memo puts Big Blue in a spin

BIG BLUE IN AMERICA has confirmed the authenticity of the IBM internal memo we published earlier this week, but its spin machine is obviously being overclocked in a PR damage limitation exercise.

(See Internal memo confirms IBM move to Linux desktop).

IBM has responded to the news to a number of US publications.

A quotable quote in the Wall Street Journal has an IBM spokeswoman claiming that it's "routine for IBM to challenge its internal IT teams to rigorously test new platforms and technologies inside IBM". She told a staff writer that despite the chairman's dictat, Big Blue has no plans to move all employees to a Linux desktop by the end of 2005, despite Bob Greenberg saying so in the memo.

There's a different spin by the Associated Press, in this story in the Seattle Times .

Here IBM spinner Trink Guarino confirmed the memo was authentic - did you doubt it guys? - but said it had been "taken out of context".

We dunno if it was Trink again, but Infoworld was told by a representative that the memo "was not a directive, but a challenge to an internal team".

Trink appears again in eWeek , and told the magazine as a matter of policy Big Blue doesn't discuss internal memoranda.

But, she adds, "It's no secret that we're a leading supporter of open systems and open platforms, and we're proud of that".

The Mercury News' Dan Gillmor, in his eJournal, rightly points out that this is potentially big news. He says here that there's little reason, if IBM manages this, for other large corporations not to follow Big Blue. "Maybe things really are changing," he says.

IBM's Greenberg, is the chief information officer based in Poughkeepsie, and the memo was sent to a number of senior executives in IBM's organisation. µ