By William Fellows
IBM Corp will roll up a collection of Linux mechanisms for AS/400 later this quarter which will effectively mirror the functions of its existing Client Access for Windows connectivity suite. It offers printer emulation, TCP/IP and IPX connectivity, AS/400 administration and other programming functions. Terminal emulation and data transfer are the two most popular functions of Client Access for Windows. It expects the same for Linux. IBM says Linux’s Java capability is particularly synergistic with AS/400’s Java strength. It thinks of Linux in the same way that it has enabled AS/400 to be front-ended by web servers. It is not exactly pushing the boat out however, and can find little that would be compelling about, say, putting Linux up on the FSIOP Intel co-processor AS/400s host for running NT, Unix and NetWare.
