The idea, says Buell Duncan III , IBM's general manager for ISV and developer relations, is to create a network of companies large and small, which are conversant in both nonproprietary, or open, computing standards, like the Linux operating system or the Java programming language, and IBM's suite of hardware, middleware and services.

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These fingerprints look deep into the characteristics of the machine, logging such things as the time zone, keyboard language, operating-system version and other key identifiers.

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The company also plans to make the core language of its operating system available this summer to developers who can then use it to design new applications, much in the same way that companies like Apple have cultivated a community of app developers around their gadgets.

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