Slashdot Mirror
Big Blue's Software Spending Spree
abb_road writes "IBM has gone on an aggressive acquisitions spree for document management packages in the past three weeks, spending more than $2 billion to pick up two companies. The companies, Webify and FileNet, are expected to become part of IBM's Information on Demand strategy. The acquisitions point to a larger industry trend: a focus on software for unified corporate data management. From the article: 'It's a crucial time to jockey for most-valuable-software-provider status, because companies want to buy more from fewer players, and they're tired of buying stand-alone pieces of software like customer-relationship management that don't fix real-world business problems. The new message to software vendors: Fix my call centers, don't just sell me a product. As a result, the lines are starting to blur between software companies that offer, say, Internet security, databases, and tools to manage nearly every part of the business. So, too, are the lines between service companies and software companies.'"
IBM definitely has the resources to create many of these software services themselves for alot less money. I think it's as much about buying these companies up before the competition can than getting the software.
Developers: We can use your help.
Every job I have ever had has a pattern with IT: Our people aren't sharing information or documenting their work properly, lets spend X to upgrade our computers...Our people aren't sharing information or documenting their work properly, lets spend X2 to upgrade our computers...Our people aren't sharing information or documenting their work properly, lets spend X4 to upgrade our computers...and so on.
People need to start being more organized before any data-management software dose a bit of good.
We are the Borg...
Hmm. Was the summary written by an IBMer by any chance? I don't see the words "on demand" or "business transformation" or anything like that, but...
The World Wide Web is dying. Soon, we shall have only the Internet.
Why can't these folks give me money for a change? Charities, other ceos, etc. Damn it I want a billion dollars to write OSS stuff :-)
Tom
Someday, I'll have a real sig.
Is the current emphasis on data storage and communication really just a fad?
No, not at all. The current emphasis on storage/communication/collaboration is the due to the business world recognizing the capabilities of what computing can do for them. Most businesses are not interested in the computational power of computing as much as they are the expenditure-reducing, labour-reducing and capability-increasing power of computing. The present computations revolve around business logic. Typically the business world holds a much different perspective on how a computer is useful to them.
Excel works, and a lot of people use it, but it doesn't seem to be a "killer app" for much of anybody anymore
Excel was and still is a very powerful too. There really isn't a subtitute for it. Personal, business, and government all use it. Microsoft Office isn't popular by coincidence -- the Excel, Access, Word, etc., suite is very powerful for all categories of work.
For he today that sheds his blood with me shall be my brother.
Every job I have ever had has a pattern with IT: Our people aren't sharing information or documenting their work properly, lets spend X to upgrade our computers...
From my personal experience, people don't share information because it is inconvenient. I generate tons of documentation and information and people regularly ask me for info on something, which I provide to them. A lot more people probably want information I have, but don't know where to get it or how to find it. Why don't I make this more available and searchable to the whole company? It is inconvenient. Some is in CVS, some on the intranet, some on wiki pages and Websites, some in shared directories, and some just on my laptop. If our company had software to easily put it all in one searchable database with say a right click, and keep it up to date I'd do it. The problem is most CMS type systems, just don't work very well or easily.
As for documenting, well I think we all know what causes that and it is almost always that documentation is not given the priority is should be, because it does not cost money directly or immediately to skimp on it.
It's not like we don't have examples of classification systems that work. Finding a piece of information in a library might take a few minutes to locate a set of data, and then minutes to review material and find a fact, or hours or days to poll opinions and assemble an informed picture of the subject under investigation. Indexing schemas in document management are evaluated by how many clicks it takes to get to an already known piece of information.
Or maybe it is that the business metrics applied to this sort of activity are based on the speed and volume rather than the quality of work? If a poor decision was made through a lack of information, was it the difficulty in locating this information, or was it a lack of will or desire to adequately research a decision before making it?
Document management is a technique for turning all the crappy little internal web sites in your company running Apache, PHPNuke, or some random blogging thing into giant bloated internal web sites with exactly the same content, overpriced on-site consultants, and $50K per year support contracts.
Give a man a fish and you have fed him for today. Teach a man to fish, and he'll say "WHERE'S MY FISH, YOU IDIOT?"
The value of a document management system is not in the amount of work that it took to code the system. The value is in the processes the business would have to do if it didn't have a document management system. All the paper handling. Shuffling carts of paper from floor to floor, department to department. Trying to find a document again in some filing cabinet, among rows and rows of filing cabinet.
Many businesses and government agencies would simply not be able to function without this type of system. They know it, and the system providers know it. Hence the pricetag.
Dude, do you realize how stupid you sound? FileNet has its flaws, but it is a full-scale enterprise application that has an enormous client base and it would be near impossible for 20 average slashdotters could create a rival an application that even comes close to gaining market share on them in a year or two timeperiod. Regardless of the quality of the application itself, a company's worth comes from its revenue stream.
As technologies mature, they become infrastructure for other technologies, and slowly disappear from view.
I remember a time, not so very long ago, when the very idea of a cellular phone was just electrifying. I watched the James Bond shows where he had a phone in his car with envy!
Now, I have a cheap, reliable cell phone at my hip (pretty much) 24x7, and it's casual. I'm annoyed more often than not getting calls when I'm trying to get something done.
The current emphasis on computing as a communications and data storage/retrieval engine is a consequence of the still fairly recent availability of the Internet. Sure, it was available in most areas in 1995, but you don't generally consider a 28.8 Kbps MODEM as "mature". DSL service is now hitting solidly in most areas, and represents the minimum degree of technology that could be used for reliable information storage and retrieval.
So, the excitement is based around the new things that this technology makes possible.
Give it 10-20 years, and the pendulum will swing back the other way, EG: "Now that we've been collecting all this wonderful data, how do we put it all together to show us what to do next?".
I have no problem with your religion until you decide it's reason to deprive others of the truth.
20 "average" slahdotters? About a million years. As far as I can tell the average slashdotter is not a programmer. 20 "average" slashdot programmers? Well, you can get a basic application together in a year or two. Then, you will continue to refine, improve, reduce. The big features actually tend to take the least amount of time. It's all of the little nice features that make a really polished product that take the time.
In any case, as others have pointed out, FileNet was a functioning, profitable company with over $400 million a year in revenues. That's what you're paying for, not just the code. Flip it around. If you owned a company that was taking in $400 million a year would you sell it for $20 million?