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IBM's assault on Microsoft
Kelly McNeill writes "osOpinion has an
excellent editorial piece which talks about IBM's recent refocusing efforts
including supporting Linux as well as making alliances with major Linux players
in an effort to knock Microsoft from its current standing in the Industry.
" It's a good point-although it seems strange sometimes, thinking about the old, bad IBM, and comparing it to now. I hope that we don't forget, however, that ultimately IBM is a company, and they are looking out for themselves.
I work at the big blue company in research. Some here don't like microsoft as evidenced by cartoons, quotes and other such things stuck to doors. They make us use it.
Micorsoft isn't liked at other companies though.
If you've been following the anti-trust trial, Microsoft really stuck it to IBM. Of course IBM doesn't want to be totally dependent on 1 vendor for anything, especially when you have a hostile relationship with that vendor. It makes good business sense.
IBM loses money on PC hardware. There are rumors of them droping out and just suppling parts (Dell and Acer and Apple have signed on). The new power books are almost more IBM than apple (Ram, screen, harddrives).
also big companies have to avoid competing with their clients.
Would you rather write a word processor for a company that makes the OS and a wordprocessor or one that just makes an OS? Which company would give you more support?
IBM makes more and more $ on consulting and support. They really can impliment solutions well and so having them impliment and support linux is a BIG win for linux and IBM. IBM gets a stable OS to impliment, Linux gets tested / legitimized by many IBM projects.
just my 2 cents..
/A
I was under the impression that the Windows emulation in OS/2 was pretty good. If IBM really wanted to hurt Microsoft wouldn't they port that to Linux or at least open source it and let the Wine folks do it? In my mind that's the single biggest thing they could do to speed up the obsoletion of Windows. So, I would question then whether they are driven to hurt Microsoft or whether that is just a nice fringe benefit of their actions.
Then again, maybe they can't port their emulator because of legal restrictions.
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First up, this is my view on the *current* IBM. I hear they may have had a shady past (before me following things.. only 22 :P), but I am judging by current events....
;)
OK, so IBM is a global corporation, that is ultimately looking out for itself.
Similar to Microsoft, or Microsoft all over again you say?
There is a difference, IBM is going about things the RIGHT way. Whereas Microsoft uses marketing, pushing glitz over stability, the perpetual hardware upgrades, etc, IBM has been pushing open source and standards compliance.
If IBM pushing open source results in more open source, and more power to IBM, then so be it.
Ill be glad for them so long as they continue to do the "right thing".
Maybe the company has even learned something this time around with regards to what customers really want/need.
A saying that Microsoft seems to not understand, "Don't shit in your own backyard" springs to mind
I run: Windows, OS X, Linux, FreeBSD. Just because you have a hammer, doesn't mean everything is a nail.
Who'd have thought in 1985 that IBM would eventually be supporting open standards and a level playing field? How times change!
Anyway, IBM's desire to take the desktop away from Microsoft is more than just "an axe to grind." IBM knows, just as well as Sun and HP do, that unless Microsoft's desktop monopoly is dislodged, Microsoft will use its modus operandi of "force everything to be integrated" to dominate the server universe as well. That, in turn, destroys the market for AS/400's, RS/6000's, and perhaps even 390's.
Even in the face of the current DOJ actions, Microsoft is still moving forward to tie things together with even more proprietary glue. Have you checked out Office 2000's server-side extensions? They run on Windows NT servers, of course, and use an MS wire protocol. Suddenly it seems that they were, in fact, listening to Vinod Valoppalil when he suggested the course of de-commoditizing the wire protocols.
Microsoft has proven that you can't concede anything to them, they won't just stay in one place and let you have a different sector of the industry. IBM and others must dislodge the Microsoft desktop monopoly in order to prevent Microsoft from eventually taking over the entire game.
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the only operating system ibm gets any money from now is what runs on their mainframes. and nobody else's software has been ported to as/400 and all the rest of ibm's mainframes. and regardless of what anyone says, ibm does have a vested interest in seeing microsoft go down. hard.
nobody has any doubt about the kind of ethics bill gates has exhibited in the business world. they screw all their partners. they try to humiliate and grind their potential rivals into dust. and they expand into everything they can.
as for ibm itself being evil, i think the company has probably learned from its mistakes. when they hired gerstner people were talking about how ibm was going to go bankrupt. do you remember all those news stories, talking about how the big corporations/blue chips were doomed, big spreads comparing ibm to the dinosaurs, etc.
gerstner turned the whole thing around by razing the rigid corporate culture to the ground and forcing everyone to adapt. it will be a while before ibm is ever that arrogant again. basic corporate cycle:
1. small company, starts up, everyone works hard
2. small company kicks ass, people do well
3. small company becomes big company
4. management gets arrogant, employees complacent
5. crisis- company adapts or dies.
ibm made the jump, but only because of gerstner, and his willingness to question everything (because if you look at his background youll discover that he has NO TECHNICAL BACKGROUND prior to ibm!!!) gerstner was at rjr nabisco before ibm hired him...he knew NOTHING about computers... so he asked lots of questions and brought in some common sense and plenty of humility.
microsoft has yet to learn that particular lesson. but now it looks like the doj and ibm (and sun, and everyone else) are going to learn 'em some manners. how well microsoft does in the educational process is ultimately a test of the quality of their managers...
unc_
So, I figure it's kind of a karma thing for IBM to step up to the plate and help knock down this monster that is largely their own creation.
IBM has already spent a good deal of money trying to get on top of the PC industry, and all of the efforts have pretty much failed (MCA, OS/2, PowerPersonal). Do you really think that IBM is going to take that on again?
Outside of certain shops, IBM does not have alot of credibilty in the desktop space. Just look around your office. The only place that IBM has significant desktop market share is Lotus Notes and ccMail, the latter being a dead product.
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Which doesn't mean they'll do it. If you called up IBM today and said "I want a solution for X, Y, and Z - here's some money, I don't care how you do it."
You would come in the next day and probably find an AS/400 running Lotus Domino and DB2. Expecting a Netfinity running Linux? Sorry!
Linux can be used as more of a tactical approach for accounts that want something that isn't IBM hardware and also isn't necessarily from Microsoft.
(One thing someone should do is a Linux "Small Business Server" like MS and Novell produce. Basically it's a mail server, web server, fax server, firewall, and PPP server all wrapped up and pre-configured with a web admin interface. Basically something that vendors can drop on a small business and then forget about it.)
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MSDOS Client for TCP/IP is now difficult to find on the MS website. Of course, anything is hard to find on that website. It's probably still on NT disks.
It is, although it's a horrific install unless you have a network card from 1992 or so. Still highly recommended if you have a Samba enviornment.
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One thing that's become clear over time is that PC operating systems and applications isn't a very profitable business. Sure Microsoft has made a ton of money, but everyone else (Corel, Adobe, Borland, Apple, etc) seems to be just scraping along. If you include MCA and OS/2, IBM probably has a net loss for it's microcomputer endevors, and probably just stays in the business so that they can provide an end-to-end solution.
Instead, IBM (and Oracle, Sun, etc) have realized that the money is really in the middleware and back-end layers, as well as services. Which is why DB2, Lotus Domino, and Tivoli are much more important (and profitable) than ViaVoice or SmartSuite or OS/2 or anything else IBM could possibly dream up in the desktop space. Microsoft of course has figured this out too, and is trying to scale up Windows and MS SQL as fast as it can.
What does this have to do with Linux? I doubt IBM really cares about Linux on the desktop (including MWave drivers, KDE, Gnome, Mesa, etc.). Linux gives IBM a way to push cheap application servers and services while avoiding it's reputation for pushing proprietary products and also the dismal future of becoming a second-tier Microsoft solution provider.
So while IBM might push Linux a bit, it's ultimately just another solution for them to choose from. They certainly aren't going to get into another desktop OS war or try to evangalize any die-hard MS customers.
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Business. Numbers. Money. People. Computer World.
I couldn't agree more with you. Of course, many people (DOJ attorney David Boies is one of them) believe that Microsoft's actions are breaking the law. So either way they're bad.
Your right to not believe: Americans United for Separation of Church and
The way I see it, IBM has a duty to help knock down Microsoft. After all, Microsoft's success in the PC market is largely due to IBM not taking the market seriously. While M$ apologists like to pretend the B.G. is the greatest businessman ever, his current success is due largely to IBM.
Specifically, I see them making two moves which helped M$. One, they licensed MS-DOS from M$ instead of just buying it outright. IBM certainly had the upper hand in the negotiations, but I don't think they took the PC market seriously. Had they known how large the market was going to become, I am certain they would have bought an OS instead of renting one.
Second, M$ became a trusted name to business because the letters "IBM" were on the outside of the box. Nobody bought a PC because M$ wrote the OS. They bought them because IBM put their name on them.
So, I figure it's kind of a karma thing for IBM to step up to the plate and help knock down this monster that is largely their own creation. Of course, if M$ wasn't there, IBM would maybe be the dominant company in the PC business. I think, in hindsight, that we would have been better off. For one, IBM was getting hassled for anit-trust reasons long before M$ was. I think DOJ would have been willing to smack IBM down long ago. Second, PC's would probably be much more reliable. While you can fault IBM for lots of things, you have to admit that they take reliability very seriously.
/* Insert "16-bit player" joke here */
How does that go?
Windows 95 is a 32-bit shell on top of a 16-bit extension of an 8-bit OS written for a 4-bit CPU* by a 2-bit company that doesn't like 1 bit of competition.
(*) Remember the Intel 4004? Or as one wag put it, inside every Pentium is an i4004 trying to get out.
-- Alastair
I see IBM's support of Open Source to be one example of a shift in the software industry from a "manufacturing" mindset to a "service" mindset. Instead of producing boxes of CD-ROMs, which are worthless in themselves (who doesn't have a CD-R drive these days), IBM creates software as part of a service business, which includes consulting, "e-business" solutions, as they call it, and various levels of technical support. In this business model, open source makes a lot of sense. The software itself is not for sale. It's only part of a larger service package. They can easily let everyone under the sun look at their source with no risk of losing anything. Yes, the source is copyrighted material, but in the same way as a technical manual is copyrighted material. Obfusicating source code makes about as much sense, in the IBM "e-business" model, as selling PCs without letting anyone see a manual or open the case.
No sig.
"Microsoft was just another bit player...."
"bit" player. heh.
/* Insert "16-bit player" joke here */
Save the whales. Feed the hungry. Free the mallocs.
IBM is buying Whistle, the makers of the Interjet, which is a FreeBSD-based small-office internet box like the Cobalt Qube.
So it looks like IBM will be supporting two open operating systems, indirectly at least.
I see a movie parody: Imagine the role of Obi wan Kenobi to be played by IBM, Darth Vader to be played by Microsoft and Luke Skywalker to be played by Linux.
IBM brings Microsoft under its wings to join forces to battle the new threat to the empire: Apple and Commodore.
Microsoft is lured into the dark side of the source:
IBM loses the battle for the empire and Microsoft emerges as the new emperor. IBM leaves to the barren wasteland of OS/2.
A NEW HERO arrives on the scene to do battle for world dominion against the evil empire: Linux.
IBM sees the potential in this new hero and pulls out its trusty lightsaber/(cooperates with DOJ) and comes along side Linux to say: USE THE SOURCE.
The evil emperor is defeated and a new period of freedom and prosperity emerges from the command prompt.
Okay, it's a fantasy and has no bais in reality, but the Dark Side of Business is the temptation to establish a monoply.
Sm@rtReseller got wind of such a strategy last year.
Here's a link to the article that outlines IBM's desire to support Netscape and Java against MS and basically declare war on MS at the desktop. FASCINATING read. I highly recommend it.
Excerpt: "What does all that mean? In a nutshell, the paper says IBM is striving to keep corporate desktops open by teaming with Netscape Communications Corp. to position Java applications
against Microsoft's COM/DCOM object model, "which locks customers into Windows on both the client and the server."
IBM hopes to ensure that 50 percent of PCs in 2003 are capable of running 100% Pure Java applications. "We will accomplish this by helping Netscape remain a major player on the desktop and
ensuring the 100% Pure Java applications will run in Microsoft's Internet Explorer," the document says.
So far, much of the strategy in this whitepaper (which is from July '98) has been blown away by market movements - Antitrust trial, breakup of Netscape, Java squabbles, etc. - but it does indicate that IBM is committed to not allowing MS to rule the world.
That's gotta be a good thing.
share and enjoy
I know that I will be flamed for this statement, but Linux in its current form doesn't have what it takes to beat windows at its own game, the home market and especially among newbies. Linux is great for hackers, sysadmins and the like but it is too hard for the average family to use. The linux community will have to sell its soul to get the support it needs for this market. BeOS is much better for the home market because it is fast, stable, easy to use and takes no time to get used to. Be is very linux friendly and will not position BeOS to compete against linux unless Linux tries to move into the home and workstation markets, especially the multimedia market. I have used both Linux and BeOS and BeOS is far better for newbies than any OS on the market. Lack of hardware support for BeOS is largely a misnomer now as it supports tnt, 99% of all ati, neomagic and a few other graphic cards, pretty much all sound blaster cards, all new ensoniq cards, aureal cards, basically all non-usb/non-winmodems and a huge chunk of the scsi card market. It usually lacks support for very specialized stuff like wacom pads. Personally my only personal bone of contention with Linux is that it is so slow compared to BeOS. BeOS boots in about 6-8 seconds and when I had linux installed it took about 20 seconds to start the cli and about 10 seconds to start X/Enlightenment/GNOME. It took that long on a PII 450 with 128mb of ram.
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