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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.
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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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.
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.
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