WWWalker's IBM Overview

eServers Glossary - decoding the jargon!

IBM, being the ulimate geeks, encode all the product names with esoteric names. Below is our effort to decode this for the average pleb.

Software

Industry Collaboration

IBM is in numerous industry groups:

• Power.org
• Apache
• IBM Emerging Technologies jStart Team

developerWorks

• IBM supports Linux on their Intel, POWER and Mainframe architectures.
• Most demo software requires a high-end CPU (2GHz), RAM (1GB), disk (80GB), RHEL, SuSE. Demo is 1.2GB! You need broadband to download (>=1Mbit/sec).
• IBM runs Webcasts on IDEs, middleware and CASE tools that are OK over dialup.
• IBM holds good free developerWorks seminars on CASE tools and Linux in the Powerhouse Museum in Sydney.

High Entry Costs

You get the impression IBM deals with middle to large companies. Small companies like ours struggle to make use of the good software due to lack of infrastructure - communications bandwidth and processor speed, hard disk size and RAM size. Capital is what it is all about hey? IBM needs to break its downloads into smaller chunks e.g. 50MB, and port its software to less high-end versions of operating systems e.g. Fedora. We are being squeezed out of our own industry - open source software - in the stampede to capitalise on Linux as an alternative to Solaris, Windows, SCO and Mac OS X.

Be careful of what IBM does. They will sway the industry and have such huge intellectual property investments in alternative operating systems that they will sew up the computer world. They take out more patents per day than any other company for 13th consecutive year! (IBM takes out 2941 US patents in 2005 - 1100 more than any other company - then: Canon 1828, HP 1797, Matsushita 1688, Samsung 1641.) They are pushing into 3rd world countries where no-one cares about Microsoft and making huge coups for Linux over Windows e.g. Peru, Brazil, China.

So the only way to beat IBM is:

1. have more patents (incredibly hard - you'd need billions of dollars in staff and equipment) or
2. outrun them and use smallness to bamboozle them (OK if you have the energy and resources) or
3. make your own software outside their controls (possible but limited in scope - bit like a withered branch on a vine - this has been our way since people have ripped us off when outsourcing to them - we own the source and license it to them to stop this 'pinching your brain and leaving you with nothing' mentality of today's wasters)

IBM don't seem to be that bright when it comes to dealing with small business. It is like a torrent of information coming at you from them but not much filtering goes on when dealing with that kind of brontosaurus so it almost becomes comical how bad they are at small tasks. They have NO creativity: all suits and straight down the line conservatives.

In the late 1990s, IBM moved into the middlware tools market (e.g. Rational) away from their hardware market. Hardware made little money on the margins as it is cloned by Taiwanese companies with no royalties. They make billions out of services by partnering with IT consultants. Partnering requires a non-disclosure agreement and business plan. They are very straight with business plans and business value (total cost of ownership). They deal with the suits in a business (non-technical side). So to deal with IBM, you have to be very business like. This will tighten up your balance sheet and profit and loss statement (a good thing really) and make you think what you will get out of being a part of a very big organisation's connections. I once visited IBM at Pennant Hills, Sydney. It was like being a rebel fighter entering the Death Star - massive entrance and floors and floors of consultants, technical specialists and marketing people swarming everywhere. I felt totally out of place! I'm more into PCs (microprocessors) and smaller handheld systems so going near a mainframe hub was a bit daunting! I prefer smallness and flexibility than centralist control systems that people like governments and armies use to muster up power and control over the masses.

I have considered partnering with IBM and visited their St Leonards NSW base in 15 March 2011 to attend a big data Sydney SMAQDown meetup presentation on Hadoop on how the British Library archived the internet and also saw their very interesting computer museum. IBM Emerging Internet Technologies jStart team in Australia sponsored this meetup.

WWWalker Intro