Treetop,
I would agree with your LONG-TERM vision that JAVA will possibly become a very powerful technology that will break will possibly spell the demise of the WinTel dominance, but that is several years away. And a lot can happen in 10 years.
In the meantime, MSFT has built a PC software empire that many company IT CIO's are bowing to and following (if they like it or not). IBM is effectively OUT OF THAT SPACE! If they continue to stay out of that space and only focus on technologies that are 5-10 years away from being mature enough to be serious candidates for mission-critical business functions, then IBM will not have a jumping board to promote the idea. WHY, because the consumers of WinTel based solutions will have become entrenched and will be VERY VERY hesitant to transition to IBM's glorious future technology offerings.
In order for IBM to successful promote the use of concepts like Java and CORBA they must be in the game in the area they want to convert from WinTel's way of doing it to the open-systems way of doing it. Only then can they implement an evolutionary shift with revolutionary concepts and technologies. If IBM isnt in the game to EVOLVE their customers and the industry to Java / CORBA, then they wont be successful. IT consumers generally follow market leaders (safety in numbers).
Your quoted statement from Ellison is telling me that you are seeing IBM's PC and WinTel arena of the IT Industry in a very restrictive and simplistic manner. I will repeat myself, companies like NOVL, MSFT, etc. are offering much more than simple file/print. If that is what IBM thinks they are competing with in order to regain dominance in the small-end platforms, then they didnt learn much from their last fall in this platform back in the mid-80s. I can assure you that IBM considers these small-platform players to be much more complex than what you perceive them to be.
As for response to my following statement...
<IBM...re-establish themselves with some industry leading network infrastructure software systems>
Take careful note on the words NETWORK INFRASTRUCTURE. My statement was not directed to the GENERAL IT INFRASTRUCTURE. And so, my statement still stands. IBM is not considered a leader in networking hardware or software solutions. YES they do have some good networking hardware (ie. switches routers etc.) although much has been OEMed from other players but their network software is by far not a leader (ie. WARP Connect, firewall, directory services, etc.).
Proof that they are not a leader in networking are in the following examples:
ATM - they tried to make ATM the next industry leading LAN solution (in an effort to revivie their dead Token Ring topology). No one followed IBM's push to make ATM on the LAN the defacto standard.
100mbps Token Ring - this is one I fear IBM is going to actually try and push. If they do, THEY WILL FAIL. Token Ring is going the way of the spitoon and speeding it up is - "Too Little - Too Late".
Before I close, I want to say TreeTop, I really have enjoyed this healthy debate. Please do not get me wrong that I am fighting with you on this. I find this very interesting to hear and respond.
Toy |
