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To: tinkershaw who wrote (51445)	5/17/2002 2:42:40 PM
From: paul_philp	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 54805

Tinker, Excellent synopsis. In light of your analysis the Dell announcement this week is even more important. As far as I am concerned, Dell is the company best positioned to dominate the IA64 server market and BEA is already getting in tight with them. The one missing piece in the overall analysis is a comprhensive view of the customer requirements and the challenges faced in the data center. I hope I can get to that soon. Paul

To: tinkershaw who wrote (51445)	5/17/2002 3:18:09 PM
From: JohnM	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 54805

Tinker, A very helpful post. One question. As I said, in an earlier post to Paul, the material I've read lately concerning web services completely ignores BEAS and concentrates on the competition between IBM and Microsoft. The latest such article appeared in the last week or two in the Wall Street Journal. Given your analysis, why do we get different information in these newspapers accounts? Lazy reporting; different cut at the industry; something else? John

To: tinkershaw who wrote (51445)	5/17/2002 3:45:06 PM
From: darryl25	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 54805

BEAS is INTC's partner in this endeavor for two reasons (1) INTC is competing with SUN and IBM, so not going to use iPlanet or WebSphere, (2) BEAS has the best clustering technology in the market. Clustering is a software program that allows many servers to work as one, and enables you to add or subtract servers, as needed in a plug 'n play environment. This clustering technology allows a firm to say buy 3 cheap INTC servers, and cluster them so as to avoid a single point of failure, and also to allow easier and greater scalability (all at less cost) then say having to buy one large SUN or IBM server, with its relatively high cost, single point of failure, and much more difficult cost to scale if you want to add additional servers. As such, BEAS clustering technology is the key enabling technology to enable IBM to pursue the commoditization of server strategy to ebusiness. Tinker, Great Post. But I have some concerns about this idea of commoditizing servers I've seen yourself and others toss around. A large cost for the service providers, co-los, web hosters, etc. is people to manage servers. In the data center today, for each additional x number of servers added, one new person is needed to manage these servers. The value of x is usually a constant. So the data center must add many more lower performing commodity servers and thus more administrators when scaling. This increases the total cost of ownership greatly. I don't see a movement towards commodity lower performing 1U servers from position in the industry. Instead, in the data center, I see a move to higher performing, small form factor servers that can reduce the TCO by eliminating the high cost of management. Can you tell me what you've seen differently that points to the move to commodity based servers? Also, does BEAS clustering technology allow for the addition of hardware without a linear addition of necessary management? What I mean is, do they have single point of management software that allows the administrator to throw a Dell PowerEdge in a rack with WebLogic preinstalled and manage it with little effort? Darryl

To: tinkershaw who wrote (51445)	5/18/2002 1:47:55 AM
From: EJhonsa	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 54805

IBM's strategy of profiting from services and selling main frames and tossing WebSphere in as a bundle is in complete contravention to this commoditization strategy. IF WebSphere becomes such a complete product that it practically makes distributed computing for most of the world plug 'n play, IBM loses its business model. IBM's model requires continuing complexity. It's true that IBM often tries hard to tie in its software sales with hardware and services deals, but I think the impact of this on the fate of the company's software operations has still been overestimated somewhat, especially on the Global 2000 side of things. IBM sells over $12 billion a year in software, and much of it ends up being used in conjunction with other vendors' hardware. Platforms such as Lotus Notes, DB2, and Tivoli are often used on equipment manufactured by the Suns and HPs of the world, and the same should hold true for Websphere. Whether these firms will aggressively market Websphere, or attempt to optimize their products for it, is, of course, another story altogether. Another point to keep in mind is that, for the time being , the vast majority of J2EE-EJB deployments will revolve around in-house applications development rather than third-party software use, and this is a field where larger enterprises will wield a disproportionate amount of clout in terms of investment dollars. There's a certain economy of scale to these types of projects - if Company A's revenues are 5x those of Company B, chances are that it'll have much more than 5x as much to spend on software development for application servers. And these firms will be more willing to go for complex solutions. But even if you are looking at the small/medium-sized business market, I don't think it's fully accurate to portray IBM as a bumbling behemoth incapable of meeting the cost-sensitive needs of these types of customers. Not only did its sales to small and medium-sized businesses grow considerably during the Gerstner era, a case can be made that these types of firms are far more suited to an IBM-style approach than their larger counterparts, due to the fact that they're far more likely to look for a proverbial "one-stop shop" for all their IT-related needs. Whereas larger, Global 2000-type firms generally have the resources and manpower to opt for best-of-breed software solutions, smaller companies might look for someone like IBM to provide a solution for everything from databases to collaboration platforms to middleware to e-commerce transaction processing to, yes, application servers. And since these companies have less dedicated IT workers on hand, IBM's bundling of consulting services could also prove useful, whether or not other hardware/software platforms are offered in conjunction with Websphere. I'm not arguing that IBM's set to dominate the J2EE app server market, leaving BEA with nothing more than some leftover decaf. Far from it, in fact: I think BEA does have a clear lead at this point in racking up Global 2000 customers and ISV partners and in pushing the web services and web portal angles, and I agree with the argument that IBM's various channel conflicts give BEA an edge in obtaining support from third-party software and hardware vendors. I'm just trying to show that this isn't a purely black-and-white story, that IBM isn't the monolithic, out-of-touch Evil Empire seeking to tie down corporate serfs to expensive, proprietary, bundled solutions, helpless to do anything but watch as the crafty Rebel Alliance (a.k.a. BEA) spawns a grass-roots revolution by providing the oppressed small business masses with a low-cost, modularized, open-standards platform. Rather, I still hold that this market looks more like the one for relational database software, or perhaps server operating systems, with two clear-and-away leaders, and a cadre of competing solutions occupying small niches. As of right now, both in terms of revenues and industry support, BEA is the larger of the two leaders and stands a very good chance of holding onto this position, but the lead is neither monumental nor insurmountable. Eric

To: tinkershaw who wrote (51445)	5/18/2002 11:58:53 AM
From: Eric L	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 54805

re: Mobile Wireless - Strategy, Strategic Marketing, and Strategic Planning Tinker, << My strength is in strategy >> Your statement reminded me to call to the threads attention a book that will publish in July: >> "Wireless Horizon: Strategy and Competition in the Worldwide Mobile Marketplace" by Dan Steinbock Amazon Price: $23.07 This item will be published in July 2002. Edition: Hardcover 400 pages Publisher: AMACOM; ISBN: 0814407145 << Dan Steinbock is the author of "The Nokia Revolution: The Story of an Extraordinary Company That Transformed an Industry" a strategic study that published 1 year ago. Steinbock is extremely familiar with the writings of Geoffrey Moore, Dr. Gary Hamel, Michael Porter, Clayton Christensen et al, and interviewed each of them in preparing for the publication of "The Nokia Revolution". I commented on his last book here last summer: Message 16044122 I've ordered his new one and will likely comment on it, after I've read it. I've also ordered the recently published "Tapping into Wireless: The Savvy Investor's Guide to Profiting From the Wireless Wave" by Tom Taulli, Dave Mock, and Tero Kuittinen. Techreports mentioned this book here on thread some time ago. "Oliver Thylmann (aka "BizKiffer", a regular contributor to TMF Nokia board) interviewed one of the authors, Dave Mock, discussing the contents of "Tapping Into Wireless" here: infosync.no Best, - Eric -