IBM Managing Director and CEO Philip Bullock takes the hot seat to field questions regarding Web services, Grid computing, and where IBM Australia is headed.
T&B: Is WebSphere going to move in the direction of application integration like BEA WebLogic? What are the future directions WebSphere will take?
Bullock: WebSphere is far more than an application server. It is e-business infrastructure software that enables companies to build, deploy and integrate information, applications and business processes using open standards. It takes the concept of integration to levels that BEA can't match.
The WebSphere portfolio covers all of IBM's integration and application management software, including: development tools, application servers, integration software, e-commerce software, voice recognition, machine translation, and portals.
WebSphere application server has just matched BEA for worldwide market share according to Giga's 2002 figures and according to IDC, WebSphere is the clear market leader in Australia. Long term, WebSphere will be the centrepiece of IBM's Web services strategy.
Today WebSphere is the industry's first production-ready infrastructure software to deliver Web services functionality. IBM believes it is the leader in the application integration space.
There are two styles of integration that the marketplace is adopting, a component based model built around the Web services standard and a model built around the integration of applications using messaging-based technologies. IBM considers itself a leader in both categories.
IBM has been taking chunks out of Sun's server market share lately; wouldn't it be better to jointly attack the Wintel market?
We don't agree with a one size fits all approach. In the last quarter of last year we had the second largest share of the PC-server market in Australia, according to IDC.
The vast majority of these servers shipped with Windows installed, it's a very important market for us. Our approach is, if you want the best Unix-based solution, come to IBM, if you want the best Linux solution, come to IBM, and if you want the best Windows solution, you can come to IBM for that, too.
What is IBM PC division's "four pillars" strategy about?
The IBM PC division's four pillars strategy is a key differentiator for IBM that addresses emerging and existing key customer challenges. Namely: those of migration, security, wireless, and innovation in product.
The PC division is investing its product development resources into products which meet these specific needs. For example, in the area of migration IBM recently announced ImageUltra which significantly reduces total cost of ownership for businesses.
Also in the area of migration, Rapid Restore PC is the industry's only solution for complete recovery from PC memory disasters. By way of another example of how our four pillars strategy translates into product, IBM is the only vendor to offer an embedded security sub-system including software and hardware protection against hackers entering your hard drive.
IBM has said it believes grid computing is the next evolutionary step for the Internet. Why?
It's not just IBM. Only a few weeks ago some of the leading industry players, led by IBM (and including Microsoft), joined forces with the open community, led by the Globus Project, and announced a top to bottom computing platform for grid computing over the Internet.
The Internet is evolving beyond e-mail, content and electronic commerce. It is becoming a true computing platform, combining the qualities of service of enterprise computing with the ability to share distributed resources across the Internet--applications, data, storage, servers, and everything in between.
IBM and others believe that grid computing and the grid protocols--like Linux and the Internet itself--will grow beyond the academic world and become a basis for the delivery of computing as a utility-like service over the Internet known as e-sourcing.
How will grid computing affect businesses?
Ultimately, it means a powerful ability to share data and processing power with huge potential cost and efficiency savings.
By marrying grid computing and Web services, customers have a very real opportunity to use grids for commercial purposes. This approach to technology means customers can use the technology to create intra-grids inside their businesses to share computing resources and maximise the efficiency of their IT infrastructure.
Customers will also be able to access and share computing resources on demand over the Internet, relying on an infrastructure that is resilient, self managing and always available. As a result, customers can integrate applications, share data and processing power with huge potential cost and efficiency savings.
Won't it be difficult to convince business users to agree to letting "outsiders" have access to their computers?
Security will be one of the challenges, yes--and that's one reason we are working with the open movement, led by Globus. Grids will probably evolve in three stages: 1) academic and research uses, which is happening now; 2) intra-grids within businesses; and, 3) commercial grids. It's in this third stage where the security will most strongly come into play.
Doesn't the concept of grid computing reduce the need for many of the "smaller" enterprise servers that IBM sells?
If there's one certain thing about the IT market, it's change. Yes, customer buying patterns and even the customers themselves will change--they always have.
But remember the Internet itself is continuing to grow at the same time--new uses for technology will see uses for server technology. This is one for the IT analysts but I suspect the growth in Internet users and Internet-enabled devices will continue to underpin demand for servers of all sizes.
In last month's column, Sun's (local Australian MD) Jim Hassell said that IBM's Web services offering is about "piecing together existing but disparate hardware and software". How do you respond to this?
Web services is a term used to describe e-business applications-any software application that manages business processes, that can work together across a network such as the Internet with reduced human intervention.
That is, one application automatically exchanging information, transactions, and so on with another across different types of computing environments.
Most customers have mixed environments and our objective is to provide software that helps them better integrate their business processes internally and externally with their partners.
The Internet-based, open infrastructure platform such as WebSphere is the conduit for this connectivity. His comments support the reality of many of our customers and their hope to attain substantial benefits from Web services.
Over the next five years, how much of IBM's business will be Web-services related?
Time will tell, but IBM is more than ready now to support our customers' needs in this area. Web services offer new possibilities to enable greater integration of applications and information within an enterprise, between customers and business partners, and across a heterogeneous set of platforms.
To this end IBM has enabled all of its middleware, with comprehensive support for open Internet standards, to enable the development of Web services applications.
Furthermore, IBM has more than 5000 professionals devoted to XML and Java and has enabled all its key middleware for Java, XML, and Linux.
How does the uptake of Web services in Australia compare with the rest of the world?
Australia has a large, very strong community of developers, far more innovative and far more advanced than most people would believe. We have run seminars on XML and other Web services technologies for more than 18 months and we have seen every single one of our seminars fully subscribed.
Some of these seminars have been better patronised than those in North America!
Lou Gerstner announced that IBM was going to spend US$1 billion on Linux last year. How much did the company spend, and what was it spent on?
We announced at Linux World at New York in late January that we had spent more than the US$1 billion and had in fact recouped almost all of that in sales of hardware and software attributable to Linux.
We started 2001 with a commitment to invest US$1 billion worldwide, which included Linux enabling our hardware and software.
We also committed to a further US$300 million over three years on services. IBM now offers the same level of service and support on a Linux system as we do with any of our other platforms.
Thousands of IBM business partners participated in a three stage program to develop their Linux skills (1000 of these in the Asia-Pacific region, 200 in Australia and New Zealand) and more than 2500 developers have ported their enterprise applications to Linux.
Around IBM there are now more than 250 developers in our Linux Technology Centres working with the Linux community to help make the OS better. But this pales in comparison with the more than 5000 people involved in other aspects of Linux at IBM.
What is IBM's strategy in relation to Linux and open source software? What impact do you expect this to have on your traditional Unix server market?
As e-commerce is expanding exponentially, IBM believes an open community-based standard, such as Linux, will develop innovative and better products. Demand for utilisation and inter-operability will create enormous opportunities for hardware, software and support services.
But we would like to make sure that Linux is part of an integrated UNIX family, and the way we're trying to do that is to make sure that Linux applications can run seamlessly on AIX through the investment we're making in developing a Linux operating environment for AIX.
Last month, IBM was involved in the Focus 2002 show, which you said would "provide business executives-who don't need or want advanced technological understanding-with information and practical examples of how to best utilise technology to address specific business issues". How is this done?
When someone invests in e-business today their primary interest is in how to solve a business issue. For example, "How can I reap the best return on the technology I have already invested in and still develop my business for the future?", "How can I reach more customers?", or "How can I see all the information I have on one customer?". Focus 2002 was about looking at business issues from a customer's point of view and providing them with some answers.
The increasing adoption of e-business is seeing decisions about technology investments not only being made by the CIO of an organisation, but by other members of the executive. This means that customers are looking at e-business and what it can do in different ways, not necessarily from a technology standpoint.
The event involved a seminar series and a "trade show" style demonstration, which we called the Solutions Showcase and drew together 60 speakers from across the business world, including IBM and other industry leaders.
IBM Australia is a supplier of information technology, software and services. The company's range of products and services are designed to help organisations take advantage of new opportunities presented by Internet-based technologies, building on existing technology investments.
