It's a software initiative that could decide who owns corporate desktops for the next 10 years. More vaporware from Microsoft? Hardly. This time, it's IBM taking the offensive.
Indeed, IBM has drawn up a strategic blueprint to transform its enterprise business into an electronic-commerce powerhouse that spans millions of corporate desktops. In addition to betting the bank on Java, the blueprint calls for IBM to pump up Netscape's desktop business, head off Microsoft's Web browser and aggressively push OS/2 Warp customers onto other platforms.
That strategy, outlined in a 12-page internal document from IBM's Network Computing Software Division, banks heavily on buy-in from IBM's resellers and technology partners.
The IBM document, dated July 30, was posted briefly on an independent OS/2 Web site last week. IBM was none too pleased about the leak. Jeff Smith, director of OS/2 Business Line Management and Network Computing Software, successfully petitioned the Web site's manager to remove the document but was unavailable for comment.
While Smith wasn't talking, the document spoke volumes about IBM's most pressing business concerns.
In a worst-case scenario, Microsoft could cripple IBM if Bill Gates & Co. succeeds in making Windows an e-commerce standard containing proprietary application programming interfaces. The document says that Microsoft's Internet, Zero Administration Windows, Windows CE and Windows-based terminal efforts are designed to prevent the widespread adoption of Java "by extending Windows with the key features required to support network computing."
What does all that mean? In a nutshell, the paper says IBM is striving to keep corporate desktops open by teaming with Netscape Communications 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.
But Microsoft isn't the only company keeping IBM up at night. IBM's software strategy also identifies two surprising names that could undermine Big Blue's massive e-business offensive: Cisco Systems and Network Associates.
IBM fears that Cisco may succeed in transforming its Internetworking Operating System and Microsoft's Active Directory into a networking platform "for building and deploying value-added services."
That's precisely Cisco's plan. "We respect IBM and its e-business efforts, but it missed the boat on networking and desktop OSes," says a Cisco exec who requested anonymity. "Cisco and Microsoft are a natural combination for e-commerce."
Network Associates, meanwhile, is rapidly emerging as a premier supplier of enterprise security and management software-a market reality that threatens the viability of IBM's Tivoli subsidiary.
To combat those threats, the paper says IBM needs to establish Java as the de facto industry standard for building, deploying and managing e-business applications. The company also must build a high-growth business helping customers extend their networking infrastructure to support e-business across heterogeneous systems. Along the way, IBM hopes to provide best-of-breed networking infrastructure technology.
IBM's strategy banks heavily on support from resellers, ISVs and key vendor allies, such as Netscape, Novell Inc. and Sun Microsystems Inc.
On the reseller front, IBM says that 75 percent of fulfillment for eNetwork PC and Unix products is through the channel, but only 10 percent of the company's resellers are actively selling those products. It also identifies specific target resellers for certification and active selling as IBM systems and network integrators, Novell Platinum resellers, and Microsoft SNA Server Solution Providers.
Backed by its partners, IBM hopes to have 50 percent of new apps built on Java by 2003, and it wants to make Java a standard on 50 percent of new client devices (smart phones, etc.) by 2001.
IBM's plan without its challenges. For starters, IBM says Netscape must maintain at least 30 percent of the browser market.
Otherwise, "ISVs will drop support, customers will start moving to IE and the battle for the client will be lost," the document says. IBM already is formulating a backup plan to "protect its server business," just in case IE tramples Netscape on the desktop.
The biggest loser in IBM's Java initiative is OS/2. The document confirms that IBM will continue cutting OS/2 R&D. "Eventually, customers will have to move to another platform or accept a lower level of function if they stay on OS/2," the document says.
Still, resellers seeking an alternative to Windows may forgive IBM for scrapping OS/2, if Big Blue makes good on its e-business and Java promises.
Reported by Ed Sperling, Joseph C. Panettieri, Esther Schindler and Deborah Gage
