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Netcentric View: Why IBM is winning In Web Services
By Bernard Cole
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While there seems to be some common agreement on Java and the Extensible Markup Language as the main vehicles for interchange in this new environment, companies targeting this area have proliferated at least five or six different variations of Java and at least a dozen or so dialects of XML, all targeted at different applications. While XML is the common wrapper around applications that may be resident on servers or on the client device, inside those applications there still remain a plethora of language choices to be made. And in each environment the various languages act differently and have different limitations and capabilities.
In this confusing new computing environment, I believe IBM is the one who will emerge the winner. For one thing, it hasn't rushed in willy-nilly, but developed a well-thought, well-researched analysis of this new environment. It has a pragmatic, engineering-based view that, of all the major players, is the least affected by pre-existing conceptions of the market and what IBM wants it to be. Rather than try to find a way to protect its turf and its existing products and investments, IBM has used its Application Framework for e-business to analyze the problem space that the new net-centric computing market represents.
Based on this analysis IBM has redefined itself, moving away from being just a mainframe company, a PC hardware and software company, or a server manufacturer. Instead, it now views itself as an Internet and Web middleware company. It still builds hardware and software for all segments of the computing market, but only as it supports IBM's new view of itself. It has stuck to a standards-based strategy rather than develop proprietary software as the secret sauce by which to attract customers and end users to its banner. IBM has created an environment that clearly delineates how servers, desktops, wireless devices, Internet appliances and embedded systems interoperate.
With its pervasive computing framework, IBM has leveraged many industry or de facto standards, including enterprise Java technologies. As a member of the Java Community Process, IBM joined with nearly 50 other companies to help create the Java 2 Platform, Enterprise Edition (J2EE), which integrates a multitude of enterprise Java technologies. J2EE simplifies the development and deployment of multi-tier e-business applications.
IBM has been through it all, and has not only survived, but thrived. Interestingly, during the recent dot-com crash and the crisis of corporate confidence, IBM was one of the few computer companies to not only continue to make a profit but exceed the market analysts' expectations.
By comparison, most other computer and electronics companies are still going through their adolescence, and their approach to the market reflects that: enthusiastic, certain in their beliefs and in their ability to make the market and the technology move in the directions in which they want them to go.
IBM has learned that it is not companies that drive technology and the market, but the other way around. It understands that "winning" depends on understanding the environment within which you operate and taking advantage of what you have learned, rather than trying to make it change to fit a particular set of needs or wants.
Unlike some of the adolescent companies with which it competes, it has learned that believing in stories you tell yourself and refusing to deal with realities doesn't work in the long run. What it takes is a hard-nosed analytical view of the world around you and making decisions based on facts.
If life were fair, this hard-nosed engineering approach would mean that IBM would end up being the winner in the net-centric market place. But even if it is not, it will still come out of the fray as one of the few survivors that will thrive. If there is anything at which IBM has some experience, it is rolling with the punches, getting up and coming back for the next round.
What are your views about Web Services and how they may affect your designs? And whom do you think will end up being the winner in this new computing space? I'd like to hear your opinions.
Bernard Cole is site leader and editor of iApplianceweb and an independent high technology editorial services consultant. He welcomes your feedback. Call him at or send an email to .
For more information about topics, issues and technologies mentioned in this story go to the flashing icon in the upper left corner on this page or go to the iAppliance Web Views page and call up the associatively-linked Java/XML-based Web map of the iApplianceWeb site.
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