IBM Eval: David Cearley

Has the focus at Gartner on IBM. This is
the presentation

IBM revenue stream is less and less from hardware, and the focus is software and services.

Software has high margins

IBM acquisitions and divestures show the movement away from machines and towards software and services (example lose the printers and PCS, but buy Rational and Ascential)

On Demand from IBM - hard to understand

Message is complex and hard to make actionable for customers

SOA was part of IBM's On Demand view

Focusing today on Innovation that matters

Strong view on SOA; flash the SOA framework that we have seen and had made major software announcements in the space. SOA Governance is a strong play as well. Data Power is an enabling technology Mentions the Repository and Registry as a leader - found this very strange and need to get confirmation on this from Gartner.

SOA is not everything but touches everything.

Information on Demand - good strategy; new announcements on the way - watch this space.

WSRR - need to evaluate this; cautious if not a pure IBM shop - this space should be competitive space

SOA Fabric - packaging model for the service registry.

IBM as an application provider - the application concept is different. Not a packaged app but a vertical stack it can deliver into a marketplace as a packaging around the SOA fabric.

Much more to make this Fabric real

Did not see any focus on the hardware side at all.

Overall, positive on IBM. Good strategy, good financials. On Demand is a concern as it is being ignored. Considers the are the strongest they have been in 20 years. Still not a one stop shop.

Conclusion: Interesting but we knew this stuff and/or seen recently. I think Gartner gives them too much credit here on the SOA front.