IBM’s ambition in software
Two days ago (Nov 12, 2007), IBM announced the acquisition of Cognos, a well known software company providing business intelligence and performance management solutions. It’s the 23rd acquisition in support of its Information on Demand Strategy announced on 2006. Although we can treat Cognos as a middleware provider, we may still found that IBM is moving further into the application software arena.
I am working for the Lotus Group, IBM as an intern. We are delivering the products Workplace for Business Control and Reporting (WBCR) and Lotus Connections. When I came to IBM’s China Software Development Labs last year,it really surprised me that IBM even produces software or solutions on this level. WBCR is a risk and control management software and its competitors definitely include SAP, IDS and Oracle. But risk and control management is not the core business of those companies. Lotus Connections was delivered in the first half year of 2007 as an Enterprise 2.0 solutions. With the service provided by its GBS and GES, those kind of large scale solutions can be sold easily and sometimes the software is certainly one part of the service.
I have to admire IBM’s strategy on software industry. IBM knows which is his competitive advantage. It’s the services he provided and the integration ability he own. Thus, he just focuses on some areas where his services could help to extend and avoid the competition between some large providers, such as SAP and Oracle ( Actually, IBM is the partner of both SAP and Oracle.) But in the same time, IBM works as a propeller for Linux, Eclipse and some other open source software (OSS). I believe with the “disturbing” brought by OSS or even by itself (see below 1), some IBM’s potential competitors (Such as Microsoft) have to slow down their spreading speed. IBM can’t control the whole software market, or even it can’t be ranked as the top 3 software companies ( probably, top 3 should be Microsoft, Oracle and SAP), but he could control the speed of the whole enterprise market and earn money from top levels of software market. We have to confess that the OS market is almost wholly controlled by Microsoft, but we also can’t ignore the impact of various release editions of Linux. It was said several year ago that SAP’s shareholders intended to sold SAP to a big company, and they want the company to be IBM. Probably it was just a rumor, but IBM clarified it with a negative answer clearly. IBM don’t want to be a competitor of some big companies. He prefers a win-win situation. With the innovation on market, service and technology, IBM is able to find the “blue ocean” continually.
1. an alterative for Microsoft Office delivered by Lotus, IBM.
