IBM has exited 90% of its application software business over the last year, said IBM chairman and CEO Lou Gerstner in his keynote address at IBM`s PartnerWorld 2001 conference in Atlanta yesterday.
The company is instead relying on partners to deliver solutions to its customers.
"We told you we would stop competing with you on application software, and partner with leading developers," Gerstner told the 4 000 IBM partners attending the convention.
Middleware is one software component that IBM is still backing with enthusiasm. Gerstner sees it as a key component for e-business integration - a hot topic among the IBM delegates. "IBM believes that the next phase of e-business is about integration, and it`s about infrastructure.
"E-business... has to sweep through and transform all major [segments] of a business," believes Gerstner. "Processes [that] have existed as reasonably self-standing entities... don`t only have to be transformed - they need to be integrated."
Gerstner said that, while the operating system (OS) used to act as the core integration point, the OS will never again fulfil this role. Hence IBM`s excitement around its middleware, even though services are expected to claim a much greater portion of the e-business pie.
Infrastructure, which IBM believes is the other necessary e-business component, will be inherently server-based. "E-business workloads are not going to be done on desktops. Some of the work is going to be done in the network itself.
"There is an explosion of transactions coming. Very soon this network world is going to be more complex in orders of magnitude of what we know today," warned the IBM chairman.
Gerstner did not forget to mention IBM`s latest addition to supported operating systems, Linux. "You don`t get an end-to-end infrastructure without industry-based standards. This is a battle that all of us have to fight, and have to win. It`s why IBM has planted its flag on Linux. We think Linux matters. It`s going to change the rules of engagement in ways that are exceptionally powerful.
"History has taught us that where there are economic trends based on customer benefits, you have to make a choice - ignore it or embrace it," said Gerstner. He warned competitors who have not embraced the free operating system that they may find themselves "on the wrong side of history".
"E-business is not about content, it`s not about dot-coms, and it`s not about 1 000 types of get rich schemes. E-business is about just business," noted Gerstner - an opinion that has been repeated so often during the first two days of the conference, that it seems to have become the tagline of the event.
Share
