ibm

IBM's 450 million-strong problem with Lotus Symphony...and how to crack it

IBM is now giving away its Lotus Symphony product for free. Not "free" as in open source, but rather as in "Please take since people won't pay for it," as only a few hundred thousand downloads have been registered since September 2007.

The gesture is intended to take away money from Microsoft - probably a losing cause going head-to-head on Microsoft's territory - but also to provide a platform upon which to sell IBM's collaboration software. This second strategy has a better chance of success, but would be much better off it didn't first require enterprises to adopt Lotus Symphony because, quite frankly, they won't.

A much better route would be to a) extend from Microsoft Office (though this is fraught with problems because Microsoft controls the platform) or b) shift the battle to new terrain that Microsoft doesn't own, as Google has.

If I were a betting man, I'd lay my money on email as the disruptive platform that IBM should build upon, and I don't mean it's widely used by hugely clunky Domino/Lotus Notes combo. I mean Zimbra or Mozilla's new email push.… Read more

SCO gets $100 million bailout (call your lawyers)

Irrelevant annoyance SCO got a new lease on it's miserable life, courtesy of Stephen Norris Capital Partners (SNCP).

According to a statement from the company, SNCP already has a business plan for SCO that includes pursuing its legal claims, which in the past have named Novell, IBM and others as infringing on the company's patents.

I can't for the life of me figure out why anyone would want to keep that business alive--even for the legal claims. $100m would be better invested in almost anything else.

Buzz Out Loud 660: You're Twitter-fired!

EPISODE 660

IBM's uniprocessor server: Not just about cheap

x86 servers with a single processor (as in single socket) are hardly unusual. They anchor the entry point for most vendors' product lines. Furthermore, beyond those systems that are sold specifically to be used as servers, an untold number of PCs sit under desks or in closets functioning as impromptu file or print servers.

However, pretty much since the advent of mass-market multiprocessing--in the Windows NT 3.51 era or thereabouts--uniprocessor servers have been very much the penny-pinching server option. Yes, they have fewer processors than their dual-socket brethren; that much is obvious. However, uniprocessor boxes have also typically jettisoned … Read more

The EU is investigating Microsoft for antitrust violations...again

In what now appears to be a near daily experience, the European Union is investigating Microsoft for antitrust violations related to its attempts to get its Open Office XML file format standard accepted as an international "standard." As the argument goes, Microsoft apparently fought hard to get OOXML ratified as a standard.

Ya think?

European Union antitrust officials have asked Microsoft for information about its activities in the standards-setting process -- an early step in an investigation -- and are stepping up scrutiny of the issue, according to people familiar with the matter. The file format in question is computer code that describes how a document such as a letter or spreadsheet is digitally stored.… Read more

OpenID Foundation scores top-shelf board members

If the OpenID Foundation were a liquor cabinet, it just got stocked with some Grey Goose, Rhum Clement, and Gran Patron.

The foundation, which is pushing for a universal Internet login standard, announced on Thursday that representatives from Google, Microsoft, Yahoo, IBM, and VeriSign have become its first corporate board members. They join existing board members Scott Kveton (Vidoop), David Recordon (Six Apart), Dick Hardt (Sxip Identity), Martin Atkins (independent), Artur Bergman (Wikia), Johannes Ernst (NetMesh), Drummond Reed (Parity Communications), and executive director Bill Washburn.

Several major technology companies, including Yahoo, had already voiced support for the standard.

OpenID started … Read more

Moving molecules at IBM Almaden

IBM's researchers in the San Francisco Bay Area have been at the forefront of data storage for decades.

An IBM team invented the first hard drive (the IBM 350, which was part of a machine called RAMAC) 52 years ago in San Jose, Calif. The relational database came out of IBM's labs in the area, too.

Now, scientists at IBM Almaden are trying to come up with breakthroughs that will help computers sift through the "exabytes" of data that have become an inevitability for many corporations and government agencies. (An exabyte is a quintillion bytes, or … Read more

Yahoo and Yang are (were?) in big trouble

Note: I wrote this on Thursday before Microsoft's latest bid for Yahoo; it's a follow-up to a post I wrote six months ago. I have two comments on Microsoft's offer: 1) It's aggressive and it's a sweetheart deal for Yahoo's shareholders; I think Yahoo's board will accept it; and 2) nevertheless, the issues I present are the same; it just becomes Microsoft's problem.

It's been seven months or so since Yahoo chief and co-founder Jerry Yang replaced Terry Semel at the helm of the ailing internet giant. At the time, I pondered the obvious question: Can Yang fix Yahoo?

For the record, I thought the board acted rashly in appointing Yang--a relatively inexperienced executive--to perform what would clearly be a challenging turnaround. I didn't think he had the experience to pull it off.

At the time, I thought that Yang--a visionary--wasn't what Yahoo needed. I thought Yahoo's problem was largely failed execution and missed opportunities in search advertising that allowed Google to leapfrog its more mature rival.

At this point, I'm even more convinced that Yang was the wrong choice. But I think the problem is bigger than missed opportunity and failed execution. The company does indeed need a new vision. And it needs a CEO who's capable of articulating and selling that vision down through the ranks and ensuring everybody's goals are aligned.

That's a tall order, but it can be done. Lou Gerstner did it at IBM, and that was no walk in the park. But Jerry Yang is no Lou Gerstner.… Read more

Microsoft blames IBM for all of world's evils (or at least the failure of OOXML)

Considering that IBM sells an awful lot of Microsoft software, I find it hard to believe they would "single-handedly" attempt to sink OOXML.

Microsoft executives have accused IBM of single-handedly leading an effort to block the software giant from having its Office Open XML standard approved by the International Organization for Standardization.

Beyond the argument (which really sounds like whimpering) I find it amazing when the Microsoft PR machine lets guys say things like this:

"They have made this a religious and highly political debate," Tsilas said. "They are doing this because it is advancing … Read more