Why is IBM avoiding Open Source in SOA discussions?

Cote at RedMonk noted that IBM didn't once mention open source at their SOA-focused Impact 2008 Conference. My guess? IBM wants the SOA paradigm to remain a rich-man's sport and they want their army of consultants to put IBM products into place. As such they focus on "the Business" instead of just solving the problem.

Instead of embracing open source as a part of SOA, IBM is choosing to push only it's own expensive and cumbersome products, which simply doesn't make sense.

To be puckish, I bet the open source world would have a new take on the question, "what's an SOA?" It might even include an answer that doesn't require getting The Business on board, which seems to be the spurted crazy-glue that locks up all clear-headed discussions of SOA.

IBM makes a ton of money from open source and make very large investments in some open source projects. But, they really seem to have no interest in open source companies being successful. I have to assume that open source SOA products are a very real threat or else they would take the same low-end approach they did with Geronimo to seed the market for Websphere.

As Cote further notes:

As a buyer of IT, you'd like your vendor to only make as much money as needed, and no more, and you want those cost savings passed on to you. Your dream vendor is one who's (a.) stuff works, and, (b.) margins are slim. And, yes, to emphasis the point again: you want your vendor to stay in business for as long as you want to use their wares. You just don't want to be the one gold-plating their elevators.

IBM is trying to use SOA to gold-plate more elevators, but I think it's clear that open source is a threat. Sooner a later there is a point where the scale falls out of balance....IBM is smarter than this, let's hope they realize it soon.

[mansley]

You are kidding, right? You want to take on such a technological shift within an organisation, provide the basis for such a fundamental change to the way we view an organisations IT assets, allow an organisation to start forming relationships with an entirely new class of vendors, and you think you can achieve this without the business being in the driving seat? Please let's remind ourselves who pays for all the toys we get to play with... it's all about the business, stupid.

[OrenGold]

IBM embraces Open Source (I should know, I run an Open Source based business and the best corporate friend we've ever had has been IBM) and makes more of an effort to promote it than any "proprietary" business save, perhaps, for Sun. The issue of SOA compliance in Open Source is a real one. Open Source solutions at the "Top of the Stack" have been making headway, particularly through the actions of the OSA, towards a more SOA compliant model but SOAP and REST integration alone are not enough.

I've seen IBM recommend Linux in lieu of AIX, MySQL in lieu of DB2 and Tomcat/JBoss in lieu of WebSphere in cases where those technologies made more sense. While IBM as a business can and should promote the use of the most sensible technologies for a particular configuration, actually seeing it happen is refreshing.

Not that IBM are without fault but picking on them for not promoting Open Source in an SOA context is a tad harsh, they've done more than any player of their size or importance in promoting the adoption of Open Source technologies *where appropriate*.

Other than that, though, great blog :)