Business Tech

With a nod toward the heterogeneous application development environments that exist in most enterprise IT departments, IBM on Wednesday launched a pair of services targeted at building cloud applications.

The first, the IBM Smart Business Development and Test on the IBM Cloud, is a cloud service hosted in IBM's data centers that provides tools and interfaces designed to support developers using Java, .NET, and Open Source environments. This service provides computing and storage capacity, and support for WebSphere middleware, Rational Software Delivery Services, and its Information Management database. It also provides "pre-configured integrations" of some Rational services based on IBM's Jazz framework, its collaborative software platform.

There are no pre-configured integrations announced for third-party or open source tools or languages.

In addition to the Smart Business offering, IBM is adding private cloud-targeted tools and services to the IBM Rational Software Delivery Services for Cloud Computing offering. These tools and services target three key elements of the development and testing of cloud applications:

• Agile development services, aimed at enabling collaborative development and testing through a set of best practices.

• An integrated set of services for test management and planning and test lab management.

• Tools, such as IBM Rational Asset Manager, which are targeted at increasing the efficiency of distributed application development teams.

By combining the expertise gained by IBM's Global Services organizations and the Rational Lab Services team in building and delivering development and test tools and practices in IBM-based clouds, the company hopes to become a one-stop shop for companies looking for a solid return on investment from adopting the cloud model in development and test.

IBM Smart Business Development and Test on the IBM Cloud can be accessed as a free beta, and the IBM Rational Software Delivery Services for private clouds are also available in beta through the companies sales force.

It's been said that information technology is a fashion industry--that we just keep following the latest hype and fads. Oracle CEO Larry Ellison last year referred to cloud computing this way.

Ellison loves this dig, and he uses it least once every technology generation. He's not alone. I, however, disagree with the entire curmudgeon corps' "It's just hype!" attitude.

While it's true that we in IT have our fashions, just like any field of human endeavor, we're generally pretty practical. It's hard to see either IT's executives or its technicians as highly subject to the whims of style or flights of fancy. The truth is closer to the notion that we're an evolving industry--one constantly struggling to find better ways.

It's not easy to grapple with the fantastic, relentless progress afforded by Moore's Law (on the supply side), nor the constant demand for more capacity, capability, and integration (on the demand side).

In a few short decades, IT has undergone a massive shift from an engineering-oriented support role to driving the beating heart of the global economy. IT is now central to large swaths of all human activity.

As new technologies and strategies come online--whether network computing, open source, agile development, service-oriented architecture (SOA), cloud computing, virtualization, or whatever--we seek to employ them to improve our outcomes.

There's always a bit of experimentation and a bit of hype involved in the early days. Indeed, without that willingness to "try it out" and a strong shot of enthusiasm on the side, we wouldn't be advancing as well as we are. That's not just hype you're hearing; it's also the will to progress. And for the most part, the recipe works.

Most of the major new approaches touted over the past few decades have become workaday parts of the IT landscape. Most apps, for example, are now "client-server" in design. Linux and other open-source engines run much of the Internet. SOA is how enterprise IT is designed.

The same Web services that Ellison derided years ago now underpin much of e-commerce, as well as high-interactivity Web 2.0 services such as Google Maps. And virtualization and orchestration--frequently discounted at the top of this decade--are now fundamentally changing how data centers are operated.

Indeed, when one of these previously experimental, previously hyped approaches recede from view, it's usually not because they've failed but because they've succeeded so well that we don't need to talk about them anymore. They've been burned into the way we do IT.

Each wave of technology builds on the last, incorporating its best parts, weeding out what didn't work, and often re-emphasizing themes that had appeared years before but weren't quite workable at that time--though often using different names. The utility computing, grid, and application service providers of years past, for example, have become the software as a service (SaaS, or more generally, ITaaS) and cloud computing of today.

So when something new comes your way--a new approach, a new strategy, a new way of looking at or doing IT--by all means, be skeptical. Try it out in careful, measured ways. But do try it out--and have enthusiasm for those new things. That's how we advance.

The European Commission must be feeling a bit silly right about now. Despite insisting that Oracle has not responded to its requests for comment and concessions in its planned acquisition of Sun Microsystems (and the open-source database MySQL), Amazon.com recently offered the EC all the proof it needs that MySQL competition remains alive and well.

Competition at pennies an hour.

(Credit: Amazon)

For those who missed it, Amazon announced last week a fork of the popular MySQL database, called RDS (Relational Database Service). RDS is essentially a hosted version of MySQL, one that developers can write to at the minuscule cost of pennies per hour.

Oracle hasn't even started with MySQL yet, and it already faces significant competition, not to mention the other MySQL forks (e.g., Drizzle).

As Redmonk analyst Stephen O'Grady writes:

From here, it seems fairly clear that while RDS will not be the best option for every MySQL user, it will find a more than adequate market of customers who are willing to trade money for time, as (former MySQL CEO) Marten Mickos might put it. Assuming that Amazon can realize its typical economies of scale by amortizing the management and administration costs of the service over a wide array of machines, the product should more than pay for itself simply by widening the addressable market.

How much wider will it make the addressable market? At a minimum, it will lower the barriers to entry for customers with relational needs (read: most customers) and a lack of cloud expertise. It will be fascinating to see, however, if Amazon has far grander ambitions in mind.

Interesting, and somewhat unfair to Oracle. Presumably Amazon's entrance into the MySQL market is A-OK because Amazon isn't currently a database company, but it is a significant and growing infrastructure provider. Why should it get to own a complete stack, but Oracle can't?

That, after all, is what Oracle is attempting to accomplish with the Sun/MySQL acquisition. Sun gives it hardware, while MySQL gives it a strong entry into the Web database market and an effective hedge against Microsoft in lower-end enterprise needs.

Oracle's bid for Sun/MySQL, in other words, isn't about squelching competition, but rather about enhancing it. Amazon's RDS proves that strong, viable competitors to MySQL can arise from within the MySQL community, which disproves the EC's argument that Oracle's control of MySQL will somehow crush competition.

And if the deal doesn't hurt competition, as Amazon RDS all-but-proves it doesn't, then the EC's opposition is hollow and should be shelved, as The 451 Group's Matt Aslett argues.

It's time for the EC to acknowledge it was wrong, and move on. Amazon surely has. But until the EC makes a final decision, Oracle (and MySQL) can't.

(Credit: IBM)

IBM on Wednesday announced a program designed to help educators and students pursue cloud-computing initiatives and better take advantage of collaboration technology in their studies.

The IBM Cloud Academy, announced at the Educause annual conference, includes a global roster of educational institutions as initial participants. Educause is a nonprofit association whose mission is to advance higher education by promoting the intelligent use of information technology.

IBM will provide the cloud-based infrastructure for the program, with some basic collaboration tools available at the outset. IBM's LotusLive service provides the basis for the new offering. Participants will immediately be able to do some very basic tactical functions on the new system:

• Create working groups on areas of interest to the education industry
• "Jam" on new innovations for clouds in education-related areas with IBM developers
• Work jointly on technical projects across institutions
• Share research findings and exchange new research ideas

Shared research across universities and other higher-learning institutions remains a vital part of technological innovation, but many programs don't have formal tool sets in place. Cloud services are a logical place to run these types of programs, especially as international groups need immediate access to data from their partners.

Oracle is taking a hard line in dealing with European Union objections to its planned acquisition of Sun Microsystems, according to a Financial Times report Tuesday.

EU antitrust regulators are concerned that Oracle, which has a large business in proprietary software, won't be a good home for Sun's open-source MySQL database business. According to the report, Oracle is unyielding, offering no concessions to deal with the EU's concerns.

That stance could lead the regulators to issue a formal complaint objecting to the deal, and that move could occur within days, according unnamed sources in the story. Neither the EU or Oracle commented for the story.

MySQL's former chief executive, Marten Mickos, has urged the EU to approve the acquisition, but cofounder Monty Widenius has objected. Sun shareholders and the U.S. Justice Department have approved the deal.

Dell announced on Tuesday that it has completed its $3.9 billion offer to buy Perot Systems. By accepting Perot's stock at $30 per share, Dell will own more than 90 percent of the company.

Dell's takeover of Perot has created a new business unit called Dell Services, which will provide IT services to customers. Dell's reach will now extend into technology hosting, consulting, and application outsourcing, among other segments.

Former Perot Chief Executive Officer Peter Altabef will become president of Dell Services, reporting directly to Dell Chairman and CEO Michael Dell. Altabef has steered Perot for the past five years as the company expanded its operations into more than 25 countries and captured sales of $2.8 billion in 2008.

"Dell Services will be a powerful organization with the extensive capabilities and global reach to address the needs of organizations of all types," said Altabef in a statement. "The Dell and Perot Systems integration teams have been extremely productive in their planning, and we are ready to work on behalf of all our customers."

Dell is looking at Perot to expand its niche in technology consulting and other services, combining its own large customer base with Perot's vast IT services. Also appealing is Perot's huge market in hospitals and medical facilities, a growing segment driven by the need to streamline and modernize the health care industry.

Dell revealed its intent to buy Perot Systems on September 21. No date was announced for completion of the acquisition, but Dell said it expects it to be done promptly.

Damaged by lower sales, huge operating losses, and a falling market share, Nokia Siemens Networks is pinning its hopes on a major reorganization.

The network equipment maker, jointly owned by Nokia and Siemens, announced Tuesday that it will lay off 5,700 employees and cut its five business units to three as part of a plan to slash expenses by 500 million euros ($740 million) by the end of 2011.

The layoffs will represent around 7 percent to 9 percent of the company's 64,000 global employees and is likely to be felt across all countries in which Nokia Siemens has a presence. The company did not state which jobs would be affected but did say that any disruption to sales positions that deal directly with customers should be limited.

The three new revamped business units are expected to launch on January 1 and will include Business Solutions, Network Systems, and Global Services.

"As our customers make purchasing decisions, they want a partner who engages in issues well beyond a traditional discussion of technology," said Rajeev Suri, chief executive officer of Nokia Siemens Networks, in a statement. "Business models, innovation, growth and transformation are now very much front and center when it comes to the selection of a technology partner - and our planned new structure will position us well in this changing market."

The company said it's also looking at potential new acquisitions and partnerships that could enhance its product line or expand its customer base. In June, Nokia Siemens bought Nortel's wireless technology for $650 million.

"We recognize that we are operating in a market where customer needs are evolving fast," said Mika Vehvilainen, chief operating officer of Nokia Siemens Networks, in a statement. "We see acquisitions and expanded partnering as important tools to help meet these needs in the fastest, most efficient way possible."

Formed in early 2007, Nokia Siemens has seemed cursed from the start. Its launch was initially delayed a few months due to a bribery scandal involving several former Siemens executives.

The new company had hardly gotten off the ground when it announced it wouldn't meet financial expectations. And it's struggled since then, hurt by the economic downturn and increasing competition.

Third-quarter sales fell 21 percent to 2.8 billion euros, while its operating loss widened to 1.1 billion euros. Parent Nokia was recently forced to spend 908 million euros to write down the value of the deteriorating business.

Cisco Systems, EMC, and VMware announced Tuesday a joint venture to sell a new integrated data center product.

The venture will sell and provide maintenance and service support for the product, which is called V-Block. It will combine EMC's storage equipment, Cisco's virtualized servers and networking equipment, and VMware's virtualization technology.

The deal had been rumored since September, when the Wall Street Journal reported the companies were working on a collaborative effort code-named Alpine. Talk of the deal heated up late last week and early this week.

The joint venture will market and provide maintenance for the product. But the cloud infrastructure will be built by all three companies.

Cisco and EMC already have a partnership to collaborate around Cisco's new data center platform, which the company calls Unified Computing. And EMC owns nearly 85 percent of VMware.

The companies will provide more details about the joint venture during a press call scheduled for 8:30 a.m. PT.

Cisco Systems, EMC, and VMware are expected to announce this week a new joint venture to sell data center products and services using virtualization technology, according to report in the Wall Street Journal.

The new products called "V-Block" combine EMC's storage equipment with Cisco's new virtualized services and networking equipment along with VMware's virtualization technology.

In September, The Wall Street Journal reported that Cisco and EMC were in talks to form a new services venture code-named Alpine. V-Block may be this same service.

The products will either be sold as an end-to-end solution that companies can install in their own data centers, or customers will have the option of subscribing to a virtualized service, according to reports.

Cisco has been reselling EMC storage gear for years. It also owns a stake in virtualization software company VMware, which operates as a unit of EMC. So it makes sense that the companies would team up on a new services venture.

Earlier this year, Cisco announced a new data center architecture it calls Unified Computing, which includes new virtualized servers. It also includes coordinated support and software integration from partners such as Intel, Microsoft, EMC, and VMware.

Cisco sees the data center market as a multibillion-dollar opportunity. The company anticipates a greater need for storage and high-speed networking within data centers as more services and content come online. Cisco's corporate customers have also begun to virtualize their data centers to make those operations more efficient.

The joint venture will have its own CEO, according to the Journal.

Representatives from Cisco, EMC, and VMware have declined to comment.

The new joint venture is expected to be announced Wednesday before Cisco releases its fiscal first-quarter results.