In a classic case of pot calling the kettle black, Sun’s software guru Jonathan Schwartz thinks that IBM has some serious problems because of Red Hat.
“But the bad news for IBM is that the vast majority of enterprise datacenter deployments are now occurring on Red Hat’s linux. 100 to 1, depending up on where you look. And with Red Hat increasing price, while adding in an application server that competes with WebSphere, IBM’s finding itself in the uncomfortable position of having lost control of the social movement they were hoping to monetize. IBM is in a real pickle. Red Hat’s dominance leaves IBM almost entirely dependent upon SuSe/Novell. Whoever owns Novell controls the OS on which IBM’s future depends. Now that’s an interesting thought, isn’t it?”
Jonathan, those who live in glass houses, well you know the rest. And in case you did not know, IBM has made some substantial investments in Novell and also owns a tiny piece of Red Hat. Little advice: blogging good, bashing rivals not good. And also stop drinking from the same fountain as Scott. Apparently Wall Street Journal bought into Jonny’s FUD.
Yeah, all it shows is that Schwartz doesn’t understand IBM’s business model – to make money through software, sure, but make the most through services. Sun should merge with Novell and then they can both just disappear together. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a company destroy value like Sun has through a combination of arrogance and incompetitence (Novell’s not far behind). From failing to monetize Java, to buying something like three application server companies and yet not having a top position in the J2EE marketplace – they are just hopeless. They’re rapidly becoming simply a bail-out company for the Silicon Valley VCs who need to sell their companies for something. Here’s an idea for John – return the cash on your balance sheet to the shareholders, give Java to the open source community and end this now hopeless adventure.
I guess IBM moves today pretty much say it. I think these guys have to get serious about their future or else. I am so shocked that the media is not questioning this dude about the viablity of Novell buyout. No one seems to think even if they did buy out Novell, well IBM’s products are still based on Linux, and the different variants are not that different really and can be ported to any other form of Linux. and if I understand it carefully, even Suse Linux is open source ….. blah blah blah