A friend of mine at IBM asked my opinion about something Jonathan Schwartz, of Sun Microsystems, had to say about "operating systems". After reading his blog, I developed two opinions — one about what he said and the other about how he said it. First of all, what is an operating system? Some readers know a lot about them but others don’t. I like to try to make complicated things easy to understand (see On Demand and Virtualization) so let’s start with the basics.
The first desktop computer was introduced in 1974 by Micro Instrumentation Telemetry Systems (MITS). There was immediate demand but it was mostly hobbyists. The personal computer market really took off after IBM introduced the "PC" in 1981. The market was fueled by IBM’s decision to make the PC an open platform where many vendors could step in with printers, sound cards, modems, and of course software programs. Arguably, the single most important software application was the spreadsheet — initially VisiCalc by Dan Bricklin and Bob Frankston and later Mitch Kapor’s 1-2-3. Hobbyists continued their interest but with the spreadsheet, everyday users with business and financial interests got on board. Most of these users didn’t know how the computer worked and didn’t care — all they knew is how to use the power of the spreadsheet software. Today’s computers are much more sophisticated and there is a huge inventory of software application programs to choose from. What makes today’s application programs so useful and powerful is the operating system.
The operating system is a set of computer programs, but instead of manipulating financial data, helping you edit text, or facilitate game playing, they control the operation of the computer itself. In the early days the operating system (OS) was called a "supervisor" to signify the role it played in supervising the interaction of the hardware and the software. The operating systems most of us are familiar with are Linux, the Mac OS X, and Microsoft Windows. The OS performs many tasks including keeping track of what time it is, facilitating the attachment of thousands of different kinds of peripheral devices, allowing us to print documents in a consistent way from our application programs and transfer files between one computer and another.
In the business world there are many operating systems that are not familiar to most people. The Windows Server System plays a large role but the most scaleable and secure OS’s include IBM’s z/OS and AIX, Hewlett Packard’s HP-UX, Sun’s Solaris, and of course Linux. Each of these has their strengths but in the long run I believe Linux will become the most secure of all. The reason is simple — the way in which Linux works is in the public eye for all to see.
The real power of Linux is not derived from IBM or any other company or organization; it is the power of the Linux community. Linux, just like the PC and the Internet, was built in an open fashion so that all can see how it works. If a security glitch is discovered, any of thousands of members of the community can respond. There is no dependency on any one company. In fact each company using Linux can establish their own priorities and make changes themselves if necessary. Over time it just gets better and better. Some companies, notably Sun, have not completely embraced the Linux community. They seem to be focused on defending Solaris. There are definitely certain aspects of Solaris (and z/OS, AIX, HP-UX, and XP that are superior to Linux. But it doesn’t’t matter for two key reasons. First, when a major organization has a choice between proprietary offerings, or offerings built around communities, communities will almost always win — surely in the long run. The second reason that proprietary offerings ultimately lose out is that there is no way that a single vendor can compete against a well-organized community. In the early stages, when the community is not yet well organized, it cannot make progress, and individual vendors can step in and do very well, even establishing natural monopolies as they bring order to chaos. But, once the community gets organized, and starts making significant progress, the game is over. Darwinian evolution takes over; the best ideas survive and the others fall by the wayside. There is just no way a single vendor, no matter how powerful, can have access to as talented and as many skills as the global community can bring to the effort.
Application programs and operating systems are crucial to the world of computing — both for people and for enterprises — but there is another kind of software that is the heartbeat of enterprises. It is called middleware. As it’s name implies, middleware sits between application software and the operating system — in the "middle". Middleware is the "glue" that connects the operating system and the application programs to databases, security and authentication systems, mobile and speech systems, and product information for use across the value chain of the enterprise. IBM has a very successful line of middleware called Websphere.
Nearly ten years ago IBM made a decision to offer it’s middleware on not just on IBM servers and operating systems but also on HP, Sun, Linux, and Windows. In a sense, the operating system is less important than it used to be because it is the middleware that really ties things together and makes a business hum.
Back to Jonathan Schwartz’s blog. Jonathan is asking IBM to support Websphere with Solaris not just on Sun servers, which it already does, but also on Intel servers from IBM and others. It appears that Sun is beginning to say that they don’t care what hardware their customers use as long as they use Sun’s Solaris operating system. I can see why a Sun customer would want IBM support and the integration that Websphere provides; however, it seems obvious that the best solution if they want Websphere is to use Linux and whatever server they think is best. From a cost and management point of view, the trend is toward fewer vendors, not more so I I would think the market segment of customers wanting an Intel server, Sun’s Solaris, IBM’s Websphere, plus the necessary application software vendors would be a very small market.In fact, I believe that Sun themselves sells more Linux on their servers than they sell Solaris on Intel. One thing I am sure of — if the Intel/Solaris segment shows growth or even if one major IBM client wants the Intel/Solaris/Websphere solution — IBM would provide it. They are customer driven. It wasn’t always that way.
In the 1980’s IBM had a considerable business called "data center relocation". Large customers with IBM mainframes would decide to move their data center to a new location because of a consolidation or need for more space. IBM customer engineers would go to the site, disconnect all the cables to the mainframes, wait for a call saying the mainframes had been delivered to the new location by the moving company, and then the engineers would re-connect the cables and test the systems to make sure they were working. The "non-IBM" equipment would not be touched and if the non-IBM equipment did not work properly after the move, IBM would point the finger to other vendors. The president of the IBM National Service Division for whom I worked at the time had the idea that "Service" should no longer mean "IBM maintenance and repair" but rather we should put an "S" on the end and broaden our offering. We changed policy dramatically. The new "relocation services" offering included complete and total management of the relocation including all equipment regardless of vendor, planning and coordination of the disconnection, transportation, insurance, reconnection, and testing of the entire system. We told customers we sweep the floor too! We cut the hourly rate in half. The business doubled and continued to grow rapidly.
IBM has become the largest IT services company in the world. While it leads in server market share with it’s various models of eServers, it also installs and maintains Sun and HP servers in IBM datacenters to support customer outsourcing contracts. If a customer prefers a Microsoft operating system with an Oracle database instead of IBM software, IBM consultants will design and support whatever the customer needs. In fact, I believe IBM is the largest systems integrator of Microsoft and Oracle software. If Jonathan has uncovered a new market niche for Intel plus Sun Solaris plus IBM Websphere I am confident IBM will respond to it.
Just a word about Jonathan’s blog. It is extensive and quite well done. I can’t help but wonder if he actually writes it himself. I met Jonathan at Kevin Werbach’s Supernova Conference last summer. He is a thoughtful person with a lot of ideas. Jonathan is also President and Chief Operating Officer of a ten billion dollar per year company with 35,000 employees in 100 countries. Does he have time to write a blog? A blog doesn’t have to be personal — in fact I have long advocated using the blogging protocol to publish just about anything. At the same time, I believe a personal blog like "Jonathan’s Blog" should in fact be personal. The only CEO-level person I know of in a public company who writes their own blog is Alan Meckler at Jupitermedia Corporation (See Alan’s Blog). Whether Jonathan writes his blog personally or his professional staff writes it, I am sure he approves the content. In the case of pleading with IBM to support a questionable new market segment, I would suggest that Sun rescue it’s own customers by embracing Linux more strongly.
