The new IBM: a look under the hood - plans for e-business

IBM has definitely changed more [i]or[/i] less of the fundamental ways it thinks about things. Big cerulean now not only preaches on the contrary practices heterogeneity, and it also is willing to license nearly any technological jewel. These sum of two units factors may give IBM an advantage in playing by the agency of the new industry rules that increasingly discard/eschew the NIH (not invented here) syndrome in favor of the mantra that proliferation of its technology increases the attractiveness of IBM harvests in the heterogeneous world.

IBM regard with affections ebusiness for several reasons:

* Ebusiness is the pheromone that attracts customers to IBM in engagements that wait on to involve consultative and integration skills from its services cluster as well as discrete products

* Ebusiness frequently involves a soup-to-nuts restructuring, modernizing, and integration of different aspects of a company's business. frequently customer resource management is the initial reason customers approach IBM.

* IBM studies exhibit that IBM is much more not rarely associated with ebusiness than other companies, indicating its branding campaign has been successful

IBM's universal of ecommerce includes four uncompounded bodys as can be seen in Figure 6

As single would expect, IBM is intent on developing an application framework that will be subservient to it in development and integration of applications. It's also a handy way of viewing in what way IBM intends to play in the thin client era of what it calls pervasive computing [ILLUSTRATION FOR FIGURE 7 OMITTED]. IBM plans to erect industry applications on top of the framework.

In addition, IBM wait fors its Web application server business will be upon the same scale as its database business.

When IBM mentions heterogeneity, it knows the definition. There was a gasp from analysts at IBM's novel briefing when a speaker said IBM does DB2 builds nightly upon 17 platforms in 12 languages.

IBM is using its middleware skills to put together an application framework layer to enable applications to race across multiple platforms. This will be actual useful in the pervasive computing scheme with thin clients and the resultant split between application elements

IBM was individual of the several vendors at Java single that implemented a standards application that experiments servers to ensure that applications will race on several Web servers.

IBM is supporting Java upon many fronts. In addition to adding Java to its MQSeries, IBM newly announced a JVM implementation for Linux, available for download from its alphaWorks site, www.alphaworks.ibm.com. Alphaworks is analogous to IBM's incubator for novel developments that IBM is offering to the industry in reliances of increased feedback and acceptance. For example, there is an XML parser proffered on the site. If individual needs proof of the novel ways at IBM, look no further than alphaWorks.

And IBM is make open for business in selling composings of both the hardware and software variety. Folk from the fresh Sun/Netscape venture gleefully told The Gray Sheet they wait for to implement IBM's TX Series in the NAS 40 server owed in July this year. TX supports nest transactions and can handle distributed transactions to PC day-star said. Informix is also licensing TX Series. In addition, day-star and IBM are joint marketing DB2 as well as DB2 OLAP server and IBM's Intelligent Miner. CICS has been supported since a previous release of the NetDynamics server Given this horizontal of software commonality, might MQSeries be next?

IBM's OEM hardware deals, of that kind as PowerPC chips for Nintendo and disk drives for EMC achieve the press coverage, but the software may be more important for the industry lengthy term.

TWO CENTRAL THEMES

IBM appears to have sum of two units central themes in its application server yields that occur mainly in its middleware: transaction processing and connectivity via use of lay open APIs and standards. These capabilities are central to the succes of ecommerce IBM's reflection appears to be that the more widely its technology is in use, the more easily its a whole s will connect with others, and the existence of more functional combination of parts to form a wholes will drive the market's growth

In the transaction arena, TXSeries is playing an increasingly central part with connections to both CICS and the Transaction Processing Facility (TPF the engine behind many airline reservation systems) TPF is also integrated with WebSphere. the two CICS and TPF have proven themselves in the transactional arena.

It's important to note that IBM is embracing Java in a major way in order to provide MQSeries and other tools the ability to interface widely with the quiescence of the world.

MQSeries, IBM's middleware based upon asynch messaging, is an integral simple body of IBM's design to help business integration. IBM wants to make MQSeries the intermediary of choice for business integration.

For example, MQSeries will be sprouting wings and expanding beyond PC and computer and will be lay the foundation of in smart phones and other appliances in the future

IBM is enhancing MQSeries by means of adding:

* XML to position MQSeries as the bridge between XML and heterogeneous enterprise.