The
Race To Reduce Complexity And Gain Market Share Is On:
IBM’s On-Demand Operating Environment
and HP’s Demand More
We can always tell we're moving
from a new idea to a mainstream market when the second tier vendors
arrive. Just as IBM and
HP are starting to tidy up their earlier announcements about how to
use a combination of On-Demand delivery techniques and Managed
Systems to significantly reduce cost and complexity, we are starting
to hear from the second tier. Well
save them for next week because there's way too much to tell you
about IBM and HP.
IBM's On-Demand Operating Environment
IBM is taking its autonomic
technology, its enhanced system management, and its on-demand
delivery and adding to it the notion of using these enablers,
together with business process improvements and special offerings
from its Global Finance division to transform its customers'
businesses. It calls
this overarching concept the IBM On-Demand Operating Environment and
it includes:
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integration of every type of
application and computing environment
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automation of systems management
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virtualization of resources based
on business policies, open standards, and a broad set of
shared components.
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IBM will provide this through
custom offerings from its Global Services unit, hosted offerings
from its On-Demand unit, and packaged offerings that can be
implemented more simply and quickly.
That makes them suitable for delivery through business
partners and for use in the mid-market, as well as for getting
started in larger organizations.
Since all of this is based on IBM
products and concepts that have been building for several years,
there are already customers using some parts of the offering, with
more to come. IBM
itself is an excellent example of a company transformed and enabled
by these new technologies and delivery methods.
HP's Demand More
IBM'S two-day analyst briefing on
its On-Demand Operating Environment and its underpinnings was
followed a few days later by HP's marketing extravaganza around its
Demand More theme for its Adaptive Computing technology.
Like IBM, HP has been talking about Adaptive Computing for
more than six months (they briefed analysts last October and rolled
out a formal announcement in November, 2002).
This is a way for HP to wrap a marketing theme around the
pieces and offer more details.
Again, there is the notion of
reducing complexity through automation, systems management, and the
ability to buy computing on demand (that is, as you need it).
HP has a few flavors that are a bit different than IBM.
For example:
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HP claims that it was able to
integrate HP and Compaq through the use of its Adaptive,
Demand More environment.
We're sure they used whatever was available, but feel
we should note that lots of the things they described last
week aren't shipping yet and, we'd guess, aren't being used
internally et either.
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HP offers a UDC (Utility Data
Center), which is a highly automated, managed facility.
HP has already shipped these to customers and
implemented the UDC internally.
It is also possible to access UDC services as a hosted
offering. IBM has
somewhat similar offerings, but put together a bit
differently. This
is a good idea (regardless of your vendor of choice) and you
can expect the usual competitive comments.
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At IBM the emphasis is on a
top-to-bottom IBM offering.
That's because IBM is in the HW, middleware software,
and services businesses. At HP a lot more emphasis is placed
on partnering. HP
does have a substantial software offering for some parts of
the middleware, partly based on enhancements to its OpenView
software, but it partners for other parts of its software
offering. HP is providing substantially more services this year than
previously, but still is a much smaller service provider than
IBM, so they obviously do more partnering.
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Bottom
Line
The two biggest enterprise
vendors in the market, IBM and HP, have decided that their next
battle is right here. Their
offerings have similarities, but they are not identical.
Their go-to-market strategies differ, with IBM using partners
more for application software and mid-market customers, HP relying
on partners across their entire offering.
This is not a matter of right or wrong, just different
approaches.
Shortly, we'll take the 10 pounds
of information we've collected from IBM and HP (as well as Sun,
Microsoft, and others) and publish the comparison charts and
comments we've been working on.
There you will find more details on timetables and products.
The computer landscape is going
to change significantly over the next five years,
It will be more automated, better managed, much more reactive
to the business needs of the companies who invest in technology.
The battle is just beginning as to who will provide these
systems, exactly what customers will like best, and just what these
systems will do.
You get to choose:
When to play and who to play with.
These are critical decisions and on the one hand we envy you
the opportunities you have, but not the difficulty in selecting.
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