Analysts are questioning IBM Corp’s commitment to client-server computing because no products have emerged to back up the numerous marketing announcements. Computerwoche notes that despite the trend towards downsizing, IBM still generates 60% of its worldwide revenues from mainframes, and industry commentators see little evidence that it is changing track. Although it is likely that IBM will start pushing client-server issues to the foreground, distributed data processing in the host-based IBM world is actually possible on two levels at most; none of IBM’s databases or operating systems are compatible and it is unclear how any of them could be implemented in a client-server environment – and Systems Application Architecture failed to solve the problem. The situation has been brought about by the complexity and sheer size of IBM’s product ranges as well as a lack of commitment to client-server technology from staff steeped in the mainframe tradition. Klaus Thomas, an analyst at the Gartner Group, believes that the loosening of IBM’s monolithic structure will enable it to respond more quickly to market requirements. However, this does not answer the question of how IBM will deal with the move towards client-server technology on a technical level.
