By Hesh Wiener
As IBM rolls out its big promotion for Internet software in all its environments, it hopes to focus customers on their immediate desires and the imminent availability of Net.Comerce, DB2 WWW and other IBM program products. But in the long run, IBM may have to turn to Netscape Communications Corp for server software. What IBM would gain from an alliance with Netscape is greater strength to compete with Microsoft. Guaranteed interoperability with the burgeoning base of Netscape servers and clients used at its customers’ sites and elsewhere; early availability of features and consistent standards for Internet and intranet page technology and related services; and the opportunity to reposition Notes as a Netscape helper application rather th an as an alternative.
There are also risks and even problems inherent in an IBM-Netscape alliance, chief among them incompatibility between future Web server software and IBM products now being given great marketing emphasis; loss of control if Netscape permitted users to prop up an outer layer of new software over IBM systems software, thus reducing IBM’s intimate involvement in strategic applications; the requirement to adjust to Netscape, which may not be very interested in adjusting to IBM; and reckoning with the possibility that Netscape will be volatile, with changes in its fortunes that do not sit well with IBM or its customers. In late June, IBM, which is actively pushing its Net.Commerce software and other code into the RS/6000 world, said it would also support current releases of Netscape server packages.
Ostensible practicality
IBM’s position is that it must provide full support for all its customers, and that includes support of programs they want, even if the programs compete with IBM’s own offerings. In the Unix world, vendors that shy away from support for popular packages suffer in the marketplace. So IBM’s ostensible practicality might be viewed as an adjustment to business conditions it cannot control. But it is also a quiet recognition of a different aspect of the business: left to their own ideas, IBM’s soft ware developers might well produce a superb package that never attracts a mass market. This was the case with OS/2 and it may be the case with Notes unless IBM can somehow defuse the conflict that between Notes and other Internet groupware. The key issue for customers is not so much the way IBM will fare in the world market for Web software. Plenty of IBM customers are perfectly happy with IBM software that exists only in the IBM world, even if alternatives are orders of magnitude more popular . But when IBM software stands between a customer and valid goals, then the IBM product must give way. This could be the case in the emerging Web commerce world, where the two players with the most users – measured by population but not aggregate bu siness size – are Microsoft Corp and Netscape. The topsy-turvy world of the Internet may put small businesses on top because there are so many of them and because they can adapt to the Web more quickly than most large enterprises. Once the paths are marked out, the highways will probably follow them. Prospective users of Net.Commerce will want to get some guidance from IBM regarding its future plans and possibilities. More importantly, they will want assurance that IBM’s Web software, operating systems and database management programs will provide not only interoperability with Netscape software but also compatibility. We think IBM will support Netscape if it realizes that a failure to do so will drive customers away from IBM’s products and toward Oracle and other back end products that are consistent with the front end packages put out by Netscape. It’s better for IBM’s Net.Commerce developers to suffer a bit of angst – they won’t like being told that their technical decisions must give way to other considerations, like money – than for users to discover their competitors using Netscape can do more business on the Web for less money.
From Infoperspectives, July 1996.
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