IBM Corp is installing Tivoli Systems Inc chief executive Frank Moss as head of a new systems management software division based in Tivoli’s home town of Austin, Texas where the IBM’s $1,000m SystemView network and systems management operation is also based. The combined unit will start life with 1,300-odd staff, 320 from Tivoli. Although there’s some overlap between Tivoli’s Tivoli Management Environment systems management suite, IBM Corp’s SystemView network (NetView) and systems management environment, the two companies weren’t able to identify all areas of crossover. Both have performance analysis and software distribution mechanisms. Details of an integration and development plan are expected in a few week’s time. SystemView and the Tivoli Environment will continue as separate products, but Frank Moss’s combined IBM-Tivoli systems management software division will create a single view for the two. IBM says it will trade under the Tivoli brand name in systems management. It is also unclear what will happen to the System Object Model- Distributed System Object Model object request broker foundation underpinning of IBM’s recently-detailed SystemView family. IBM’s technology is still tied primarily to its proprietary systems and badly needs the kind of broad-based multisystem strategy Tivoli has created. However, one of Tivoli’s key attractions has been its vendor-independent strategies and a key measure of the acquisition’s success will be whether Tivoli can retain and expand its current partner list. Moss promises a Tivoli Internet strategy this quarter. The two companies say they are aiming at a client-server server management market currently worth around $2,500m year.
