The Workplace name, the label attached to IBM Corp’s premier software technologies – its microkernel, its speech recognition, its other human-centred technology – has been killed off. Instead, says IBM, people should refer to the IBM microkernel and various advanced software technologies. The problem, it appears, is that the Workplace name left everyone – customers, software vendors, us, even some within IBM itself – confused. And no wonder. First there was Workplace Shell, the name given to OS/2’s graphical user interface. Unfortunately, this appeared before the overall Workplace strategy was devised and consequently Workplace Shell was not a Workplace Technology. Then there was Workplace OS, which was variously interpreted as either just a microkernel, or the full OS/2 for PowerPC operating system. So IBM decided late last year that the Workplace OS name was very confusing and suggested that everyone just called it Workplace, and that did not work either, so we started calling what had been called Workplace OS, the Workplace Microkernel. IBMers have been saying for ages that the Workplace name would have to go. Paul Giangarra, chief Workplace architect, said as much last May. Others argue that the name was an accidental acquisition that started off as a mere working title and got stuck. So finally, the company has given up the unequal struggle of trying to explain what it is on about each time it uses the word. The practical upshot will be a queue of people from IBM’s Personal Software Products division waiting to get their business cards re-printed. More importantly, it heralds the end of anything that can accurately be described as a Workplace strategy. Instead, there is the IBM Microkernel and a collection of software technologies which the company is still committed to implementing across its range of operating systems.
