WWWalker's IBM Overview

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See IBM Cloud (Red Hat) | IBM Experience | High Entry Costs | eServers Glossary | Software | Peripherals | Virtualization | IBM Acquisitions | IBM Disposals | Industry Collaboration | jStart Team on Emerging Technology | IBM Think | Big Data Webinars | IBM Developer | DevOps | Web Support | IBM Newsroom (NSW Have Your Say | Hardware Sales Down | eHealth) | Lenovo


IBM Experience

Servers

In 2014, a colleague gave me 2 xSeries 306 eServers running CentOS Linux. The fan was very noisy as they were meant for a server room. They died.

Desktops

I use IBM desktops and screens running Windows.

OS/2 Warp

I experimented with OS/2 Warp in 1990s when it first came out. It was very cool but had very few applications to run on it.

In January 2010, I found Rhema FM radio station in Orange NSW running their playlist using StarTrax on OS/2.

High Entry Costs

You get the impression IBM deals with middle to large companies. Small companies like ours struggle to make use of the good software due to lack of infrastructure - communications bandwidth and processor speed, hard disk size and RAM size. Capital is what it is all about hey? IBM needs to break its downloads into smaller chunks e.g. 50MB, and port its software to less high-end versions of operating systems e.g. Fedora. We are being squeezed out of our own industry - open source software - in the stampede to capitalise on Linux as an alternative to Solaris, Windows, SCO and Mac OS X.

Be careful of what IBM does. They will sway the industry and have such huge intellectual property investments in alternative operating systems that they will sew up the computer world. They take out more patents per day than any other company for 13th consecutive year! (IBM takes out 2941 US patents in 2005 - 1100 more than any other company - then: Canon 1828, HP 1797, Matsushita 1688, Samsung 1641.) They are pushing into 3rd world countries where no-one cares about Microsoft and making huge coups for Linux over Windows e.g. Peru, Brazil, China.

So the only way to beat IBM is:

  1. have more patents (incredibly hard - you'd need billions of dollars in staff and equipment) or
  2. outrun them and use smallness to bamboozle them (OK if you have the energy and resources) or
  3. make your own software outside their controls (possible but limited in scope - bit like a withered branch on a vine - this has been our way since people have ripped us off when outsourcing to them - we own the source and license it to them to stop this 'pinching your brain and leaving you with nothing' mentality of today's wasters)

IBM don't seem to be that bright when it comes to dealing with small business. It is like a torrent of information coming at you from them but not much filtering goes on when dealing with that kind of brontosaurus so it almost becomes comical how bad they are at small tasks. They have NO creativity: all suits and straight down the line conservatives.

In the late 1990s, IBM moved into the middleware tools market (e.g. Rational) away from their hardware market. Hardware made little money on the margins as it is cloned by Taiwanese companies with no royalties.

They make billions out of services by partnering with IT consultants. Partnering requires a non-disclosure agreement and business plan. They are very straight with business plans and business value (total cost of ownership). They deal with the suits in a business (non-technical side). So to deal with IBM, you have to be very business like. This will tighten up your balance sheet and profit and loss statement (a good thing really) and make you think what you will get out of being a part of a very big organisation's connections.

I once visited IBM at Pennant Hills, Sydney. It was like being a rebel fighter entering the Death Star - massive entrance and floors and floors of consultants, technical specialists and marketing people swarming everywhere. I felt totally out of place! I'm more into PCs (microprocessors) and smaller handheld systems so going near a mainframe hub was a bit daunting! I prefer smallness and flexibility than centralist control systems that people like governments and armies use to muster up power and control over the masses.

eServers Glossary - decoding the jargon!

IBM, being the ulimate geeks, encode all the product names with esoteric names. Below is our effort to decode this for the average pleb.

BrandAcronymSizeCPUOSForm FactorsLanguages/SoftwareUser Groups
ex IBM
Lenovo bought System x (Redbook xREF: IBM x86 Server Reference)x = XeonSmall64-bit Intel XeonLinux, WindowsBladeCenter E, BladeCenter (Wikipedia)
IBM
AIXp = POWERMid-Range64-bit POWER5 and POWER5+AIX 5L or OpenPower (Linux)p5
IBM ii = AIXMid-Range64-bit POWER5 aka RS/6000 (Intel emulator)i5/OS aka AS/400 and OS/400, Linux, AIX 5L, Windowsi5iSociety (dead), AS400 Blog
Power Systems (replace iSeries)POWER = Power RISC ProcessorMid-Range64-bit POWER7IBM i, AIX, UNIX, LinuxPOWER7iSociety (dead)
z Systemsz = z (big)Mainframez9, zec12, z14, z13s, z13Linux on System z9 aka LinuxONE, z/OS aka OS/390, z/VM, z/VSE, VSE/ESA, TPF, z/TPFz16, z15, z14, z13s, z13, z9-109, zEC12IBM Z and LinuxONE Community, IBM z/OSMF Guild

Software

ex IBM
marketingIBM Watson Marketing now Centerbridge Partners Acousticecommerce
documentsHCL Connections sold by IBM in 2019community documentation
IBM
devopsIBM Developer
IBM Software Directory
IBM Rational Developer for i Hub
IBM Systems engineering software and solutions ex Rational
Rational Build Forge
UrbanCode
Rexx (Learning Rexx language) - z/OS
languages on z/OS: Rexx, C, Java, maybe Python, Go
languages not on z/OS: PHP, Perl
CASE tools, middleware, embedded IDE tools, DevOps tools, CI/CD
devopsDeveloping software with Rational ClearCasesoftware configuration management
devopsIBM DevOps (ex Tivoli) (manual)network fault management (NBN)
devopsIBM | Developer | CloudRed Hat OpenShift
webWebsphere Web application serverWebsphere Web application server
webWebSphere Cast Iron Cloud Integration, Push REST API (Swagger) from Cast Iron Project to API Managementcloud
cloudHybrid Cloud explainedWebsphere Web application server
cloudPure Systemscloud
cloudIBM Cloud console (ex BlueMix), IBM Cloud (ex BlueMix), IBM Cloud Blog, IBM Cloudant, Red Hat OpenStack, OpenShift, JBoss, Ansible hybrid cloudPaaS, cloud, container, automation, J2EE
storageIBM Data Storageflash storage, SDS (software-defined storage), SAN, tape storage, data protection software
messagingIBM IT Infrastructure ex Xtify now IBM MQpush notification, messaging
AIIBM Supply ChainWatson supply chain, Watson ecommerce, Watson marketing, large retail department stores
AIIBM Smarter Workforce - Kenexa - IBM Watson TalentHuman Resources and Recruitment
AIIBM Watson - AI - IBM Watson Analytics Community - medical simulator - AI on Z 101 - IBM Z and LinuxONE Group: AI on IBM Z & LinuxONEmedical, cognitive, AI computing
databaseIBM Informix
EzNoSQL - z/OS
embedded database, IoT, NoSQL
analyticsIBM DataOps (ex InfoSphere)
Apache Hadoop
IBM Netezza Data Warehouse Systems
IBM Cloud: big data in the cloud, data warehousing, business intelligence, analytics
analyticsIBM Cloud Pak for Data: Analytics, Databank.aiDB2 database
analyticsSPSSstatistics, surveys, business intelligence, data mining, data modeling
documentsex Lotus: Think conference
Notes and Domino Family (formerly Lotus)
IBM Collaboration Solutions User Community
IBM Domino
IBM Notes and Domino 9 Social Edition: Messaging Server
IBM Notes: Integration Tools
Open output: Producing ODF spreadsheets from your Web services - Directly generate files with PHP and Python
Workplace Collaboration Services
collaboration
financeIBM Blockchainblockchain, finance tech, accounting, distributed

Peripherals

systemperipheralmodel
mainframetape libraries (petabyte)TS3200

Virtualization

IBM Acquisitions

IBM Disposals

Industry Collaboration

IBM is in numerous industry groups:

IBM jStart Team on Emerging Technology

I have considered partnering with IBM and visited their St Leonards NSW base in 15 March 2011 to attend a big data Sydney SMAQDown meetup presentation on Hadoop on how the British Library archived the internet and also saw their very interesting computer museum. IBM jStart Emerging Internet Technologies team in Australia sponsored this meetup.

IBM Think

This is an annual software and systems seminar. In 2012 it was in Melbourne 14/8/12 and Sydney 16/8/12 as Software Innovate now Think. In 2020 IBM Think is in May and 2021 IBM Think is in February on internet.

Big Data Webinars

IBM Webinars are high bandwidth and require Flash. They don't work well on Vodafone 3G. PDF download works but not audio streaming. Close all other windows in browser other than Webinar or there will be no audio. Firefox with Flash 11 plugin on Linux works.

IBM Developer

DevOps

In April 2013, IBM acquired UrbanCode a DevOps tools vendor.

IBM Cloud

Red Hat

In October 2018, IBM acquired Red Hat hybrid cloud computing.

In October 2015, Red Hat acquired Ansible cloud automation software.

IBM Garage - incubators using IBM Cloud - Methodology

Developing in IBM Cloud 7/19

Welcome to the IBM Garage 3/20

Web Support

IBM's site had major changes between 2015 and 2018 so I had to redo all the links on this page.

In March 2018, IBM does not fix the problem of their site's broken URLs.

To find new URL, I just Google and find the answer myself rather than rely on IBM staff ever understanding their own site's problems - ibm.com.


IBM Newsroom

NSW Have Your Say (ex NSW Trade and Investment Digital Economy Industry Action Plan 2012

Ex IBM's Glenn Wightwick (Director, IBM Research and Development - Australia, and Chief Technologist for IBM Australia) worked with NSW Government to hold forums in regional NSW in March 2012 of which I went to Orange one in 20/3/12. He was appointed in July 2014 as Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Research) at UTS (UTS appoints leading technologist to head up research 7/14).

Hardware sales down

IBM sold xSeries and Bladecenter to Lenovo in Jan 2014 for $2.3Bn after 7 quarters decreasing hardware sales. Lenovo acquired IBM compatible desktops too.

eHealth


Links


Created 14 Jan 2006 16:12
Last Updated 24 Sep 2023 3:07

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