Re: IBM is so confusing!

[Jon Paris <jon.paris@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Feb 13, 2011, at 1:00 PM, wdsci-l-request@xxxxxxxxxxxx wrote:

>  I did not mean to say that they are the same company or expect them 
> to behave the same.  What I am saying is that IBM's customers expect 
> them to provide good development tools.  

Absolutely agreed. My point was that while we might expect IBM to behave sensibly - as if it were one single entity - it doesn't and won't.

> My *opinion* is that if it's 
> costly and/or difficult (or even if that's the PERCEPTION), then they 
> will not attract new development to the platform.

True. But the roots of Rational (and their parent Software Group) are in the mainframe and huge development shops world. Companies that when presented with a bill of $250,000 for development tools go "Oh - that sounds reasonable". They have never been in the mass-market world and I don't think have a clue how to do that. MS can afford to provide cheap/free tools because of the size of the overall market for Windows and Windows apps that it helps to maintain.

>  The fact that they are separate companies should be immaterial to 
> the customer.  IBM's relationship w/ Zend might be an example whereby 
> IBM takes care of the licensing directly with Zend and the cost is 
> built into the OS.

"Should" is the operative word. But we have to deal with reality - not with what should be.

The Zend analogy is interesting in that it maps fairly closely to what used to happen in the days of WDSC - all the tools were bundled and we were not aware of the individual costs. Rational decided that they needed to monetize the components and here we are. Many moons ago we recommended that if they wanted to make more money they should consider having a very base version of the tool (not much more than RPG and CL editing) and then sell plug in components. They went a different route.

Overall I suspect we're far more in agreement than not.