Wladawsky-Berger leads IBM’s participation in the open source movement, and was responsible for defining IBM’s Linux strategy. A 24-year IBM veteran, he is credited with spotting emerging trends and defining IBM’s strategies to capitalize on them. He was behind IBM’s internet strategy in 1995, and more recently its Linux and company-wide E-business On Demand initiatives, which also draw on its Autonomic and Grid efforts.
In an interview with ComputerWire, he said he does not expect SCO’s legal action to affect the take-up of Linux among corporate users. Users see this as a bump in the road, it’s just issues between vendors, he said. We live in a very litigious world, this is just part of life.
As ComputerWire reported on March 1, the judge hearing SCO Group’s legal complaint against IBM has given the green light to SCO’s motion to amend the case, turning it into a copyright and contract lawsuit and dropping trade secret misappropriation claims.
The Lindon, Utah-based Unix vendor filed its motion with the court in February when it attempted to up its claim for damages from $3bn to $5bn and added copyright infringement allegations. Magistrate Judge Brooke Wells has now granted the motion to amend SCO’s suit after IBM chose not to oppose it.
The amended complaint now lists nine causes for action against IBM: two counts of breach of software agreements; two counts of breach of sublicensing agreement; copyright infringement; unfair competition; two counts of interference with contract; and interference with business relationship.
Meanwhile, Wladawsky-Berger conceded that while IBM’s E-business On Demand initiative has seen good traction with customers, there are few companies that have achieved the ultimate goal of adaptive IT that is able to flex with the demands of the business and the market.
It is an evolutionary strategy, he said. Some of [users’] business processes are more along the on-demand lines, others less. With On Demand we are not saying you need to do it all at once, you do it incrementally. You can do one process at a time and keep improving them.
As for how IBM’s On Demand vision differs from HP’s Adaptive Enterprise, or Microsoft’s Agile Business, Wladawsky-Berger said: As visions they are similar. What is different is the ability to execute. To get to On Demand you need sophisticated skills, for example expertise in a particular vertical, like the retail industry. A lot of the competition do not have the same range of skills, so they may not keep up.
As for the company’s Autonomic initiative, which is seeing self-healing and self-management-type capabilities added to products such as its Tivoli management software, DB2 database and eServers, Wladawsky-Berger conceded that it is a long road.
This article is based on material originally published by ComputerWire
