Dennis Byron (Research 2.0)

Microsoft Continues to Waste Shareholder Value on Standards

And the Microhate begins.

But for all of you that prefer to be "locked in" to Sun or IBM, it's a free country. (Oh sorry, no actually in your country, it's not. Nanny Neelie has to tell you which company's products to use.)

Server Operating System Indicator: Both Windows, Linux Gains Continue

In thinking about Other gaining on Microsoft Windows in Q4, in addition to seaonality related to typical mainframe purchases (Q4 2006 and Q4 2007 both showed upticks in "Other"), there was likely some Q4 2007 decline in Windows demand as buyers awaited Server 2008.

As noted in earlier blog posts, I expect Windows to move toward 50% evenutally at the expense of "Other." This would begin to show up in August 2008 numbers if I am correct and should be very obvious by this time next year.

Server Operating System Indicator: Both Windows, Linux Gains Continue

Thomas, that would require believing that the millions of people participating in a multi-billion ($54B) market do not act rationally. Market analysts like myself don't tend to think that way :)

But just to be compensate for any possible skewing of the data as you suggest, I look at Unix and Linux as one market, and Windows and other as a second market. This is not a Linux vs. Windows comparison but a Unix vs. Linux and Windows vs. Other comparison.

-- Dennis

Sun-MySQL: The Real Winner is Oracle

TIBCOMonkey --

The reference to SAP should have made clearer that I was referring to its NetWeaver business. As described in many previous posts, SAP in CY 2006 made impressive gains in the middleware market. SAP landed “standalone” middleware business not dependent on its ERP business. Based on the exchange rate used in its 20-F, SAP recognized more than $1B in license/maintenance/li... revenue for NetWeaver in the 12 months ending March 31, 2007.

In fact, counting Business Objects but not counting BEA, SAP probably surpassed Oracle in the middleware market in 2007. That's the part of SAP Sun will be competing with.

Dennis

Users Lose Middleware Choice in Oracle Acquisition of BEA

My apologies to Joe Forgione and Herb Osher. How could I forget Hyperdesk!

Users Lose Middleware Choice in Oracle Acquisition of BEA

Did BEA "pretty much launch" the independent middleware market?

In addition to the comment above questioning my middleware history analysis, I've received a few emails and a phone call on the subject. So here goes:

The key word in my analysis is "market." Prior to BEA, most of the independent software vendors that made middleware positioned themselves as tools suppliers. I believe BEA led the way in turning the value proposition on its head, saying "here's the tools, pay us for the number of instances of the resulting run-time code you deploy." That's what makes a market: the value proposition behind the buying and selling in the bazaar, not just making the product.

As I said in the post, Iona predated BEA as did Netwise, Transarc and a few others. But they didn't really push the deployment value proposition. And since IBM funded Camelot at CMU and quickly bought Transarc after it was founded, I would argue Transarc was not "independent."

Independent is another key word in the analysis. Most of the early middleware was part of the leading systems suppliers' stacks (to which it has returned, which is the real point I was trying to make in the post).

So whether you agree with my analysis or not, raise a glass of your favorite libation this weekend to Actional, Allaire, Antares, Ascential, Bluestone, Crossworlds (and the woman in the red dress), Haht, Mercator, Oberon, Persistence, SeeBeyond, Silverstream, Staffware, WebMethods, etc and all the other middleware memories.

[By the way, lest you think I just fell of the turnip truck, I fell of the turnip truck a long time ago.

I started researching "middleware" when Chris Stone was forming the Object Management Group in the late 1980s while still physically located in the Data General facilities on Computer Drive in Westboro.

I was the primary "middleware" analyst for the Datapro division of McGraw Hill from 1991 to 1997 and wrote monthly articles for Application Development Trends during the same time period. I put the term "middleware" in quotes because I don't actually remember using the term "middleware" regularly until 1995 doing some consulting for Noblenet (later part of RogueWave, later aquired by Quovadx).

After a hiatus doing ERP research, I was the IDC "middleware" analyst from 2003 to 2006. Again I put the term in quotes because by then it was called application deployment software :) ]

MySQL and BEA: Wednesday’s Two Big Acquisitions

Sramana--SAP doesn't promote it a lot, particularly outside of Germany, but actually SAP does have a database called SAP DB. They bought it (or the rights to it) from Software AG, I think, and made it open source in 2006 or so. The acqusition was basically a customer protection move back around 2000 or so but it gives SAP a jumping off point as solid as Sun's with MySQl if it chose to do so.--Dennis

Whatever Happened to IBM's Software Factory?

And lest any do the arithmetic and think I am 90 years old, it was actually my great-great grandfather who made boots in a little shoe shop before the industrial age overtook shoe manufacturing in the Brockton, MA area :) - Dennis

IBM Forecasts Big Profit Jump by 2010

If you are betting on IBM doubling its EPS in the next three years, factor in the effects of the stock buybacks and the cost cutting more than software margins, acquisitions and virtualization.

-- IBM will need to be acquiring service revenue streams to build EPS, not software license streams. Software margins in general will be plummeting because of commoditization. That's why so many software companies are going to Software as a Service (SaaS) as fast as SOA and open source software will get them there.

-- For IBM to buck this trend and increase its software margins as stated, I guess it can squeeze more profits out of those held captive behind the Big Blue Curtain but that doesn't quite line up with the Linux on Mainframe campaign IBM has been leading.

-- As for virtualization, I would argue that IBM invented this "new technology" 40 years ago. Reminding clients of this will help profits to the extent that IBM can keep its users on big iron but that's going to be more protecting against profit erosion than increasing profits.