ibm and eclipse

8/3/2019 IBM and Eclipse

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IBM AND ECLIPSE: CASE FACTS

Section CShudhansu Ladda PGP/15/186

Sarthak Patnaik PGP/15/180Sarada Prasanna Dalai PGP/15/179Sailesh Sahu PGP/15/176Ranadip Madhu PGP/15/168Mridul Choudhary PGP/15/158Mohd. Yaseen Khan PGP/15/157


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SWG AT IBM

Created in 1995 to focus all software activitiesunder 1 centre

Previously served needs of hardware group

Increased autonomy to expand product offeringto different operating system and middleware

Increase diversity by acquiring middleware firms

By 1999: Profits were more than hardwaredivision

Profits of software were rising, while those forhardware were falling


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SWG - ACQUISITIONS

1995: Lotus Development Corp. Collaboration and productivity software

Largest software deal: $3.5 billlion

1996: Object oriented International Object oriented software

Industrys best in expertise in multi operating systemdevelopment

Tivoli Systems Specializing in software for managing large scale

systems


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SWG

Positioning: Company that had all the tools and expertise to helptransform any traditional business into e-business

Problems All products developed independently

Applications did not look or feel the same within the same family Interoperability and usability Absence of native qualities of the OS

Redundancy in efforts: non existent reuse of codes Need of more specialized product specific training

Need of an integrated end-to-end tool

Multiple OS support: Porting Significant increase in development and support cost

ISV did not have expertise or technical capability to build complementingproducts and solutions Porting cost: 6.46% of total revenue per OS


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SOLUTION : SINGLE TECHNOLOGY PLATFORM

Need for a common base layer, singletechnology platform

Eliminate redundant development effort

Improve usability and consistency

Improve efficiency of deployed resources

Problems: How to convinceOther application development product

managers

External partners to work on the same platform


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PRODUCT PORTFOLIO

Two families of products OS for company servers

Middleware for IBM and non-IBM systems running

on variety of OS 4 brands:

DB2- database management software

Lotus- collaboration and productivity software

Tivoli- Systems management software WebSphere- integration and application

infrastructure software


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COMPETITION

Microsoft acquiring companies in middelware andapplication development space Visual Studio .NET- IDE for developing applications using

C, C++, C# and .NET

Advantage of extensive modular architecture Limited access to IDE: possible to build complementary

products

Java : Once written, run everywhere philosophy Java Virtual Machine: Answer to porting on multi OS Highly fragmented market due to multiple vendors Used its own graphic environment(Swing)- no native look Did not use default libraries on OS: more processing time


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PLATFORM CREATION

Need: combining benefits of currentdevelopment environment with benefits of javawithout sacrificing performance and native look

Every product group would rely on a commonplatform Coordination with each product group difficult Longer Product development cycles Internal competition to influence platform for their

own product line Existing product lines lose influence, platform

managing team gains power


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OBJECT TECHNOLOGY INTERNATIONAL

Autonomous subsidiary of IBM Canada

150 people unit operating at higherproductivity levels

Prior experience in working on multi OSsysytems

Enormously skilled people in this domain

Separate subsidiary, werent subject to

controls and management


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OTI- STANDARD WIDGET TOOLKIT

New set of user interface libraries workingdirectly with the OS

Could run on a wide range of OS

Part of the platform Eclipse

Extensible platform to enable IBM partners todevelop modules that can be easilyintegrated


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INTRODUCTION OF ECLIPSE TO IBM

Late 2000: Lee becomes VP of application developmenttools: whole of AIM reporting directly to him

Eclipse: One solution fit all environment Needed to develop an application on the platform to prove

its worth Developed Java IDE with feedback loop between platform

and Java tools IBM announces support to Linux OS

More stress on SWG group

Problems with extensibility of VisualAge Eclipse: possible solution for porting to linux and saving

resourses to add more functionality


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ACCEPTANCE OF ECLIPSE IN IBM

August 2001: WebSphere Studio ApplicationDeveloper(WSAD) was released replacingVisual Age.

Platform development issues:

what should be in the platform and what shouldbe in the product??

Separate platform and Product team underseparate directors


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MARKET SCENARIO

Middleware had 3 parts Application development tools Client software Server software

IBM focussed on Server software

Wanted more share in Application development tools market:toincreased Server software sales Competition

Microsoft Visual Studio: large customer fllowing and large number of ISVbuilding complementary products for it.

Uns Netbeans: Java IDE.Swing Based. Slower than Eclipse and did nothave native look and feel.

IBM offerred better development tools at competitive prices

Partners fear Getting locked into a proprietary platform controlled by IBM Lose ability to control direction of own products


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ECLIPSE GOING OPEN SOURCE

Earlier projects supporting Apache HTTP serverand Linux OS had given good reputation to IBMwith respect to OpenSource

DEMERIT: Sharing $40million investment ineclipse with its competitors

Need to change the manner of operation to

support open source Practiced operating in a open source

environment for several months before goingpublic


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LAUNCH OF ECLIPSE AS OPEN SOURCE

Startup specialist Skip McGaughey recruited Eclipse to go open source with 2 objectives

Play by open source rules of engagement Have a commercial arm

Egalitarian Consortium with a board of stewards to establish

policies and direction for platform All members of consortium would have equal decision rights IBM remained legal owner of Eclipse 9 members joined the consortium:

commitment to building commercial products on eclipse No commitment to contribute to platform

Positive press and analyst feedback for commitment to OpenSource


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CHALLEGES FOR THE CONSORTIUM

New partners got recruitted at the rate of 4-6 per quarter Official open source project IBM still major contributor and sole manager of platform Confusion on status of Eclipse, if it was truly independent

or controlled by IBM Companies still concerned about lock down with Ibm Eclipse community in itself confused on degree of

freedom needed from IBM IBM was working too fast. All platform related issues were

getting solved. No incentive for external forces to work onthe platform


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FUTURE HOPES

IBM needed the contributions from externalsources to eclipse platform to increase

This would help IBM to redeploy resources todevelop commercial products on Eclipse

Competitors were gaining advantage ongrounds that they did not have to worry about

platform,

ibm and eclipse

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