IBM has been too quiet during the downturn but now seems intent on changing that. The company is diligently working to develop messaging that works – to tell the world what they are and what they want to be. They do great at high-end esoteric junk like “Smart Planet” but have been terrible at arming their soldiers and partners and customers with product and solution rationalization. Granted, it’s a hard problem when you have a billion products, but they haven’t been able to do it at the macro level (between storage, networking, servers, services)–or micro level (when do I sell/buy XIV vs. DS5000 vs. DS8000?). Until this is fixed, IBM garners no efficiency in the selling motion, and will continue to sub-optimise. The good news is they are massive and entrenched, and if/when they do fix this, they will see immediate benefit. IBM’s biggest battle near term will be fought amongst itself.

The biggest threat to the majority of the big players is Oracle now that they have a whole stack approach. We’re watching it in the “level 2 big iron” world – those app environments that use the same stuff as the level 1 transaction systems – but in much greater quantity. Exadata is just the first instantiation of this for the big O. What happens is companies run big iron mainframes or mega huge Unix boxes, Cisco, Symm/HDS/DS8000s and Oracle in as their transaction systems–at a huge cost. They then build data warehouses, BI systems, decision support systems, etc., by replicating those same transaction systems – only they do it in a much bigger way (10X is normal).  

This level 2 business is HUGE for those who sell stuff into it. Now Oracle is screwing up a cash cow by coming into your company, finding you out of compliance on your Oracle Dbase licensing, and making the whole problem go away by ripping out what you have and replacing it with a $7m all Oracle stack–hardware and software. And, it’s working. If you are EMC or NetApp or even IBM, this is bad news. IBM can play the game as they have the pieces, but I’m not sure they have the sales muscle or focus.  HP is in the same boat. There are BILLIONS at stake just in the level 2 big iron world. Look for those under threat to be forced to partner or buy in order to negate the threat–namely the Dbase function itself. You won’t beat Oracle as long as they control the rules – and the Dbase controls the rules. You’ll need to find a better/cheaper way – Vertica, Greenplum, etc. are suddenly looking very appealing. This is not lost on VMware either, as Oracle will try to do their own virtualisation thing and keep VMware out.  

Make no mistake about it – Oracle has the potential to be the most disruptive force in this IT universe, bar none.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Steve Duplessie is the founder of and Senior Analyst at the Enterprise Strategy Group. Recognised worldwide as the leading independent authority on enterprise storage, Steve has also consistently been ranked as one of the most influential IT analysts. You can track Steve’s blog at http://www.thebiggertruth.com