Middleware Victory Will Go To Whomever Controls The Center Of The Chessboard
One of the basic tenets of chess is that you want to think at least three moves ahead, and you want to make sure you control the center of the board.
The equivalent of the center of the board in enterprise software has always been that fuzzy place known as middleware, and the center square in the middle of the board is that place where file systems, databases, application servers and application management intersect. At this moment, Microsoft and IBM are involved in a pitched battle to gain control over the center of the board.
IBM's latest gambit was to give control of its Cloudscape database to the group that handles the development of the Apache Web server. The question you have to ask yourself is, given that DB2 is one of IBM's core software franchises, why would the company aid the development of an eventual open-source alternative, and why did it pick the Apache team to run this project?
The answer lies in the future merger of file and database management systems. Microsoft, since it first spoke about the original overly ambitious Cairo follow-on to Windows NT, has been talking about melding the two. Now, the road to Cairo has been strewn with many potholes and detours, but Microsoft continues to pursue the same technological goal, which ultimately could give it control over every piece of software that sits on top of its .Net architecture.
IBM has been backing the same trend, but rather than see database management functionality melded into the operating system, it would much rather see that functionality folded into the application server and Web server, thereby minimizing the role of the OS. Of course, IBM doesn't have a big enough footprint below the database level, so it has recruited the open-source community as a proxy to thwart the ambitions of Microsoft.
The ultimate hope is that the Apache group will combine enough application, Web and database management functionality into a single offering to make Microsoft's next-generation offering seem overpriced when compared with lower-cost open-source offerings sporting a similar level of integration.
In the meantime, IBM will concentrate on combining the higher-level system management functions available in DB2, WebSphere and Tivoli to create a distributed information system (see online interview with IBM Fellow Pat Selinger). That move would further serve to lock Microsoft out of the enterprise, while simultaneously using an open-source offering to cut off Microsoft's revenue stream in that market segment.
On the face of it, IBM today has control over the center of the board, but we shouldn't count Microsoft out by any means. But should IBM or Microsoft win, they may find there is an even tougher opponent waiting in the wings that could easily beat either of them. SAP has been quietly amassing an array of middleware technologies that leverage its dominance of the enterprise application space. So, once IBM and Microsoft have finally been able to checkmate each other, they may quickly discover that SAP is the real champion.
Until that time, the best game in town remains the match between IBM and Microsoft.
ROBERT FALETRA is on vacation and will return with next week's issue. Meanwhile, MICHAEL VIZARD, editor in chief of CRN, wants to know your thoughts. You can reach him at (516) 562-7477 or [email protected].