CRN Interview: Steve Mills, IBM Software

Steve Mills, senior vice president and group executive of IBM'S Software Group, sat down last week with Industry Editor Barbara Darrow and Editor in Chief Michael Vizard to discuss middleware, the competitive landscape and a host of other issues.

CRN: Microsoft last year made a big deal about an upcoming integrated Web application suite, which it has since scrubbed. It was viewed as an antiWebSphere move. Why do you think Microsoft nixed it?

MILLS: I think the issue of middleware at Microsoft in general has always been a controversial topic. They always see the alternative model, characterized by open systems and what evolved over many years in the Unix space to a modular system structure [in which] someone provides the hardware and the operating system, the database comes in separately and other mechanisms. It's a different type of approach to creating a systems architecture and one with well-insulated layers and the ability to snap things in and out. It provides portability, and I think in general they don't like that model [laughs], because it obviously creates opportunities for others to come in and disintermediate your control of the stack.

CRN: What did you think of the Microsoft-Sun Microsystems deal?

MILLS: I think it was a legal settlement. It's a $2 billion payment, and obviously everyone knows Microsoft has many, many billions of dollars. In the scheme of things and given the range of legal challenges they face, I assume [Microsoft] felt it was a good use of money.

CRN: You don't see it as focused against IBM?

MILLS: No. More has been written on and speculated about this settlement than either company has said. They have not been very specific on what collaboration could unfold. It's pretty clear it's a legal settlement. Microsoft is not interested in promoting Solaris in the market. Sun is very much a hardware company.

CRN: Don't they have mutual self-interest in minimizing the value proposition of the app server by collaborating together on integration work, to minimize BEA Systems?

MILLS: Perhaps. But to me that's fighting Mother Nature. The term app server is a 1990s euphemism for a transaction monitor manager. The concept of a transaction monitor manager has been proven valid. It's the way you get the ability to manage lots of applications concurrently. It's a core computer-science construct, so it's a required capability. I don't know how you get around not having one. There is clearly a big market here. IBM and BEA Systems do very well at this.

CRN: If you talk to Information Builders or other ISVs, they're open about feeling in competition with IBM.

MILLS: If you talk to those delivering applications and not middleware, they know IBM doesn't do that, [IBM is] not doing accounting, accounts payable, CRM, supply chain, inventory, billing systems. If you talk to companies in the middleware business, information integration like Information Builders, well, guess what? I'm in the information integration space. [IBM] acquired the assets of CrossAccess to provide connection capability into a variety of data sources. Information Builders finds some of these things overlapping with what they do. We are a middleware competitor. So BMC [Software] doesn't like me, Oracle doesn't like me, [Computer Associates International] doesn't like me Lots of companies don't like me. I'm not asking for them to like me, and I'm not disappointed.