

I.B.M’s Bid to Woo Software Startups - bootload
http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/03/31/i-b-ms-bid-to-woo-software-startups/

======
holdenc
I'd say one of the worst things a start-up (or any company for that matter)
could do is tie their core business to a proprietary hosted technology -- free
or not. The nice thing about most cloud hosting is incremental scaling for
open and free technologies. So, it's not a complete nightmare to move
elsewhere. What is someone to do when they realize that WebShere isn't a
perfect match, or costs too much?

~~~
gaius
I think it's just IBM technology in general. So if you need DB/2 or MQSeries
or whatever. No reason not to use commercial technology if it does what you
need for less than you would need to cobble it together from MySQL and DBus...

------
bdittmer
I don't know anyone in their right mind who would start building a new system
around WebSphere in the first place, free or not. Is it even running on Java
1.5 yet?

~~~
ShabbyDoo
It is, but it took them a couple years to get there after Sun's first GA
release. Of course, it likely requires an IBM JVM, at least if you want
support.

------
po
The first hit is free, kid.

~~~
ShabbyDoo
Yeah. Since no start-up in its right mind would pay $20K/CPU or whatever for
Websphere, there's no opportunity loss for IBM to give it away. And, the
successful companies will face a switching cost three years from now if they
don't want to pay hundreds of thousands to IBM.

------
jvdh
nit-pick: shouldn't it be "I.B.M.'s Bid..." ?

Also, who on earth still writes I.B.M. ?? The company itself certainly
doesn't.

~~~
jeffcoat
The _New York Times_ has an idiosyncratic style guide; they follow each letter
with a period when the letters are pronounced individually. So, "I.B.M",
"C.I.A.", but "NATO".

(Naturally, how IBM itself spells its name is of no interest.)

