Let's address the big issue. There is really two IBM's: The 'top down' IBM and the 'bottom up' IBM. The top down IBM sees management as the important issue and technicians/programmers/researchers as interchangable parts. The bottom up IBM sees the creative efforts of technicians/programmers/researchers as the important element and managers and executives as important insofar as they the channel the activities of those individuals. . IBM has had an amazing set of creative people over the years. These would be the technicians/programmers/researchers. Some of the executive leadership has been less than stellar. Remember that it was not many years ago that they almost drove the company into the ground. . The difficulty they ran into at that time was due to the fact that the executives had lost touch with the market and believed that their profit-driven notions could be forced onto the customers. . It seems that IBM is once again losing touch with the market, from a slightly different perspective. This time they are going to Sara-Leeize the company. Sara-Lee pioneered the notion of the 'virtual corporation'. The ultimate dream for managers is to not have to deal with messy things at all (like customers, employees, pensions, etc), but to simply coordinate totally outsourced entities. Just put the corporate stamp on the result. . Part of this effort is to withdraw from areas that are highly competitive (like the PC business) and areas with low immediate payout, and redirect resources toward the lucrative 'high end' of the business. They thereby assure that they will have no nerve endings where the action is really happening. . This discussion has largely dealt with small developers. But also the the smaller installations find themselves dealing with a corporation that has no human face except for the help desk; and the help desk consists of a disembodied ever-changing voice that wants to be sure that you are entitled to ask the question that you just asked. Not only are there no SE's, FE's, or salespeople; the other contacts that small installations do have is sometimes 'creepy'. Examples: . CREEPY EXAMPLE 1: Every couple of years we are contacted by phone or e-mail by someone who claims to be part of IBM sales. This person contacts all the technical folks and wants to be of assistance in our efforts. This person does not appear to have any notion what we are about and does not appear to have any relationship with the local IBM office ... As near as we can tell this is a 'bottom feeding' operation. Someone sits in a central office and cold calls all the customers in the hope that they will hit at just the right time: IE: The customer has a bunch of money and wants to launch a new initiative and is eager to talk about it with someone ... If this is not the case then our 'new friend' is not heard from again. But a couple of years later we get a similar call from someone else ... (If you want to have some fun here tell them that you need assistance in resolving a billing issue between your installation and IBM). . CREEPY EXAMPLE 2: The 'survey' that is follow-up to help desk calls. At least one person I know has observed that the painfully extensive follow-up survey only happens in the cases where the problem has been successfully resolved. In those cases where there has not been a resolution - no follow-up call. Is this his imagination or is it an example of keeping reality at bay? . On the issue of Linux: Is it possible that the relationship between IBM executives and the Linux community will fall apart somewhere down the line?. It is held together, in part, by a shared antipathy toward Microsoft. But the world-views of the two parties are just too different to be sustained. . Note: All opinions expressed are strictly my own.
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