Global CIO: IBM Zings Oracle And HP Over Limited Vision

Calling Oracle "a one-trick pony" and saying HP's failed to invest wisely, IBM's hardware chief says IBM's surging hardware revenue is a sign of things to come.

Bob Evans, Contributor

January 20, 2011

4 Min Read
InformationWeek logo in a gray background | InformationWeek

"Our big focuses here are on prepackaging for best performance, integration so the systems can deliver value rapidly, and testing, and some examples are our Smart Analytics Systems and also our Cloudburst family of offerings."

Looking ahead, Adkins identified three macro trends that will continue to make those types of investments and innovations essential for leadership in the systems business: 1) Consolidation will accelerate in the service space as "computing is delivered as a service in the cloud." 2) Data growth will trigger a corresponding need for smarter, better, and simpler data-management tools, including security, compression, and real-time access. 3) Integration: customers are demanding not just technical integration but also strategic levels of integration tailored to specific needs of companies and/or industries.

Adkins also noted that "competitive intensity out in the marketplace is at an all-time high," and said IBM's strategy around continuing to push its capabilities in the comprehensive offerings described above will provide significant challenges for primary competitors Oracle and HP.

"We'll see some of the same old things from HP and Oracle in 2011. You'll see HP talk about integration of commodity capabilities and supply chain and global reach, and they'll talk about those things because they have no choice—they've got no alternatives but to do that because they simply haven't made the necessary and extensive investments in sustainable tech portfolios," Adkins said.

"HP can't help but continue to focus on some of those same things because they haven't invested in differentiating their capabilities.

"As for Oracle/Sun, we'll also continue to hear more of the same from them: in the last year, they've embraced aggressively our point of view about the importance of integration and of delivering highly integrated and highly optimized systems. And that's a good thing," Adkins said.

"However, the challenge Oracle has is time: you don't go out and acquire a company and then immediately declare victory, and declare that you've got everything all squared away—it takes years of work to get those software and hardware teams working together. And believe me, we know that from our own experience here at IBM.

"So Oracle will continue to tell that story but the reality is that they have a one-trick pony called Exadata—that's all they have," Adkins said.

"They've had some success with it, but it doesn't scale to every need—yet, that's what they have to offer. So I think we'll be seeing lots more rhetoric about Exadata but that'll still be the only thing they've got."

Clearly, strong earnings reports inspire vigorous ideas and lofty aspirations, and Adkins clearly realizes that while HP's future strategy for high-end systems has not been established, Oracle CEO Larry Ellison has very publicly declared that it will be his company and IBM battling for leadership in the high-end systems market.

Adkins says time is Oracle's enemy, and that's something Ellison understands quite well. For CIOs, the result should be a spike in choices, more innovation, and more-attractive pricing, particularly if/when new HP CEO Leo Apotheker and his team get their high-end ideas together and begin aggressively contesting IBM and Oracle.

So it'll be fun to see if Adkins and IBM can continue to combat the one-trick pony and the reluctant investor in what is sure to be an incredibly high-stakes competition.

RECOMMENDED READING: Global CIO: Apple Hammers Google Over Tablet Flaws Global CIO: HP's New Strategy Will Intensify Battles With IBM And Oracle Global CIO: The Top 10 CIO Issues For 2011 Global CIO: Steve Jobs Declares War On Google Global CIO: Apple Storms The Enterprise As iPad And iPhone Surge Global CIO: The PC Is Dying; Long Live The iPad! Global CIO: The Year Of iPad: Apple Booms In Business And In China Global CIO: Inside Steve Jobs' Head: The Supremacy Of Software Global CIO: The Top 10 Most Influential IT Vendors (Apple And Facebook?) Global CIO: The Awesome Transformative Power Of The Apple iPad Global CIO: Google CEO Eric Schmidt's Top 10 Reasons Mobile Is #1 Global CIO: Oracle –Sun A Bad Deal? Only A Fool Would Say That Global CIO: Larry Ellison And The New Oracle Rock The Tech World Global CIO: Is IBM Or Apple The World's #1 Tech Brand? Global CIO: IBM's Blazing New MainframeWins Raves From Citigroup Global CIO: 10 Reasons CIOs Will Get Fired This Year GlobalCIO Bob Evans is senior VP and director of InformationWeek's Global CIO unit.

To find out more about Bob Evans, please visit his page.

For more Global CIO perspectives, check out Global CIO,
or write to Bob at [email protected].

Read more about:

20112011

About the Author

Bob Evans

Contributor

Bob Evans is senior VP, communications, for Oracle Corp. He is a former InformationWeek editor.

Never Miss a Beat: Get a snapshot of the issues affecting the IT industry straight to your inbox.

You May Also Like


More Insights