JBoss plays the choice card

News from Sacha (and covered by InfoWorld) that JBoss Application Server 5.0 is close to GA kicked off a debate at TSS.  Some commented that they were “Suspicious of anything that takes three years to develop”, while others questioned if there was anything new in JBoss AS5 that SpringSource and GlassFish (or for that matter Apache Geronimo) hadn’t already delivered.  Others congratulated JBoss on closing in on JEE5 certification and refactoring their runtime to be more flexible.

What caught my attention is the way that Sacha (JBoss CTO) responded to two comments from Douglas Dooley.

When Douglas suggested that JBoss shouldn’t talk about the new microkernel in JBoss AS5 when the real value is in Java EE5 delivered in JBoss AS5, Sacha replied:

“Again, read my blog: we are perfectly aware that many of our customers are using very different APIs to leverage our AS services. Most of them rely on EE, some of them on Spring, etc. And that’s fine. I don’t really mind which “wrapper API” they are using: we are here to support them in their preferred scenarios. What matters is how flexible our underlying foundation is so we are able support these multiple scenarios.”

When Douglas commented that JBoss should ditch their work on other OSes and focus on Linux, Sacha replied:

“No worries, we are doing more than fine. But we are certainly NOT going to ditch support for other OSes: we have a significant portion of our users going in production on Solaris, Windows, etc. and again, that is a matter of choice - we won’t dictate that.”

Why did these responses catch my attention?  Well, it’s not because of the technology decisions that JBoss appears to have made.  The move towards a flexible app server has been going on for years and it’s where the industry is headed.  For example, we’ve been down the flexible foundation path since WebSphere Application Server 6.1 two years ago (with more to come in the next release of WAS due out later this year).  The reason is because Sacha focused on customer choice. Even though we compete, I have a lot of respect for Sacha. He’s way to smart to let dogma get in the way of meeting customer needs. The internal decisions that led to JBoss AS5 and the messaging around the product appear to be a direct result of Sacha (and team) understanding what customers truly seek and where they want to head (i.e. JEE isn’t the answer for every problem).

I’ve long written about how WebSphere has been able to grow significantly faster than the market because of our focus on customer choice.  At times this focus stretches us a little too far as we try to reach the largest set of customers with whatever makes sense for that customer. This decision is not easy on the internal organization, but it really resonates with customers (as our revenue can attest to).

As a proponent of OSS, I’m very happy to see JBoss moving in this direction.  As an IBMer who competes with JBoss AS, I say bring it on ;-)

 

The Demise of Traditional Software - 3Q07

Some of you know that I’ve decided to track the demise ;-) of the traditional software market on a quarterly basis using IBM’s WebSphere branded revenue as the basis. I use the WebSphere division for no other reason than it’s the part of IBM that I report into. Here are the 2Q07, 1Q07, 4Q06 and 3Q06 posts if you fancy. IBM announced 3Q07 results today.

A few points of interest from 3Q07:

1. IBM Software grew at 6% (or 3% at constant currency: i.e. if currency exchange rates were fixed to equal their 3Q06 rates)
2. WebSphere branded middleware grew 10%
3. IBM’s other Software families grew 9%, 3%, 5% and 9% for Lotus, Rational, Tivoli and Information Management respectively

WebSphere middleware growth of 10% is the lowest we’ve reported in the past year. However, considering the growth we attained in 3Q06 (i.e. 30% Y/Y vs. 14% in 3Q05 & 3Q04), it’s not surprising that 3Q07 growth wasn’t in the 15%+ range. Remember that the 10% is growth off a large revenue base, which unfortunately, IBM does not make public. But, if you have access to Gartner or IDC data, you can easily get to a ballpark number of total WebSphere branded revenue.

WebSphere Branded Middleware Quarterly Revenue Growth:

Quarter	Y/Y Qtr Growth	From:
1Q04	24%	Source
2Q04	N/A	Source
3Q04	14%	Source
4Q04	18%	Source
1Q05	11%	Source
2Q05	18%	Source
3Q05	14%	Source
4Q05	4%	Source
1Q06	26%	Source
2Q06	17%	Source
3Q06	30%	Source
4Q06	22%	Source
1Q07	14%	Source
2Q07	28%	Source
3Q07	10%	Source

Fourth quarter is going to be interesting!

 

Why Microsoft Should buy Red Hat

Some background:

1. Matt asked “Why doesn’t Oracle just buy Red Hat?”
2. I explained why Oracle would not buy Red Hat
3. Luis Villa replied to Matt’s question: “Because Red Hat employees would leave en masse.”
4. Microsoft announced fiscal 4Q07 growth of 13% on Thursday (or 16% if you only count their true software revenue - which falls into the “Client”, “Server & Tools” and “Microsoft Business Division” reporting categories). Microsoft crossed the $50 billion total year revenue mark with the close of fiscal 2007.
5. I compared Red Hat’s stock performance over the past year vs. some Traditional software vendors (see below)

If you’re still with me….

Red Hat is growing and executing well. Financial analysts expect Red Hat to hit $517M this year (fiscal 2008, ending Feb. 2008), and $631M in fiscal 2009. At this pace, Red Hat should cross the $1 billion revenue mark in fiscal 2011. Red Hat may well be the gorilla in the Open Source marketplace. But after everything is said and done, that marketplace is tiny in comparison to the total software market. If you believe in the stock market’s ability to predict a company’s future value, one could argue that Red Hat investors are in a “sit tight” mode right now. At a P/E of 72 and PEG of 1.44 (vs. Google’s PE of 45 and PEG of 0.99), Red Hat’s stock has likely priced in as much growth and “great news” that we could think of. Few doubt Red Hat’s position in the overall OSS market, but some may be waking up and asking whether being #1 in 1.8% of the software market is enough to drive the multiples that Red Hat shares enjoy today.

While both vendors have strong operating system franchises, Red Hat isn’t really eating into Microsoft’s revenues. IDC predicts that the Linux & Windows markets are growing 26% and 9%, with Unix revenues declining by 3% from 2006-2011. Red Hat’s Jboss division adds a JEE portfolio that does compete with .NET as the infrastructure for enterprise applications. But here again, it’s very unlikely that Microsoft faces off against JBoss in (m)any customer deals. It’s more likely that Microsoft competes against IBM WebSphere, BEA WebLogic or Oracle AS, and JBoss only comes into the picture when the customer has already selected JEE. While there is some overlap, Red Hat is much more complimentary to Microsoft’s offerings than we’d like to think.

Just imagine a Microsoft that could offer customers a choice of Windows/.NET, Linux/JEE or, and here’s the magic, BOTH. The fact is most customers have heterogeneous environments, and those that don’t today, will likely in the future.

In the face of OSS competition, one of the best moves we made in the IBM WebSphere division was purchasing Gluecode. As I’ve mentioned (over and over), having a free application server, based on the open source Apache Geronimo project has done nothing but spur the growth of our overall WebSphere Application Server family. In some cases, the customer chooses WAS CE, in other cases, they choose Traditional WAS products. We help customers be successful with their choice and, equally important, ensure that their previous investments in WebSphere infrastructure are protected. This is exactly the scenario that Microsoft could create for themselves. Microsoft would be able to offer Windows, Linux, .NET or JEE in various combinations to solve customer problems. As a competitor, this would be a scary combination.

What’s more, Red Hat could help Microsoft gain OSS street cred almost instantly. To me, this would easily become Red Hat’s most important contribution to the software industry. Forget being #1 in 1.8% of the software market. How about helping a $50B software company evolve its thinking around OSS in order to become a $75B software company while increasing customer choice and satisfying customer needs? Goosebumps.

I doubt this acquisition will ever take place for three reasons. First, because of vendors such as IBM, HP, Intel and Oracle who have investments in/with Red Hat. Second, because Microsoft wouldn’t want to take the risk. I’d argue that there is much less risk than appears on the surface. Sure, there would be some internal friction during product positioning discussions if the deal went through. But internal friction is healthy and shouldn’t get in the way of helping customers succeed with your offerings. Lastly, as Luis’ comment highlights, Red Hat’s culture would also pose a barrier to this deal. But I’d argue that the only thing that these comments do is put a damper on the deal price, which, at the end of the day, is bad for Red Hat investors. One could argue that JBoss employees felt the same way about Red Hat prior to the acquisition. And yes, some left Red Hat, but some stayed. It would be up to Red Hat management to convince employees about the historic importance of their efforts inside of Microsoft, which would be a pretty compelling reason to stay.

A Red Hat marketing slogan states: “truth happens”, what about “change happens”? And why not help Microsoft change?

PS: I truly doubt this deal will ever happen, but it’s interesting to think about the possibilities.

 

The Demise of Traditional Software - 2Q07

Some of you know that I’ve decided to track the demise ;-) of the traditional software market on a quarterly basis using IBM’s WebSphere branded revenue as the basis. I use the WebSphere division for no other reason than it’s the part of IBM that I report into. Here are the 1Q07, 4Q06 and 3Q06 posts if you fancy. IBM announced 2Q07 results today.

A few points of interest from 2Q07:

1. IBM Software grew at 13% (or 9% at constant currency: i.e. if currency exchange rates were fixed to equal their 2Q06 rates)
2. WebSphere branded middleware grew at a very healthy 28%
3. IBM’s other Software families grew 12%, 11%, 33% and 21% for Lotus, Rational, Tivoli and Information Management respectively

I stress very healthy because 28% growth is pretty awesome when you’re growing from such a large revenue base, which unfortunately, IBM does not make public. But, if you have access to Gartner or IDC data, you can easily get to a ballpark number of total WebSphere branded revenue.

WebSphere Branded Middleware Quarterly Revenue Growth:

Quarter	Y/Y Qtr Growth	From:
1Q04	24%	Source
2Q04	N/A	Source
3Q04	14%	Source
4Q04	18%	Source
1Q05	11%	Source
2Q05	18%	Source
3Q05	14%	Source
4Q05	4%	Source
1Q06	26%	Source
2Q06	17%	Source
3Q06	30%	Source
4Q06	22%	Source
1Q07	14%	Source
2Q07	28%	Source

 
IBM WebSphere Application Server Results:
Some might reply: “come on Savio, you expect me to believe that in the face of open source competition, the application server business is growing at all? Maybe WebSphere Branded Middleware is growing, but the underlying application servers surely aren’t, right?”

IBM provided WebSphere Application Server’s yearly growth in 2006, so we can compare that figure to the growth of WebSphere branded middleware in the table above:

From pg. 34 of IBM’s 2006 Annual Report :

“Revenue from the WebSphere family of products increased 23.3 percent (22 percent adjusted for currency) and was led by doubledigit growth in WebSphere Application Servers (25.3 percent) and WebSphere Business Integration (22.7 percent) software versus 2005″

Translation: The WebSphere Application Server family revenue growth outpaced the figures that you’ll find in the table above.

Yes, even in the face of open source competition, the WebSphere Application Server business is growing at 2-3x the market. How? We’re helping our customers address their business needs to achieve success. In some customer situations, we help customers achieve success through the use of WAS Community Edition (WAS CE). In other situation we help customers achieve success through the use of the traditional WebSphere Application Server family. The results are pretty clear.

 

Truths That Become Less So

Matt and Dave D. are good guys that I respect, but they are also wrong. There, I said it. We Canadians aren’t known for being so blunt, but this needed to be said. I may get a few eggs directed at me, but so be it. You can argue with me, but you’ll have to use your data to argue with my data.

Matt says:

Neanderthal proprietary past. It’s not that this model is bad in some religious sense. But it is bad in how it treats the customer (as a would-be criminal who will steal value if she can). And it is bad in its inefficiency (expensive sales and marketing costs, higher than necessary development costs because it reserves all development - even tertiary development like language backs and “last-mile” configuration/customization, etc.).

Dave D. says:

For how much longer will we continue to pay the taxes, both overt and covert, imposed by the closed-source vendors and their inefficient methods?

Can you accept that all OSS vendors dream of growing to be the “Red Hat” of their respective market?

If so, let’s spend a second using Red Hat to test the truths that Matt & Dave D. tell you to expect. And here’s the thing, it’s not just Matt or Dave D., it’s the whole OSS movement that tells you “this be true”.

I believed these “obvious truths” at one time. Then I had the fortunate experience of working on the Gluecode acquisition, and being the product manager for WebSphere Application Server Community Edition (WAS CE). I had the good fortune of managing WAS CE in the same team that manages the rest of the WebSphere Application Server family of (Traditional software) products. I/we learned a few things. I am still a believer in OSS, but I’ve resisted the second helping of that Kool-Aid (however thirst quenching it may appear).

Do OSS vendors spend less on selling their products than a Traditional vendor would? Yes and no. Yes, when the OSS vendor is working on building its customer base and trying to become a vendor with “tens of millions of dollar” in revenue. No, when the OSS vendor is trying to scale their business to “hundreds of millions” or greater.

The problem with most OSS “obvious truths” is that they are true at a point in time. But when you generalize to the time that the OSS vendor matters in a marketplace to the degree that Red Hat does, the truths don’t hold any longer.

Think I’m a brainwashed IBM lackey (or insert appropriate description)? Okay, then please explain why Red Hat spends more of their total revenue on Sales, General & Administrative (sales, marketing, advertising, etc), 54% than IBM’s 23%, Microsoft’s 31% or Oracle’s 26%. Next, Red Hat spends 3.1x more on SG&A than they do on R&D. This compares to 3.6x for IBM and 2.1x and 2.0x for Microsoft & Oracle respectively. Oh, and counter to conventional wisdom of OSS not requiring advertising, Red Hat spends nearly 5% of their revenues on advertising, while Oracle spends 0.7% and Microsoft spends 2.8% of their respective revenues. And best of all, since OSS benefits from all this “free work from the community”, it may come as a surprise that Red Hat spends 18% of its revenue on R&D. This compares to 15% for Microsoft and 11% for Oracle.

So there you have it, my data. Bring yours to the table and let’s chat. Or if you want to tell stories of strawberry fields, bliss and OSS “obvious truths”, then let me know so I can pick up a book of childhood fairy tales. We’ll have great fun!

 

Is money a good measure of OSS success?

This comment from Stacey (Hyperic) got me thinking…is money a good measure of OSS success?

Before I go on, let me clear something up. My 1.8% comment was not meant to minimize the importance of OSS to the software market or to customers. I disagree with the “world view” that OSS is going to completely revolutionize the software market and lead to the death of Traditional software as we know it. I’m an advocate of OSS & Traditional software living happily together to meet the varying needs of customers. I completely believe that all major software vendors will have an OSS story and a Traditional software story. It’s not a “them vs. us” situation. It’s a “we are them” situation. I’ll fall back on Marten Mickos’ comments from OSBC claiming that there is no OSS business model. That we are all participants in the software market.

Is money a good measure of OSS success? In our free market society, I believe it is. This does not minimize the importance of other measures of success.

Let’s look a little deeper at OSS impact on software spending. I can think of 3 situations:

1. OSS vendor revenue from using OSS with support/license
2. OSS usage erodes Traditional software revenue
3. OSS usage creates new users because of minimized barriers to adoption

Clearly, software revenue shifts from Traditional software to OSS when customers decide to use OSS with support/license. This spending would be counted in the 1.8%.

Next, I accept Stacey’s point about the importance of market spending that OSS erodes from the Traditional software market. But if you ask CIOs about their IT budgets over the past 5 years, most will tell you that they’ve grown. Few will tell you that their budgets have decreased by 26% (i.e. in line with OSS vendor revenue growth predicted by IDC). When a customer decides to use, say MySQL for free over Oracle DB, the savings are generally spent somewhere else in the IT department. In the above example, Oracle loses some revenue, but a large portion of those savings are spent on the backlog of projects that haven’t been funded to date. As a result, another vendor, maybe an OSS vendor, but more than likely (as the size of the software market will attest), a Traditional vendor gets new revenue. This could actually be a situation where the use of OSS drives further spending on Traditional software. I can tell you that we’ve seen this in spades with WebSphere Application Server revenue. Customers like choice, a one size fits all model is really only for sock vendors.

Now, let’s deal with the situation of OSS creating new users who have access to software they previously didn’t have. Again, MySQL users are a great example. Heck, I’m a great example. I would never have used Oracle or DB2 (b/c of complexity, fear, costs - remember, I’m a “hello world” programmer at best), but I do use MySQL for pet projects. Does my use of MySQL represent revenue loss to Oracle, DB2 or SQLServer? One can make the argument that my familiarity with MySQL represents a potential future customer for MySQL. I doubt that is the case, but if I play along, then my potential future spending with MySQL would be represented in the 1.8% also. (Hey, don’t ask me how IDC or other analysts can predict what I, or others, will do in 5 years!)

What’s my point? OSS is very important to users, customers and software vendors. It is however, one component of the software market. Software vendors that accept this reality and build strategies to leverage OSS and Traditional software are the “future” (p=0.8). Gartner customers will recognize this form of pontification :-)

 

Finding Waldo - PHP in the Enterprise

As Stephen & Matt point out, Peter Yared of ActiveGrid fame (but now with a new startup), asks what happened to the much hyped/expected explosion of PHP usage in the enterprise.

Peter puts forward two reasons for this:

1. Java has become easier
2. New infrastructure software has hidden costs

I agree, with both points, especially #2. I am personally aware of two large customer where the IT operations team refused to put a PHP app into production because of administration, management, security and governance issues. The application development team had to rewrite the app in Java.

Two other reasons I’d add to Peter’s list:

3] Developer & IT Operations skills
4] IT Vendor backing

I’m constantly surprised with the number of developers I’ve spoken to who say “I use Java for everything because that’s what I know best and just haven’t had a chance to pick up PHP”. Learning PHP is a weekend chore at best. But, getting as proficient with PHP as you are with Java may not be worth the effort, especially when you’re already overstretched trying to meet deadlines. Also, let’s not forget the skills required to secure, administer, manage and monitor PHP apps. I suspect this is why the IT operations team said no to PHP in the customer examples above.

Major IT vendors have invested in Java and .NET technology and marketplace education. Corporate IT decision makers know about Java and .NET, so when a developer comes in talking about xyz where xyz != (Java | .NET), it’s going to be a difficult discussion.

But all is not lost for PHP in the enterprise.

I believe that PHP’s growth in the enterprise hinges on its acceptance by IT operations teams, which is related to issues #2 and #3 above. Two products that address this gap, (and I’m sure there are others):

Zend Platform helps administer, manage and monitor PHP applications, three very important functions inside an enterprise IT department. A problem that some enterprise customers have with this approach is that you now needed two sets of skills or people. One that would play the IT operations role for your enterprise PHP apps and one for your Java apps (remember we were speaking with Java customers, so insert .NET for Java as appropriate).

IBM WebSphere Extended Deployment Operations Optimization Controller, (wow 62 characters), amongst *many* other capabilities, addresses the above issue with PHP in the enterprise (See Note below). It allows IT operations to manage PHP resources in the same way they manage Java resources.

I mention WebSphere Extended Deployment because it’s a great example of OSS and traditional software being used together to deliver customer value.

We may look back and realize that traditional products like WebSphere Extended Deployments turned out to be the impetus for broader adoption of PHP in the enterprise.

NOTE: Please read more about WebSphere Extended Deployment here. I wouldn’t want you thinking that it’s mainly for PHP stuff. WebSphere Extended Deployment is about quality of service optimizations to your IT investments. Also, I’ve just discussed one feature (PHP support) of one component (Operations Optimization Controller) of WebSphere Extended Deployment. The other two components, Data Grid and Compute Grid, are incredibly powerful and have customers really excited. If you think about Grid Computing, Virtualization, or Extreme Transaction Processing, think WebSphere Extended Deployment.

 

IBM and OSS - Buring Boats

Okay, I do not speak for IBM in any way (read full disclaimer here). But after reading the following from Matt Asay’s post today, I couldn’t resist.

“IBM uses Apache/BSD to burn boats…everyone else’s. :-) The company builds its software business on proprietary software and its services and hardware businesses on open source software (as well as its proprietary software.) This is classic Martin Fink-type thinking, i.e., open source your complements which also happen to be your competitors’ core competencies. The problem is, they’ll likely do the same. Or, more pertinently, an open source competitor will come along that doesn’t have the same need to keep sacred any proprietary software. How do you compete with someone that can drive all software value to $0.00?”

Let’s dig into Matt’s statement:

MA: “IBM uses Apache/BSD to burn boats…everyone else’s. :-)”
How many open source projects does IBM contribute developers, hardware and/or fund to? Let’s take the example of Apache HTTP Server. Long ago, (the royal) we decided that web serving was a commodity and it didn’t make sense to build our own web server to use inside of WebSphere Application Server. Fancy thing was that BEA and Oracle made the same decision. Does IBM get more than it gives to the Apache HTTP project? Yep, that’s what you’d expect from an open community project. But we have a team that is works on the Apache HTTP project day in and day out. What about Apache Geronimo? Yep, it’s the base for WAS Community Edition and yes we have a sizable number of IBMers who work on Geronimo as their day jobs. What about Linux (let’s throw in a GPL project), again, yes, IBMers work inside the Linux community as their day job. Eclipse, check. OSGi, check. OASIS, check. I could go on….

MA: “The company builds its software business on proprietary software and its services and hardware businesses on open source software (as well as its proprietary software.)”
Umm, so yes, IGS will work with OSS based on client needs. But heck, they’ll work with IBM products, Microsoft product, Oracle products or any software the client seeks. Next, does Linux help drive hardware sales? Sure, but remember we spend resources inside the Linux community, so we’re not taking without giving. While IBM may drive $1B (or whatever it was in 2006) from Linux-based software, hardware and services, it is a small portion of our total $90+ billion in revenue. I’d suggest you want to rephrase the statement to read “(as well as open source software)” in brackets.

MA: “Or, more pertinently, an open source competitor will come along that doesn’t have the same need to keep sacred any proprietary software. How do you compete with someone that can drive all software value to $0.00?”
Umm, we’re competing and winning quite well. Thanks for asking :-)

Anywho, aside from this paragraph on IBM that I take exception with, Matt’s post is well worth the read. He hits the nail on the head when he summarizes with:

“Net net: burning the boats is the right thing to do, but which boats to burn…?”

Indeed…Which boats, when and how does lighting the fire help customers? That customer angle is very important and likely the reason that we’ll see OSS and traditional software (happily) coexisting. (Much more on this in a later post)

 

Reports of My Demise - 1Q07

Since this will be the third one of these posts, I’ve decided to track the demise ;-) of the traditional software market on a quarterly basis (using IBM’s WebSphere branded revenue as the basis - for no other reason than that’s the part of IBM that I sit in. One day I may look at a broader set of companies, but that day is not today).

IBM announced 1Q07 results last night.

A few points:

1. IBM Software grew at 9% (or 5% at constant currency: i.e. if currency exchange rates were fixed to equal their 1Q06 rates)
2. WebSphere branded middleware grew at 14% (or 10% at constant currency)

A few more points from this time last year:

1. IBM Software had grown at 2% (or 6% at constant currency - note how currency fluctuations can impact a worldwide business)
2. WebSphere branded middleware grew 26% (or 30% at constant currency)

First, our overall Software business is growing faster now than it was in 2006. Good to see healthy growth of 7%, 14%, 15%, 18% and 20% for Lotus, WebSphere, Rational, Tivoli and Information Management respectively.

Second, we saw very healthy, but slower, growth in the WebSphere branded middleware segment in 1Q07 vs. last year. I stress very healthy because 14% growth is pretty awesome when you’re growing from such a large revenue number, which unfortunately, IBM does not make public. But, if you have access to Gartner or IDC data, you can easily get to a ballpark number of total WebSphere branded revenue.

WebSphere Branded Middleware Quarterly Revenue Growth:

Quarter	Y/Y Qtr Growth	From:
1Q04	24%	Source
2Q04	N/A	Source
3Q04	14%	Source
4Q04	18%	Source
1Q05	11%	Source
2Q05	18%	Source
3Q05	14%	Source
4Q05	4%	Source
1Q06	26%	Source
2Q06	17%	Source
3Q06	30%	Source
4Q06	22%	Source
1Q07	14%	Source

 
Web Application Server Market:
Some of you may say, “come on Savio, you expect me to believe that in the face of open source competition, the application server business is growing at all? Maybe WebSphere Branded Middleware is growing, but the underlying application servers surely aren’t, right?”

Well, I’m glad you asked. I’m even more glad that IBM is making these figures available. If you go to our 2006 Annual Report and then find your way to page 34 you’ll read:

“Revenue from the WebSphere family of products increased 23.3 percent (22 percent adjusted for currency) and was led by doubledigit growth in WebSphere Application Servers (25.3 percent) and WebSphere Business Integration (22.7 percent) software versus 2005″

Translation: The WebSphere Application Server family revenue growth outpaced the figures that you’ll find in the table above. This is because the table above relates to the 23.3% growth and you’ll notice that the WebSphere Application Server family grew at 25.3%.

So, yes, even in the face of open source competition, the WebSphere Application Server business is growing at 2-3x the market. How? We’re helping our customers address their business needs to achieve success. In some customer situations, we help customers achieve success through the use of WAS Community Edition (WAS CE). In other situation we help customers achieve success through the use of the traditional WebSphere Application Server family.

In the face of open source competition, we got involved in the community, and gave our customers more choice, more flexibility and protected their investments. The results are pretty clear.

“One size fits all” is a great motto for a sock company, not so much for a software company.