Why now?

I was asked why I decided to get a blog after being opposed to it for such a long time (even though my research at school is all about mass collaboration and ubiquitous computing – yeah, I know an enigma wrapped up in a riddle).

The simple answer is that I found myself posting comments on other blogs and wanted to leave a trail of breadcrumbs.  A comment by itself is not sufficient to reveal motivation (or lack thereof).  But being able to see some of my other thoughts should help the reader realize if I have something useful to add to the discourse or to the noise.

 

Sam I am

Well, no, I’m not. If only I was lucky enough not to have a name that couldn’t be mistaken for “Fabio”, “Flavio”, “Sabio” or “Servio”.

Who am I really? I’m Savio Rodrigues. I’ve worked at IBM for the past 7 years and had a lot of fun there. Two of the most interesting jobs I’ve had were on the strategy team for the WebSphere Software Family and most recently, product manager for WebSphere Application Server Community Edition (WAS CE)

A few years back the strategy team began to pay more attention to the nascent market of open source middleware, specifically, open source web application servers. While some saw this as a threat to our WebSphere Application Server family business, others, including our executives, saw the opportunity of being able to reach a new type of customer, set up a complimentary business, and experiment with a new business model.

So, we got to work and several months later we decided to acquire Gluecode Software to jump-start our efforts in this market. Since I’d worked on the strategy and on the acquisition team, I was asked to become co-product manager (with Patty Clancy) for IBM Support for Apache Geronimo and for IBM WebSphere Application Server Community Edition, two offerings that resulted from the Gluecode acquisition.

Earlier this summer I passed the product management crown/hot-potato to John Doppke when I decided to return to school full-time to complete a PhD in Industrial Engineering. I’m still pretty interested in the future of Geronimo and WAS CE, as I am in open source middleware in general. And keeping current with the industry won’t hurt when I return to IBM ;-)

For these reasons, along with my desire to procrastinate gets us from there to here.

Disclaimers:
– I am a full-time student at the University of Toronto (UofT)
– UofT does not necessarily agree with the views expressed here
– I am an IBM employee
– IBM does not necessarily agree with the views expressed here