IBM Refocuses WebSphere On Full E-Biz Market

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June 27, 2000 (9:02 PM EDT)

IBM Refocuses WebSphere On Full E-Biz Market

IBM plans an all-out push to make WebSphere and associated products the foundation for the next generation of e-business sites.

Toward that end, it is upgrading the foundation Websphere product and plans to launch new offerings and tools by the end of summer.

"There are three main elements," said Paraic Sweeney, vice president of marketing, Business Transformation, IBM Software. "First, the foundation, including both the application server and middleware now branded as MQ Series, and then a set of extensions building out that foundation with a broader range of development tools ... and finally a set of presentation capabilities to personalize the application presentation and deliver the application to a new class of devices."

Part of the push is a re-branding of WebSphere, formerly an application server, to a full-service platform supporting a wide range of business applications.

IBM (stock: IBM) is hardly alone in trying to win a pull position in the e-business market. Competitors range from database giant Oracle (stock: ORCL) to Sun Microsystems (stock: SUNW) with its iPlanet strategy, to upstarts like Ariba (stock: ARBA), CommerceOne (stock: CMRC), and Broadvision (stock: BVSN), observers said.

Among the new offerings will be WebSphere's ability to support voice input.

"We believe for pervasive devices, voice will be an attractive mechanism to check inventory, flights, making bookings," Sweeney said. "It means you don't have to force-fit keyboard onto pervasive application."

This server-side technology borrows some smarts from IBM's client-side ViaVoice offering, and exploits voice as an interface to applications, he noted. The offering will run wherever Websphere itself runs, on platforms ranging from Windows NT/2000, AS/400, System 390 and the major Unix OSes, including HP-UX.

New or updated product offerings include WebSphere Application Server Version 3.5, which adds support for HP-UX and JDK 1.2, and offers an improved install procedure. The advanced edition offers better tie-ins to Lotus Domino, IBM VisualAge for Java, and IBM's WebSphere commerce.

The standard and advanced editions are due July 31. The standard edition will be $795; the advanced edition will be $7,500 per processor.

VisualAge for Java Version 3.5 will ship with solution templates to help developers forge ready-to-deploy CRM and ERP application servers as well as better links to external version control systems. The development environment can also now store a diverse range of file types from JPEG, to JSP, and HTML.

IBM clearly believes that, despite recent hiccups, rosy market predictions about B-to-B e-commerce growth are true. Sweeney quoted recent Giga Information Group numbers predicting the market will soar from $1.6 billion this year to $9 billion in 2003.

"Websites that existed on their own are now driven to become Web applications," he said. "They need personalization and connectivity back to other applications that either provide the underlying transaction support or provide a more integrated view."

Sweeney added: "In a commerce site, there's no point in offering up a catalog if you don't have a view back into the supply chain and can't deliver the items on view."

And even IBM detractors -- some of whom say it can't get out of its own way when it comes to conveying a marketing message -- maintain that the company has a formidable array of technology in its quiver, ranging from transcoding expertise to messaging-based middleware like MQ Series.

Transcoding converts the user interface of server-based applications into a form best viewable on the user's device, be it a full-fledged color PC screen or the tiny black-on-white display of a cell phone. And, even if IBM's technology is not on the leading edge, IT customers find comfort in the powerful brand name.

"IBM may not have the best solution in any one area, but it's that trusted brand," said Michael Rockwell, chief architect for Lante (stock: LNTE), a Chicago integrator specializing in e-marketplaces.

Analysts said IBM's move is more than just window dressing.

"IBM is repositioning itself to go after the high-end business exchange markets, knitting together products in order to compete in what is probably the biggest market in the last 20 years," said Judith Hurwitz, president of the Hurwitz Group, Framingham, Mass. "They look out and see CommerceOne, Ariba, etc., eating their lunch and they think, 'wait a minute, this is B-to-B, scalable stuff -- we should own these markets.'"

Shawn Willett, analyst with Current Analysis, Reston, Va., said IBM has done well evolving WebSphere to adapt to new market needs.

"They've done their homework in coming out with a complete application," Willett said. "They're not first to market and, in a lot of respects, are following technology that BroadVision and others have pioneered. But they've watched others blaze the trail. And their strength over Broadvision is they have all these integration pieces -- MQ Series and WebSphere integrator."

For IBM, the legacy of its installed base data and users is a double-edged sword. On the one hand, the legacy can weigh down the move to new technology, while on the other, most businesses know they need to tie real-world customer data residing in databases and applications to their shiny new Web applications, observers said.

"Whenever you're dealing with a marketplace that's big, ugly, and [in which] scalability matters, IBM wins," Hurwitz said. "If you have to be nimble, fast, creative, they don't win ... this sort of B-to-B marketplace is tailor-made for IBM."