Earlier this month, Red Hat CEO Matt Hicks announced that Red Hat’s middleware team would be merging with the IBM middleware team. Some may have wondered why a decision like this took so long, given that IBM has owned Red Hat for five and a half years now. But in many ways this is a big decision, and frankly I think the developer community would love to hear more about how this middleware team merger will play out.
Full disclosure: I spent a major part of my career with both the IBM and Red Hat middleware teams, so I do have some personal experience and feelings connected to this decision. But, overall, I think there are many positive things that could come out of this move — if all parties remain open-minded.
How Will IBM Blend Together Two Very Different Product Strategies?
To me, the most important aspect of the merger is addressing the future strategy of the respective portfolios. In many ways JBoss (the Red Hat middleware line) was meant to be the antithesis of WebSphere (IBM’s middleware line). The JBoss strategy was to deliver lightweight, low-cost products that fed innovations back into the Java community. IBM (like BEA’s WebLogic — now part of Oracle) used a more traditional “embrace and extend” middleware approach which adhered to open source standards, but where innovations such as performance enhancements, tooling and certain features were kept proprietary.
Each approach comes with its own benefits, and in the past both approaches have worked for different customers. But a lot has changed over the years, including a slowdown in the enterprise Java (and Jakarta) space. This new joint team will need to unify its approach and apply it consistently. For example, JBoss was very proactive in supporting a wider range of languages such as Ruby and Javascript, particularly after Oracle acquired Java and in turn J2EE. It was also very quick to shift to Open JVM and the cloud. This was in contrast to larger platforms, which moved slower and more defensively.
For what it’s worth, I’d like to see something of a hybrid approach where the application server and developer tooling products leverage the Red Hat JBoss technology, while more “up the stack” middleware, including management tooling, remains in the mold of IBM, which has historically had much larger share in those areas.
Prioritization At The Component Level Is A Must
Once there is a consistent approach, prioritization at the product and componentry levels needs to be addressed. IBM has been masterful at prioritizing product lines (including selective divestiture of product lines) based on market conditions and competitiveness. Conversely, one of the notable aspects of JBoss was a push to constantly innovate and improve across the whole portfolio and in turn motivate and drive open source community projects.
But we have to assume that this decision was driven at least in part by a desire to control expenses — and reduced spending implies setting priorities. Will we see a migration path to a JBoss app server across the board? Will we see some IBM components become open source? An honest prioritization exercise means making really tough calls, and many customers will be impacted no matter which decisions are taken. Tough calls also point to impacts beyond engineering into sales, services and support organizations. So, more clarity as the plans roll out will be crucial to help customers in planning their own development strategies and priorities.
Culture And Joint Innovation Could Drive New Opportunities For IBM
Lastly, I think a cultural element needs to come into play. Many enterprises have had a tough time with the changing landscape of enterprise Java over the past 10 years. This is where a healthy injection of Red Hat culture could do a world of good for the larger and more mature IBM teams. Over the years, Red Hat has done a great deal to capture developer attention, whether it be through amazing technology demos or project websites. Red Hat’s team has traditionally had an edge to it and a less formal tone. Over the years this has helped devs feel more included, which has in turn led to better feedback loops with customers and user communities. That loop enabled Red Hat to make well-calculated innovations and stay on the leading edge.
So, my advice to the leadership of this new joint venture is: this is an opportunity for IBM to rebuild its once-strong developer presence for a new generation of developers. From an outbound perspective, look at the Red Hat template. Emphasize continued community innovation, along with more compelling web content to drive and support it. From an inbound perspective, align your developer strategy around open source and leverage IBM’s processes and distribution to drive more share. This could be a stronger value proposition, giving enterprises even more confidence to develop on IBM and open source technologies.
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