You have a fact backwards. One place you say (webLogic BEA product) has 37% according to Gartner but IBMer says last year''s Gartner report put IBM at 37% (Websphere). Which was it last year? I think IBM had lead. Would like to know this year''s numbers.

Who Cares! IBM is the world''s leading "outsourcerer" and hence on my Sh*t list. Boycott them I say!

According to a recent Barron''s article, IBM''s software unit did not receive any bonuses as a result of their poor performance over the past year and only grew about 1%, primarily from growth in the Rational software division. Also who has a WSJ subscription can read the follwing article, very interesting: http://online.wsj.com/barrons/article/0,,SB107671594816229855-search,00 Extracts: "...IBM''s software execs were shut out of a portion of their 2003 bonuses because of lackluster sales growth. Smith Barney software analyst Tom Berquist, who tracks IBM''s software performance relative to the companies he covers, estimates that Big Blue''s software sales grew only 1% after accounting for foreign-exchange gains. And he agreed with us that the bulk of that came from IBM''s Rational software outfit, which it acquired in 2003..." "...Berquist points out that IBM reported that WebSphere, which competes directly with BEA Systems'' WebLogic software, was up 10% for the fourth quarter. But a closer look at the numbers, Berquist says, indicates little change from previous quarters wherever the two companies compete head-to-head.

"IBM in most cases bundles software with mainframe sales, [and thus] it is likely that most -- if not all -- of WebSphere''s growth is on the mainframe side," Berquist notes. ..."

Not to mention the fact that many sales and managers of the software division from IBM left...

Few years back when IBM first started looking into Linux as the means of support for mainframes and later zSeries they picked four Linux developers: Red Hat, SuSE, Turbolinux, and believe it or not Caldera. Out of those Caldera was out and behind in development, so they were counted out. Turbo and SuSE were the strongest and delivered timely products for S/390, AS400, RS6000. But Turbo had to close its US operations and laid off its staff in South San Francisco in July 2001 and 2002. So, naturally only SuSE and RH remained. But RH was far behind in development of mainframe products as compared to SuSE and Turbo, simply put Red Hat was not even a player among mainframe community who were already well versed with SuSE and Turbo. In other words when Investing $50M in Novell/SUSE, IBM just naturally picked the best out there for their mainframes, that's all it is to it, they rewarded SuSE, because they got most consistent and best software development from them.

In December 2000 IBM committed to invest $1Billion in Linux software, hardware, services, the open source community and partnerships during 2001. That's only 2001! If anything, they have only increase their rate of investment.
Add to all of this their strong commitment to WebSphere and Java, and you have a company that has more than embraced Linux. When IBM invested 2.5 Billion in a new semiconductor manufacturing facility,they automated the facility using Linux.

IBM is huge. They retooled as a consulting company so they deliver "solutions" more than hardware, and that is why they've been big on Linux. Basically, there are a ton of little Linux consultants out there but for top-tier corporations you would only hire a company of large standing. IBM is really the only player in this type of (growing) Linux market (although Sun is moving in that direction, but my boss thinks that Big Blue will want to buy them out.)
IMO, IBM could be thinking about buying Novell. A move like this helps them suss that out, but the acquisition of their own Linux distribution combined with a surprisingly large Netware install base is pretty attractive. Especially since just about all of the Netware sites are looking to move out of it there's a real opportunity for IBM to come in and make that happen on Linux before they go Microsoft.

IBM is not stupid. They do not want to create another Microsoft. They are going to play on two horses, one being Red Hat and the other SUSE/Novell. This makes room for IBM to make A LOT of money by selling hardware. Don't worry, in five years, there will still be Red Hat *and* SUSE - both having around 30% of the market. IBM will make it so.

None of the 5 mentions: how long until IBM buys out Novell?