Did IBM Learn a New Trick
IBM made a big mistake when they introduced the PS2. Did they learn something with Redhat?
I’m listening to Michael Dell’s Play Nice but Win. In the recent listen, Dell revisits the IBM PS2. Most people may remember the name from the PS2-style mouse. The PS2 was an interesting piece of engineering. From an industry perspective, it was an admission that IBM underestimated the power of the clone market. In addition, the PS2 introduced a closed architecture in response to competitors such as Compaq and PC Unlimited. In the learn term open won.
The Linux Foundation Cloud-Native Conference/Kubcon is this week. IBM made a $34-Billion bet on open via the purchase. Similar to the PC revolution, we are at the beginning of an enterprise IT revolution. There’s a lot of energy around Kubernetes. I’d like to say that I have a crystal ball, and I know exactly how the next five or seven years will play out.
I don’t. I know that Kubernetes will be a significant part of the enterprise IT landscape. However, I also understand that the challenges facing CTO are much more encompassing than Kubernetes. Unlike the PC landscape in 1987, it isn’t a wide-open greenfield. Enterprise IT has a long tail, and we have to figure what VMware calls any, any, any.
The future includes a combination of closed systems, open systems, and all the stuff we have in production today. I’m looking forward to talking about much of this during Kubecon 2021