SOA – Who’s A Partner? Who’s a Competitor?
We sometimes get a question like this: “IBM is now selling business applications. Doesn’t that make them a competitor rather than a partner?”
The answer is no. The reason is SOA.
IBM is widely regarded as one of the leading suppliers of SOA technology. That’s why we chose the IBM to be included in the technology stack as the foundation for our applications.
But IBM doesn’t sell this technology stack only to – and through – Lawson. They also sell it to customers running BigCo ERP systems. BigCo customers may want to license IBM technology to get access to more applications and to gain a measure of freedom.
IBM has built a good business selling SOA wrappers to BigCo customers. But why stop there? Once the BigCo system is wrapped, customers want to buy point solutions to complement what they already have. Why not buy it from IBM? In our view, IBM has very astutely identified the gaps in the BigCo solution sets and begun to assemble a set of applications to address the needs.
One of those gaps is Maintenance, Repair and Overhaul (MRO) operations. IBM has a good solution. As it happens, Lawson does too. Does that make us competitors? Not really. IBM is selling a complementary solution to an existing code base. We’re selling MRO as part of an industry-focused solution to customers who value simplicity and low TCO. We’re doing similar things for different markets. It’s yet another way that SOA is changing the industry landscape.
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