A hailstorm, according to Sun Microsystems' CEO and chief comedian
Scott McNealy is something to be avoided if you live in the US
Mid-West.
The picture of falling lumps of ice, creating havoc, is, in
McNealy's mind, an entirely appropriate metaphor for Microsoft's
latest strategy announcement. And a few minutes with a whiteboard
conjured up a sketch of the new world order according to Bill
Gates.
You would expect McNealy to say this. After all, his company has
its own view of the future of Web services, and breakfast with
McNealy made it quite clear to me that Sun was really the good guy
in the white hat and IBM and Microsoft were two spaghetti-western
villains masquerading in expensive suits.
Traditionally, Sun has kept most of its artillery aimed at its
great rival Microsoft, but times are changing, and the strength of
IBM's Global Services business, together with the growing
popularity of Linux and Websphere, does seem to be making Sun a
little twitchy over Big Blue's appetite for growth.
IBM, if I understand McNealy's argument, has an impressive
catalogue of expensive products. The framework looks much like the
components of the child's toy that involves different shaped holes
and objects.
Big Blue, we are told, rarely moves quickly where technology is
involved. It first sells the customer the kit - "dig this groovy
mainframe, sorry, Webserver" - and then darkens the skies with
global services "consultants" whose alleged task is to vacuum money
from the customer's wallet, while banging square objects from
recently acquired companies into round holes in customers'
e-business strategies.
IBM may view this assessment as a little unkind, but McNealy's
satirical comments illustrate only too well how fierce the beauty
contest to own the future of enterprise IT strategy has become
between IBM, Microsoft, Sun and Oracle.
To be perfectly honest, while I grasped McNealy's acerbic
objections to both IBM and Microsoft's visions of a "Weblified"
world, I had a struggle understanding why Sun's own solution, also
presented in a "back of a napkin" sketch, was really superior and
more refined than anything its rivals may have to offer.
Of course, there are important factors involving cost, simplicity
and the danger of being locked-in to a single solution, supplier or
operating environment. But there is a kind of Star Wars morality
creeping into the argument that threatens to bury intelligent
technical debate.
IBM can sell you a reconditioned Death Star for a price and Sun
sees itself very much in the heroic Jedi role in a constant
struggle against a dark commercial force, whose galactic home
happens to lie just outside Seattle.
With this in mind, one can understand the dilemma of the IT
director. The question of how one develops a sound, secure and
reliable e-business strategy has too many contradictory and
expensive answers, and far too many promises, to make any but the
most confirmed optimist comfortable with the strategies on
offer.
Simon Moores is chairman of the Research Group
www.drmoores.com