At IBM Edge in June, when Ambuj Goyal spoke about how IBM had to be an open systems company “because today no one company can do anything” I, and I think most listeners, thought he meant that by incorporating open standards into StorWize, WebSphere, and other IBM middleware, IBM was encouraging third parties to build tools and applications on top of those base platforms. And that is what is happening, in part.

Since then however, that message has taken on a much larger meaning as IBM has announced two major alliances, the first with EMC subsidiary Pivotal to put WebSphere on top of Cloud Foundry and sell the combined product to IBM customers both as part of IBM’s cloud and directly as a development platform for installation in users’ environments. The second, potentially even more significant, was last week’s OpenPOWER announcement that includes an alliance with Google. And really these are the second and third alliances IBM has announced this year. The first, as General Manager of Development & Manufacturing, IBM Systems & Technology Group  Arvind Krishna, Ph.D., reminded me during our interview last week, was Open Daylight, which includes Cisco along with most of the other data network vendors.

So what do these alliances mean for CIOs? First, these are not coincidences. As Dr. Krishna  confirmed, these are part of a formal strategy of seeking out strategic partnerships with other industry players of all sizes wherever that is appropriate. And when they include other industry giants who are thought leaders, those potentially can cause major shifts in the industry. And, as Dr. Krishna hinted in the interview, sometimes these alliances may have implications beyond the initial announced goals of the agreement. This begs the question: “What will IBM announce next?” Obviously we will just have to wait and see.

A New Generation of High Performance Servers at Competitive Prices

And the truth is that the OpenPOWER announcement is enough to digest for now. Dr. Krishna said its goal is to allow IBM and its partners to build systems that are customized at the chip level using the IBM Power RISC CPU to meet the needs of customers. The first of these will include the Nvidia high performance GPU that is popular for high-end gaming consoles & high-performance computing applications, and The Mellanox high-performance IO, possibly all on a single chip made by either (or both) Nvidia and IBM in a next generation white box server built by Tjan. But, as Dr. Krishna all but confirmed, OpenPOWER also is intended to produce next-generation servers from IBM and other consortium members, possibly including manufacturers not yet part of the group, to compete against the Wintel architecture servers that monopolize the market. These new generation systems will offer higher performance, in some cases IBM support, and a price that competes with the Wintel servers. The OpenPOWER group will be able to achieve that price goal partly thanks to the high volume of component manufacture from the sales to Google and possibly other Internet giants and partly because these systems will run standard Linux rather than Windows.

And Dr. Krishna said, part of the differentiation will be customization at the chip level to meet the needs of individual large clients or different compute loads. So CIOs and CTOs might want to start thinking of what kinds of customization they might want. They also should look to make their own alliances with other users with similar needs to gain the market clout to make it worth while for OpenPOWER members to build those custom chips.

This possibility obviously must concern both Intel and Microsoft, both of whom are already struggling in the end-user market where they have probably permanently lost the smartphone battle. Most observers would say the tablet market as well,  but that is not yet decided. Wintel has a secret weapon in the next generation laptops that are beginning to land on corporate desktops this year. These systems can be seen as laptop/tablet convertibles or as tablets with docking stations. Either way, unless at least one major desktop vendor starts aggressively selling an Android or Linux alternative, possibly in conjunction with a VDI solution, this means that within three years virtually everybody who now rates a laptop at work will carry a Windows 8 tablet. How many will then also carry a second tablet for personal use remains to be seen.

Shared Vision

But the implications of the IBM/Google alliance may go much further. Dr. Krishna said that this relationship is based on a shared vision of the future of the IT industry, and both companies clearly are visionaries in their respective spheres. That, he implied, could lead to a wider relationship to pursue that vision, which is not shared by everyone.

Obviously he could not reveal any specifics of joint strategies beyond OpenPOWER, particularly since they are probably only in discussion stage. However, one obvious area where they agree is on broad support for the Open Source movement, and I expect to see them pushing openness wherever they can. And one obvious target is Amazon, and in particular AWS, which is anything but open at this time and which is capturing a very large share of the IaaS market. Another of course is Microsoft and in particular Windows, which they both compete against — Google with Android in the end-user market & IBM with Linux on servers. One thing to watch for is Google’s position vis a vie OpenStack. If it joins that association, it will  invigorate that effort. It also is not impossible for the OpenPOWER group to bring out an Android convertible laptop and take on Wintel on the desktop and tablet level.

All of this, of course, is in early stages, & what will actually come of them remains to be seen. And no one should discount Intel and Microsoft, who are creative powerhouses in their own right and who have a track record of coming through in the clutch. But CIOs and CTOs should keep a close watch on developments. Certainly those with direct or indirect relationships with IBM should ask their sales rep to keep them informed on where these relationships are going and give thought to how the direction IBM, Google, and other IBM partners take might fits into or alters their own business technology strategies.