IBM caps '20 years' of deep MS love with Surface deal IBM has become the latest sometime hardware giant to agree to push software giant Microsoft’s client hardware - years after selling off its own client devices business. MS device marketing general manager Brian Hall said in a blog post that IBM had joined the Surface Enterprise Initiative along with consultancy and contracting …
I've Been Moved and Slurp in a dance sort of reminds one a dinosaur mating ritual. I hate to break the news to both but tablets are not very useful for most office drones but laptops and desktops are still very useful. In the entire group I am in, about 250 employees, there are no tablets. Everyone though has a laptop. Also, most do not have company issued smartphones.
"Surfaces aren't tablets"
In our company IT costs went up considerably after they started rolling out "Surfaces". It turns out that many users don't feel comfortable using them as laptop replacements and order a laptop additionally after a few weeks.
The impact might have been less obvious, if our IT would have started rolling them out to "non-management" employees first, as those have no right to order a second machine and the laptops they receive are, well, let's just say "hdd" types with half the RAM of my mobile phone.
In any case - Surfaces are tablets. Tablets with keyboard and a full OS, but at the end of the day they are still tablets. That is not a bad thing in itself, as tablets are better suited than pure laptops for a good many tasks, but let's stop pretending they could replace (high quality) laptops adequately.
I'm guessing most of what IBM brings to the party here is a wealth of expertise in enterprise endpoint management. Though it bugs the hell out of me on my own work laptop, it's not hard to see the need to lock down end user computing devices and manage the IP they trot around with.
If your enterprise is already using the Tivoli suite, being able to extend that to Surface devices would probably move them from the "Forbidden" to "Permitted" column. And that has to be good for everyone!
“IBM will develop an application for CPG and retail companies that puts Microsoft Power BI on Surface to bring decision makers closer to the data and analytics they need to optimize utilization of employee time.”
Sorry - can you repeat that in English? My Bulls*it detector just blew another fuse.
"As Seattle surfaces surface as a service service. Serious...." Brilliant!
As for OS/2 and who dumped whom. I was there back in the day. OS/2 began as a collaborative effort between IBM and Microsoft. IBM wanted to be 100% sure that OS/2 would run on its meagre 286-powered PS/2 Models 50 and 60. This crippled OS/2. Microsoft responded by pulling the plug on its part of OS/2. IBM limped along with OS/2 for a while and then gave up.
So in hindsight, in return for Bill Gates becoming a made man with MS-DOS/IBM-DOS at the hands of IBM, Bill goes ahead and shivs his Godfather IBM and OS/2, assuming control of the computer family. Definitely overtones of an ancient Greek drama, or something by Willie the Shake.
Only one reason Microsoft have hooked up with IBM and that's because IBM started to write Apps for IOS Apple Ipad and this is their way of trying to make sure IBM have an alternative.. and the fact there are no decent apps for Windows... No Other reason.. They are wasting their time if they think its going to increase their market share into the IBM install base.
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