“Once a purveyor of closed and proprietary solutions, the
company has recast itself as flag bearer of all things open and
interoperable. Seeing the company’s peace, love and penguin ads for
Linux are indeed worthy of an eye-rubbing double take.“IBM officials speak fondly of an attitude adjustment that has
changed Big Blue into a much more customer-focused company. They
describe an altruistic metamorphosis that benefits end users who
will settle for nothing less than interoperability and support of
open standards.“But is there more to the picture than meets the eye? Are IBM’s
interoperability efforts and open source donations such as Eclipse
and code for UDDI, SOAP, and Linux subtly serving something more
strategic for Big Blue…?”