IBM Makes Play for Greater Role in Mobility Market with New Software and Services

| Aug 11, 2008 | Enteprise Mobility - U.S. | Competitive Intelligence Repprt

| Analyst: Kitty Weldon

Current Perspective: Positive
Vendor Importance: High
Market Impact: High

Event Summary

August 11, 2008 -- IBM announces IBM Rational Business Developer, IBM Rational Host Access Transformation Services and WebSphere Business Monitor to enhance mobile business intelligence, collaboration, social networking and performance. A new consulting practice, Mobility@Work, helps increase flexibility, efficiency, and employee satisfaction of companies that allow employees to collaborate across boundaries. In a separate announcement, IBM launched IBM Lotus Traveler software, providing AT&T and Sprint customers access to Notes email from WM and Palm devices.

Analytical Summary

• Current Perspective: Positive on IBM’s new Mobility@Work consulting group and software initiatives as they not only validate the growth and importance of the enterprise mobility market, but position IBM to take a much more significant role in EM software and consulting. As IBM notes, the number of mobile Internet users worldwide is “projected to approach 1 billion,” and IBM wants to capitalize on this market demand.

• Vendor Importance: High to IBM as the vendor’s existing forays into EM, while substantial revenue-wise and relative to smaller players, have been distributed within various organizational groups and are a bit vague. While its Global Services group has worked with third-parties such as carriers, middleware vendors, managed mobility providers, and security software companies for years to accommodate the needs of its large systems integration and outsourcing customers, IBM needed to take a much stronger stand as an EM leader to take advantage of what it now acknowledges is a key growth market.

• Market Impact: High on the Enterprise Mobility market as a dedicated mobility professional services initiative combined with significant systems software computing resources has been missing from IBM as well as from other major U.S. systems integrators. Not only will a stronger play from IBM shake up smaller middleware vendors that have a niche connecting IBM Lotus Notes to smartphones, but having IBM as a stronger potential partner and/or competitor will affect carriers, software vendors and integrators alike.

Recommended Competitor Actions

• Systems integrators and software vendor rivals need to respond to IBM’s enterprise mobility enhancements with more overt action of their own. On the mobile email middleware side, companies like Sybase and Motorola/Good need to reinforce that their middleware provides more than just access to multiple device types and email platforms but provides extensive device management and security and even WLAN/WWAN integration.

• Systems software and integration competitors lacking a clear strategy for enterprise mobility should make contact with potential partners with a diverse mobility portfolio as well as managed services providers that offer mobile device management, security and telecomm expense optimization. If these rivals do not make an effort over the next 6 months to launch new EM initiatives, both to empower developers to expand application access to mobile users from their computing platforms, and to offer consulting and integration, they may lose significant market share in the burgeoning enterprise mobility market.

• All service providers that look at IBM as a potential partner should ask IBM to lay out a roadmap to better understand how committed the company is to enterprise mobility and what is included in the product and service roadmap. By getting a detailed explanation, service providers will have a better understanding of what opportunities they can benefit from in the future if they select IBM as a strategic partner. They will also know whether there may be channel conflict as they expand their own professional services.

Recommended End-User/Customer Actions

• IBM’s existing business customers should contact IBM and inquire about the project pricing as well as packaged consulting and implementation offers relating to Mobility@Work. They should also ask if a free analysis that includes an evaluation of the possible cost-savings and productivity gains they might accrue from wireless deployment is being offered to help customers evaluate IBM services prior to committing to long-term projects.

• All enterprises considering wireless deployment services and solutions need to evaluate whether IBM can more comprehensively provide them with solutions, whether they are existing mainframe customers from IBM or not. If the consulting services are truly cross-platform, there should not have to be a bias towards IBM equipment.

CLIENTS ONLY

Current Perspective

Competitive Positives and Concerns

Recommended Vendor Actions

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