Blade.org: Standards body or boondoggle?

Boondoogle!: Great marketing. But still a boondoogle.

They are actually running the risk of over-playing this ridiculous "We're the standard!" message.

Last I checked, the IT world is full of some pretty smart folks and they're not big on "marketing fluff". They know what standards are and how they are created.

Granted, customers want more standards in blades - but trying to sell a proprietary design wrapped in a standard messages is going to back-fire on IBM.

HP may only have 274 licensees and 11 3rd party products vs. IBM's 280 and 12 - but at least HP doesn't think their customers are stupid.

Quote - "According to IBM's BladeCenter director Tim Dougherty, whereas IBM and other blade vendors have been working with third parties in one-off deals that required a lot of handholding and implementation-specific dealings (licensing, documentation, technical assistance, etc.), IBM has decided to publish enough about the intellectual property belonging to it and to Intel so that third parties can manufacture compliant blades, switches, and connector host bust adapters with much less involvment from Big Blue."

What's wrong with working together with partners to create solutions for customers? And is IBM actually implying the "Bobs-budget-networking" and "Cisco" are on equal footing their eyes?

Boy, they really do think we're stupid.; Posted by: TechBoom Posted on: 08/15/05 You are currently: a Guest | Members login | Terms of Use