33 MHZ microprocessor, 2 megabytes of RAM, 650 megabyte hard drive, 3.5 inch AND 5.5 inch floppy disk drives, full color monitor and CD-ROM drive. With those specs, it’s easy to see why the Compaq 386 was a top of the line device in 1991. Which is why my grandmother purchased us one from the local compUSA as a gift. Packed in four massive boxes, we lugged it home and began set up. ‘Pre-Installed’ software was not yet a thing, and I remember watching my mom painstakingly install a version of Microsoft’s DOS operating system.

I had so much fun with that computer. I remember playing Doom, Myst and other games that maybe weren’t as cool as Nintendo, but still a blast. Unlike today, when just about every piece of software works on just about any device, those games had to be labeled as IBM PC Compatible to work. We didn’t have an IBM computer, but ‘IBM Compatible’ was the lexicon that identified software that would work on most PCs. In modern day terms, it’s what Apple did with Iphones and Tablets. For a while, every smartphone was referred as an ‘iphone’ and every tablet an ‘ipad’.

The software market has evolved in the almost 30 years since we purchased that 386. In fact, for a quarter of the cost, you can purchase small lightweight laptops that are ready to go out of the box with commercial operating systems like Microsoft’s Windows or Mac’s OS. I recently purchased such a device but opted instead for an open source operating system, Ubuntu. Not needing ‘IBM Compatible’ (see: expensive licensed software) programs, I was able to install software like LibreOffice (productivity), GIMP (photo editing), 7-Zip (compression), VLC (media player) and more, all for free! That is because they are made available with open source licenses. In fact, this website you are on right now is developed on the open source platform WordPress and uses the open source database system MySQL.

So when it was announced that IBM was acquiring open source company Red Hat Technologies, I became very curious. IBM is no longer a player in the personal computing market. In fact, they sold their personal computing division to Lenovo in 2005 and focused exclusively on the enterprise. So it makes some sense that they would acquire Red Hat, who makes open source technologies for the enterprise.

One of the things I love about my personal laptop, with it’s Linux operating system, is that it perpetually works and works quickly. Juxtapose that with my Windows driven work computers, that are full of bugs, constant updates/required reboots and virus vulnerability limitations. Because of that, I love the idea of leveraging open source technologies in the work place, but like @robbiehonerkamp, I’m skeptical that IBM can utilize it properly.

The reason I’m skeptical is because I’ve used IBM products in the past. Mostly their analytical platform, Cognos, but I’ve also dabbled with IBM Watson as well as their cloud platform. Shockingly, all of these products were complete garbage from a user experience perspective. I found them to be buggy, slow and unnecessarily complex. What makes open source software so wonderful and IBM software…well…not? I believe that when you are a publicly traded company, such as IBM, with revenues and profits as your end goal, it’s hard to focus on your end user. Building the software becomes an exercise in justifying its expense, with ‘features’ that are either unneeded or unwanted, hurting the final product.

Open source software is different because anyone can and does contribute to its development. If something is buggy to a user, that same user can peek at the code and offer an adjustment. Think there’s a security flaw? Take a look under the hood and check for vulnerabilities, instead of relying on the good word of the vendor selling the software. Want to customize the program for your needs? Go ahead, no need to submit feature requests and wait months or years for a new version that you will need to pay out of pocket for.

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So what will come of IBM’s acquisition? In the book Dream Teams, the author discusses how Diamler, a German company and Chrysler, an American company failed to succeed after a big merger. The reason it failed was because the cultures could not integrate properly. As noted in the book:

From Daimler employees’ perspective, the goal of automaking was uncompromising beauty and precision. “Quality at all cost,” they would say. But to Chrysler workers, the goal was utility and affordability for their customers.- Shane Snow -

It reminds me of the IBM/Red Hat acquisition. IBM’s ‘About’ page on their website, touts innovation right next to their stock price and 2017 Revenue. Red Hat’s ‘About’ page on their website says “The best design happens in the open” with no mention of their stock price, or yearly revenues. There is a such a large gap in paradigms of these two companies that needs to be bridged.

Is IBM going to take everything good about Red Hat and force its revenue hungry culture on it? Is Red Hat going to help IBM harness the power of open source technologies? I think it’s fair to say that I’m not IBM Compatible, but hopefully Red Hat will be. What do you think?