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IBM's Worst Enemies
By Ericka Chickowski on 2010-11-01



With interests that span outward toward the most esoteric reaches of the IT world, IBM necessarily has made its fair share of enemies and even frenemies among rivals, partners and disgruntled customers over the years. The following are some of the most estranged organizations of the bunch.
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Oracle

IBM is bringing out the cattle prod to poke its longtime rival in database and software now that Oracle has purchased Sun, another big IBM competitor in the hardware arena. This year Big Blue has made a big push to steal former Sun partners away from Oracle following the acquisition.

European Union

The European Commission is gunning for IBM, this summer announcing its intentions in July to investigate the company in to big antitrust investigations, one on whether or not it illegally bundled its mainframe OS with hardware and another on anti-competitive tactics having to do with such practices as restricting availability of spare parts to muscle out the competition.

Some Channel PartnersWith so many divisions for services, hardware and software, it can be extremely difficult for a company of IBM's heft to offer a clear company line on how it works with the channel. Many partners have complained of the difficulties in advancing through Big Blue's tiered ranks, which is one big reason why the company just announced it is revamping its incentive program.

VMware

As IBM continues to beat the drum for its private cloud initiatives, it is turning up the heat on VMware with its PowerVM systems built on the Power7 architecture. Expect this little rivalry to amplify in 2011.

State of Texas

If you ever need a case study on what a service provider project cluster-you-know-what looks like, turn no further than the blow-up over IBM's failed data center consolidation of the State of Texas' computing infrastructure. The state is accusing IBM of failing to perform its obligations on a contract worth $863 million.

HP

Over the last several years HP has been knocking on IBM's door with new acquisitions that step all over Big Blue's territory, with everything from EDS for services to Fortify for secure coding. The competition has the potential to escalate as HP makes its play into the cloud just as IBM is ramping up its cloud prospects.

Microsoft

Sure, Microsoft is enmeshed with IBM just about as much as it is with any of its other industry frenemies. Make no mistake, though, these two behemoths are duking it out in a number of arenas. You've got Microsoft's Azure and IBM's cloud solutions going head to head, IBM is trying to yet again make its play against Office with Lotus Symphony, and then there's still the ongoing rivalry of database management platforms between the two companies.

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