"MISO is Dead"

I am taking the liberty of extending Paul Graham's post Microsoft is Dead to its brethren IBM, SAP and Oracle in the MISO acronym.

We have this debate every day among the Irregulars. Fittingly, on Google Groups. And the reaction is usually split along Paul's lines.

" Half the readers will say that Microsoft is MISO are still an enormously profitable companyies, and that I should be more careful about drawing conclusions based on what a few people think in our insular little "Web 2.0 (SaaS, Open Source, BP)" bubble.  The other half, the younger half, will complain that this is old news."

Comments

[Aravind B]

I dont think SaaS is an option for the Star Trek Enterprise...

[Speeker]

Do M, I, S, and O need to pass away, or do they need to just be "re-educated"? (Transformed, reborn, Lazurus'd, or what have you) into companies that embrace and use the collaborative and open source logic of the web 2.0? IBM at least is devoting a substantial amount of effort to open source development, isn't it?

[vinnie mirchandani]

Speaker, 2 of them are "Innovating" but buying other companies - little new stuff from their own labs. Two of them have 5-6 year product lifecycles. They have become mainstream companies focused on numbers. Fine, let them go make chemicals or autos...we need more dynamism and innovation in the sw sector...

[Arun]

Some of the great software currently branded as IBM has come from acquisitions.
-- Lotus Notes - From Iris Associates (Ray Ozzie)
-- Tivoli (Some Tivoli old-timer salespeople still say "We are Tivoli, not IBM")

Meanwhile IBM in their Linux promotion has forgotten AIX. I have heard of a lot of AIX->Solaris migrations recently. Because you know, customers would rather be stuck with SUN rather than the nice mob from Red Hat at the end.

But one thing I hand over to IBM - They still hold my admiration with MQ. Even after the innumerable marketing disasters they manage to do with it, this is one product you can depend on to deliver and deliver and deliver.