Post #47,578
7/31/02 9:21:47 AM
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Stunning announcement!-IBM to buy Price Waterhouse Coopers
Holy Shit !!!
[link|http://www.infoworld.com/articles/hn/xml/02/07/31/020731hnibmpwcup.xml|PWC getz gotted by IBM]
When this person was working for IBM & had mission of managing IBM's relationship with external consultants (the top 10), PWC were king at #1 & Andersen Consulting (now Accenture) were #2. We could never seem to make any headway with either of them although PWC were always very polite & Andersen were infuriatingly insulting & dismissive ("you hardware manufacturers (IBM) will become irrelevant - we will be soon designing the chips & merely contracting them out" (personally said to me by a senior Andersen Consulting country manager in early 1990s - (asshole)).
Hallelujia !!! - Gerstner's swansong !!! - Palmisano's new glory !!!
PWC in the 1990s had the IT industry by the balls & now IBM gets to own them - Hmmmm, funny thing is IBM in early 1990s decided that the top 4 IT consulting firms were not going to be pro-IBM anytime soon so IBM started some skunk works - ISSC in Australiasia & one in UK - these orgs bought the rights to some local but powerful bureau operations & by slight of hand copied the Andersen model & created the org that later became IBM Global Solutions. IGS blindsided the top 10+ consulting firms by focussing on the Internet & WebSphere family plus IGS trained their people from outsiders (plus a mix of old time IBMers). It was acknowledged that IBM had a culture problem & it would take a new org to change that - IGS outgrew Andersen C who missed the boat on Internet, and I must confess to chuckling to myself at that earlier AC manager's insults.
But WTF - IBM are rock solid - Microsoft might be but for their stock options (which surely are their achillie's heel).
Accenture keep robbing blindly & being seen for it. AC's Daddy's troubles (implosion) can't have escaped their image.
What fun this industry is
Doug Marker
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Post #47,596
7/31/02 11:17:00 AM
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Here's Monday, gone Tuesday.
[link|http://www.aaxnet.com|AAx]
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Post #47,605
7/31/02 11:43:29 AM
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There is a flip side to that.
1. Customers have to take with a grain of salt any proposals from PWC based on IBM products - potential conflict of interest.
2. Other Consultant groups have a disincentive to propose solutions with IBM components as it indirectly supports their competitors.
To negate above effects, IBM may be thinking of spinning off the combined IGS/PWC entity in the future.
This reminds me of Pepsi and spinning off of TRICON Global Restaurants (Pizza Hut/Taco Bell/KFC) now called Yum! Brands. Before that, Pepsi did not have a prayer of getting a supplier contract with other fast food companies.
Alex
"Television: chewing gum for the eyes." -- Frank Lloyd Wright
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Post #48,310
8/6/02 3:42:19 AM
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My 1998 prediction comes true
...though I didn't quite put it in this form. BPatient and Malraux have independent archives (as does Cottingham, but he's seldom seen these days) and can verify. Actually, Craig was my source for the IWE archives.... 3. Service Model. I read a lot about how it's not the app it's the service. Who would spend the money to develop code, give it away, and then compete with Joe Consulting to provide service for their own product? Even if you have the advantage of being the originator of the code, a huge service company like Price Waterhouse would be up the speed with your work in no time. Which is one reason why I suspect that huge service companies such as Price Waterhouse, IBM, Self Analysis, etc., will be the successful SW business model of the future. These houses will be competing with tens of thousands of independent consultants. I jotted down some of my thought in an earlier forum.
When? Date posted: Fri Sep 4 16:30:32 PDT 1998, as "That's $100b question & source of heat", old IWE post #00072120, replying to txjohnson. Have to admit, it felt pretty rash back then, still not quite believing my eyes. That was the same post where I made this prediction: In five years, OSS will have changed the commercial SW and IT industries beyond all recognition.
In five years, the commercial SW and IT industries will have changed OSS beyond all recognition. 2003, here we come. --
Karsten M. Self [link|mailto:kmself@ix.netcom.com|kmself@ix.netcom.com]
[link|http://kmself.home.netcom.com/|[link|http://kmself.home.netcom.com/|http://kmself.home.netcom.com/]]
What part of "gestalt" don't you understand?
[link|http://twiki.iwethey.org/twiki/bin/view/Main/|TWikIWETHEY] -- an experiment in collective intelligence. Stupidity. Whatever.
Keep software free. Oppose the CBDTPA. Kill S.2048 dead.
[link|http://www.eff.org/alerts/20020322_eff_cbdtpa_alert.html|[link|http://www.eff.org/alerts/20020322_eff_cbdtpa_alert.html|http://www.eff.org/...a_alert.html]]
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Post #48,363
8/6/02 10:45:55 AM
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I keep bringing this up . .
. . in places like Linux Today, when people tout the consulting model and/or spout off that SuSE and Caldera should stick to the "Red Hat model".
Only Red Hat has sufficient name recognition to attract consulting work against long established consulting firms like IBM (who have a lot more experience in business processes and can support hardware and non-Linux software as part of their package). Red Hat's consulting model will probably fail, and they will end up as a custom programming shop serving the big consulting firms.
Individuals and very small firms will be able to scrape up enough consulting work in the small business market, but those that do only programming will be at a severe disadvantage. Small business won't provide a foundation for larger consulting firms because there is no consistency, no "economy of scale" - every job is totally different and requires high skill combined with very low overhead.
What Open Source does for programmers is insure they will be wage slaves forever. With no residuals, their only source of income will be hourly work. Most Linux programmers are way too young to realize the disadvantage of this, but they will eventually.
Open source will provide good income for flesh peddlers and contract houses that can match Open Source talent to specific jobs, but the good money will be going to the marketeers who can find the customers and sell the work.
[link|http://www.aaxnet.com|AAx]
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Post #48,365
8/6/02 10:51:33 AM
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Re: I keep bringing this up . .
Every word of this is true, and no doubt you've seen it up close and personal (I have too). Brett Glass said similar things a few years ago, and was roasted.
-drl
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Post #48,381
8/6/02 11:56:48 AM
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Nope, that's NOT what he said and was "roasted" for.
What Brett Glass said was that this perfectly natural economic evolution was somehow *morally wrong*.
That's not what Andrew said (and if he meant to imply it, he's as wrong as Brett was).
Brett also (or therefore) argued that he ought to be able to appropriate others' work, work they'd done for the common good, for *his* personal profit. (Wow, TALK about being *morally wrong*!)
I hope you're not claiming Andrew is echoing *that* sentiment, too? 'Coz if you are, then if I were Andrew, I'd be quite pissed off...
Anyway, it's really not becoming of you to try and twist the truth like this.
And not very smart, either, when there are so many of us around who remember how it really went down.
Christian R. Conrad
Microsoft is a true reflection of Bill Gates' personality - the sleaziest, most unethical, ugliest little rat's ass the world has seen unto this time. -- [link|http://z.iwethey.org/forums/render/content/show?contentid=42971|Andrew Grygus]
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Post #48,408
8/6/02 2:35:03 PM
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Re: Nope, that's NOT what he said and was "roasted" for.
One of Brett's claims was that programming as a profession would be improved if people could pick up pieces of code and reuse them, and get paid to do the work. He was right.
-drl
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Post #48,418
8/6/02 2:59:33 PM
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And the GPL serves that intent well.
Not that Brett ever saw that.
You can be paid for customising and extending GPLed code. The GPL really only takes effect if the program is then distributed.
The kindest impression of Brett's view (at least as he 'communicated' it; I'm stll dissappointed that he calls people 'trolls' if they ask for explanations of why the GPL is bad that don't depend on Stallman's 'intent' or his own 'pundithood') that I can take is that the GPL is 'bad' because it doesn't give developers the ability produce (only) a modified binary and get paid as if they were the sole authors of the entire work.
Imric's Tips for Living- Paranoia Is a Survival Trait
- Pessimists are never disappointed - but sometimes, if they are very lucky, they can be pleasantly surprised...
- Even though everyone is out to get you, it doesn't matter unless you let them win.
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Post #48,436
8/6/02 3:56:54 PM
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Brett was mad at both Microsoft and the GPL.
Mad at Microsoft for blocking him from being a rich software publisher because if he came up with a good idea, Microsoft would take it without compensation, and mad at the GPL because it wouldn't let him take other peoples good ideas without compensation. I'm sure he doesn't see the irony.
[link|http://www.aaxnet.com|AAx]
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Post #48,449
8/6/02 4:57:20 PM
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Re: Brett was mad at both Microsoft and the GPL.
Well, I invited him to join in and defend himself. He doesn't need me to do that.
-drl
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