Power Tools 1993 October - Disc 2/Power Tools (Disc 2)(October 1993)(HP).iso/compet/vendor/ibm/analysis/gd328243.txt

Text File | 1993-08-24 | 13KB | 295 lines

HP SalesTools
Copyright Gartner Group, Inc. c 1993
SalesTools
Product Announcement
August 24, 1993
Prepared for CSO
by Gartner Group, Inc.


IBM and Digital Equipment Corp.
NetView/6000 Announcement



SUMMARY

On Tuesday, August 24, Digital Equipment announced that
they will license IBM's NetView/6000 and port it to Digital
Equipment's Alpha line of systems. This new Digital product
suite for systems and network management will be named
POLYCENTER NetView, with the IBM NetView/6000
technology as the core. The existing DEC POLYCENTER
framwork for VMS will remain unchanged.

It will be a partnership with joint engineering and marketing,
and future releases of NetView/6000 and POLYCENTER
NetView will be released concurrently and will be identical
in function.

This announcement effectively signals Digital's departure
from the networked system management (NSM) arena as a
standalone player, and continues DEC's migration away
from being a vendor of Digital-only software.

DETAILS OF THE ANNOUNCEMENT

The licensing agreement covers the range of system and
network management tools and APIs developed by IBM,
DEC and to a certain degree, by those of Hewlett-Packard
in its OpenView product.

The first port, scheduled for the 1st quarter of 1994, is for
NetView/6000 on DEC's OSF/1 Alpha AXP platform. Ports
for Windows NT (Alpha AXP and Intel) and Alpha Open
VMS AXP will come later.

The announcement will stress joint responsibility for porting
and enhancements; in effect, a full partnership that extends
to the end of the '90s. There is shared responsibility for
porting and enhancements. Future releases will be identical
and concurrent. Marketing will be done jointly as well, and
integration of tools from ISVs will be concurrent for both
vendors' versions of NetView.

A Joint Partners Association will be formed to attract ISV
participation in the porting of NetView applications to the
product suite.

BUSINESS STRATEGY

The primary thrust of the announcement is to establish the
IBM/DEC NetView product suite as the preeminent solution
for system and network management. IBM will attempt to
differentiate the NetView product from its OpenView roots
to the extent that, over time, it will be a completely different
product, and will not be dependent on Hewlett-Packard
enhancements or technology.

The alliance of IBM and Digital signals the beginning of a
thrust to manage networks of legacy systems, with the
potential for thousands of nodes, in addition to the Unix-
based systems embraced by OpenView.

Because IBM licenses the OpenView core technology, IBM
will continue to benefit from the wealth of applications being
ported to that technology framework, while Hewlett-Packard
will not necessarily gain the same interoperability on new
NetView products, because the APIs being developed by
IBM are not backwardly compatible with OpenView.

IBM and DEC are attempting to establish NetView as the best
technology choice for managing the network, stressing the following
differentiators:
1. IBM/DEC extensions to
enhance functionality
2. Best User Interface ( Motif-based at first )
3. Inclusion of HP OpenView Technology
4. Management of diverse nets, including SNA and DECnet
networks
5. Incorporation of POLYCENTER tools
6. Combined Digital and IBM expertise in managing
large networked environments
7. Commitment to Openness

The message to customers is that the new alliance
establishes IBM and DEC as the best choice for a
framework to manage any combination of open or
proprietary systems in the enterprise.

The message to current POLYCENTER customers is that
DEC will continue to support existing POLYCENTER
customers, while migrating the existing base to the new
POLYCENTER/NetView product. This is consistent with
DEC's migration toward Alpha for its user base, since
POLYCENTER NetView is only targeted at Alpha-based
systems for the foreseeable future.

DEC is also signaling, once again, that it is not a primary
provider of software. This announcement is consistent with
other recent DEC initiatives that remove it from the software
"business".

SIGNIFICANCE TO HEWLETT-PACKARD

The announcement is of particular importance to Hewlett-
Packard because the NetView/6000 product is based on
HP's OpenView. IBM licensed the core technology from HP
and has enhanced it for their own use by adding API's
(Application Programming Interfaces) for managing IBM
mainframes in an SNA environment.

The announcement represents a break with Hewlett-
Packard's direction in system management, and delivers
the message that IBM intends to establish itself, with DEC
as a partner, as the preeminent networked management
vendor for the huge base of legacy IBM and DEC systems,
as well as for the emerging base of Unix systems covered
by OpenView. In fact, IBM has announced a system
monitor for HP-UX so that NetView can be used to manage
HP systems.

IThe announcement will certainly be construed as IBM and
DEC attempting to wrest control from OpenView as the best
emerging framework for managing networks of
heterogeneous systems. IBM and DEC will attack
OpenView as being tied to a TCP/IP and SNMP heritage
that is not extensible to the larger, more complex networks
of proprietary legacy mainframes and midrange systems
that require SNA and DECnet extensibility.

IBM will continue to differentiate NetView/6000 from its OpenView
core so that new applications written for its product will not
be usable by HP, unless they are ported to OpenView by
the vendor providing the solution. Eventually, Gartner Group
anticipates that IBM NetView/6000 will no longer rely at all on
OpenView technology.

At the same time, IBM/DEC will continue to benefit from
new applications ported to OpenView as a result of the
license agreement, so that third-party solutions for Netware
management, for example, will be available to IBM.

This announcement, therefore, represents a major initiative
by IBM and DEC to take control of the management of the
network, and to use HP'-developed technology as the
trampoline to do so.

STRENGTHS AND WEAKNESSES

Gartner Group perceives a number of implications in this
announcement, both for the principals and for Hewlett-
Packard. These may be grouped relative to each other as
being stronger or weaker indicators for IBM/DEC.
IBM wins credibility for NetView

One clear impression is that IBM strengthens its hand in the
system and network management arena, as well as in its
perception as an Open Systems leader. In differentiating its
offering from HP's OpenView, IBM is clearly flexing its
muscle, and hopes to surpass HP's reputation as the
industry leader in this market in the perception of
customers. It appears to be IBM's intention to leave
OpenView technology behind and have NetView stand on
its own.

NetView wins significant "mindshare" in its adoption by
DEC, is enhanced by the POLYCENTER additions, and still
enjoys the benefits of its OpenView heritage. New
applications written for NetView would have to be ported to
OpenView under a separate licensing agreement.

DEC, by contrast, is in a different situation. DEC has clearly
ceded some control to IBM, and will be viewed as the
secondary player in this scenario. DEC gains in some
critical areas, however. POLYCENTER was not gaining
significant market share, and DEC has been steadily
backing away from being sole source on software products
anyway.

DEC stands to gain significant revenue from
training and integration efforts on behalf of the new product
line, and it is in this area that DEC has been concentrating
effort recently. DEC is also able to divest itself of an
expensive non-performer and, by association with IBM,
forms a partnership between two leading vendors to set the
new "standard" in systems and network management.

It is not clear what effect this announcement has on COSE
or the evolution of DME. In the former case, IBM may
maintain that while systems management is part of the
COSE agreement, there is little networked management
implied. IBM may also say that the process is open and can
be joined by others, but clearly with IBM (and DEC) as the
principal players. The DME model has been late in forming,
and it is possible that it will be retained as a framework
within which all the principal vendors can sort out their
differences, but for now, IBM and DEC are assuming an
ambivalent attitude toward it, stressing their own initiative
instead.

ISSUES FOR HP


HP wins in the short run by association, but must
make serious strategic decisions about whether to
seek a partnership with IBM and DEC or a confrontation.

HP can certainly point to its perceived leadership, via the
OpenView framework, in the systems/network management
arena. More applications are available for OpenView than
for NetView/6000 or SunNetManager.

OpenView applications can also be made available to
NetView/6000 via a simple port to AIX. Whether solutions
providers will in fact port these applications to IBM, and
even more so, to Alpha, is an open question. For the
immediate future, therefore, HP will enjoy a significant edge
in ported applications by virtue of its industry-leading
position and its inherent association with OpenView.

While there are approximately 30,000 nodes running
OpenView, most are PCs. This still far surpasses IBM,
which has few NetView/6000 sites, and DEC, which has no
OSF/1 POLYCENTER sites.

In addition, this announcement primarily covers network
management. In the system management arena, HP's
offering is far more comprehensive than either IBM's or
DEC's. It is an important distinction for HP; there is no
corresponding suite of products on AIX or Alpha OSF/1 to
match HP's OpenView system management tools, nor do
either of the vendors have the breadth of ISV system
management software that HP enjoys.

Hewlett-Packard can therefore treat this announcement as
a marketing message with no real substance as yet. One
clear result of the announcement is that OpenView, or its
NetView variant, gains overall strength as the perceived
framework for network management.

This will have more direct and immediate impact on other,
smaller vendors, including Cabletron and Star Sentry, than
on HP.

HP may choose to approach IBM/DEC, or be approached
by them to join in the process of integrating the (currently)
small differences between the two offerings before the
initiative gets too far underway. It is an expressed view of a
number of Gartner Group analysts that HP participation in
this coalition would strengthen it considerably.

It is also possible that HP will seek partnerships with other
vendors, like Sun, to form a counterbalancing coalition. This
would be a potentially strong alliance vis-a-vis the IBM/DEC
pairing, based on the number of installed systems, but
would also potentially have the effect of creating another
"war" that would ultimately serve neither group in the short
run as much as it would serve Microsoft.

A third possiblity is HP's licensing of the specific NetView
products (like SNA connectivity) that it requires, and
continuing an independent course for OpenView. Given
HP's position in the industry, it can be reasonably certain
that third-party developed applications for NetView will be
ported to OpenView as well.

Gartner Group's early assessment, then, is that IBM has
strengthened NetView by extending its reach to the DEC
world. It is an announcement that is long on promise and
short on immediate impact.

Ultimately, HP must respond, but not from a position of
weakness. To the contrary, this announcement is an
affirmation of HP's leadership and technology, and affords
HP OpenView a better opportunity than before to dominate
the systems and network management market.



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