Is IBM Going To Offer A WebSphere Entry Edition?

by Joe Hertvik

The latest scuttlebutt is that IBM will soon launch a low-cost Entry Edition of its WebSphere Application Server middleware to compensate for the WebSphere customers and revenue the company may lose when it pulls the plug at the end of this year on the WebSphere Standard Edition that is included for free in OS/400. The details are vague right now, but here's what I think could be going on.

The rumor about the Entry Edition seems to be coming out of Software Group, not IBM's iSeries labs in Rochester, Minnesota, so it may turn out that WebSphere Entry Editions could be offered on IBM's other eServer platforms, not just on the iSeries. I don't expect IBM to say anything definitive on the issue before the second quarter.

If and when IBM releases this software, it may be because the Jakarta Tomcat application server for iSeries (OS/400 Tomcat, which is being released through HTTP Server for iSeries PTFs) has become a threat to WebSphere. OS/400 Tomcat was offered as a sort of olive branch replacement for iSeries shops suddenly faced with the dreadful prospect of paying for WebSphere after IBM pulls the free Standard Edition software at the end of the year. But Rochester has frequently soft-peddled OS/400 Tomcat, referring to it as a "starter" Web application server, for customers to get their feet wet with server-side Java applications. For the real work, however, IBM has always recommended using WebSphere. And that recommendation still stands. It could be that too many people are beginning to use the free OS/400 Tomcat implementation instead of the pricey WebSphere 4.0. And that could be the simple reason IBM is thinking of providing a low-cost--though not necessarily free--WebSphere Entry Edition: to protect its profits by providing an entry-level solution in the WebSphere product line. If the Software Group went a step further and released the Entry Edition on its other eServer platforms, it could compete against Tomcat there as well.

There are other considerations for IBM. Consider that the iSeries division is the only eServer platform that supports Tomcat. Add to that the fact that the majority of WebSphere add-on products--including WebSphere Commerce Suite, Payment Manager, and the new WebSphere-based products now shipping in Client Access, iSeries Access for Web and WebSphere Host Publisher--will not run with OS/400 Tomcat. If iSeries customers got used to running OS/400 Tomcat rather than WebSphere, IBM's potential for selling add-ons would decrease phenomenally (and the same problem would exist for Tomcat on the other eServer machines). It could also turn out that IBM has discovered that open source software wasn't that great an idea in this instance, and now it has to figure out what to do with this WebSphere competitor it introduced into the iSeries marketplace.

There's also the matter of competing against other big Web application server guns, such as BEA Systems. If IBM offers a low-cost Entry Edition across all of its eServer platforms, it could help lure customers to the WebSphere product line rather than to WebLogic. Of course, if IBM really wanted to shake things up, it could lower the price of WebSphere Advanced Single Server Edition to something like $2,000 per CPU; that would perk people's interest more than another low-cost, low-capability version. A Web application server price war would be a beautiful thing for customers in a recession. Is it likely that IBM will introduce lower-cost WebSphere software for iSeries and other platforms? I think it would be smart if IBM did, and that it should offer a discounted WebSphere Entry Edition across the eServer lines to lure companies to its middleware.

So where does that leave the iSeries shops that are wondering how they should replace their free WebSphere Standard Edition 3.5.x before December 31? If you want to upgrade to WebSphere 4.0, you should do it before February 8. IBM is offering a 33 percent discount on WebSphere 4.0 until February 8, and it's unclear as to when or if it will offer additional discounts (for details, see "iSeries WebSphere 4.0 Added to 33 Percent Price Cut Promo," October 29). If you don't buy Version 4.0 before February 8, you may want to wait until the second quarter to see what IBM has up its sleeve with this rumored Entry Edition.