The Four Hundred

When IBM starts shipping WebSphere Application Server Express for iSeries on February 21, there already will be about 70 iSeries ISVs that have incorporated support for WebSphere Express into their products, and hundreds more who are working at it. This is the result of a new program by IBM called WebSphere Express Partner Pack, which is building support for IBM's new WebSphere Express offering, to go after the important small and midsized business (SMB) marketplace.

WebSphere Application Server Express for iSeries, or WAS Express, is a scaled-down version of IBM's full WebSphere Application Server that is designed to be easier to use, to require less horsepower, and to be less expensive than previous versions. As the entry-level WebSphere follow-on to WebSphere 3.5, the last WebSphere product to see a somewhat successful uptake among OS/400 shops (and then only because it was bundled for free with OS/400), IBM has much to lose if it again fails to build support among iSeries shops for the WebSphere application server, which is the crucial cornerstone of its software play. That's why Big Blue is spending big bucks--and making big strides--to ensure that doesn't happen.

In November, when IBM announced WAS Express for iSeries and started rolling out WAS Express products for other platforms, the company also launched its WebSphere Express Partner Pack program to provide an "end-to-end lifecycle offering" for helping ISVs to learn about WAS Express, to start writing new code or porting existing applications to it, and to start marketing their new WAS Express-compatible offerings to small and midsized organizations, says Rich Cohen, IBM's director of WebSphere for SMB.

So far, more than 600 IBM business partners have signed up for the WebSphere Express Partner Pack, representing about 900 individual developers who are participating in more than 1,400 courses on WAS Express topics. "These people are actively engaged in the program," not simply going along for the ride, Cohen says. "They're taking the education, downloading the code, asking lots of questions. We're starting to see some level of success."

As far as iSeries ISVs go, more than one third of the 600 ISVs participating in the new program (or 210, to be exact) are iSeries ISVs, says Kelly Schmotzer, a WebSphere marketing manager for the iSeries platform. Of those 210, Schmotzer says, 138 have started writing code, 93 have nearly completed writing code, and 67 have completely finished and can use the "powered by WebSphere Express" logo in their marketing materials. "iSeries is doing remarkably well" in the WebSphere Express Partner Pack, Schmotzer says, largely due to pent-up demand from companies unable or unwilling to invest in the full version of WebSphere.

Most of the ISVs developing for WAS Express are using IBM's WebFacing Tool, Schmotzer says, which is not surprising, considering that the WebFacing Tool is playing a crucial role in IBM's application modernization strategy for the OS/400 platform. Because of changes IBM has made in the licensed internal code of the new iSeries servers announced on January 20, RPG and Cobol applications that are modernized with Web browser front-ends using the IBM WebFacing tool now do not require any 5250 interactive capacity, and can therefore be run on the less-expensive Standard Edition of OS/400. To run an application that requires 5250 interactive capacity on a new iSeries server, the user must purchase the Enterprise Edition of OS/400, which is quite a bit more expensive than the Standard Edition and provides unlimited access to 5250 CPWs. These simple economics should provide users--and their ISVs, by connection--with the incentive to adopt IBM's WebFacing Tool, which is basically free to any shop that has purchased OS/400 development tools.

Dave Slater, head of iSeries application development tools at IBM's Toronto lab, says that while applications that have been modernized using the WebFacing Tool will run on any Java 2 Enterprise Edition-compliant application server, companies would be almost foolish to use it with anything other than WAS Express. IBM has positioned its pieces well. Together, the two products--WAS Express and the WebFacing Tool--present an almost unbearably compelling reason for OS/400 shops due for a hardware upgrade to finally begin using WebSphere.

Getting the iSeries users on the WAS Express bandwagon is vital to the success of IBM's SMB strategy because 93 percent of the iSeries installed base are small or midsized businesses (companies with fewer than 1,000 employees), Cohen says. "What's important about WAS Express is it's an approachable technology, without the complexity, without the resource requirements, of a full-blown WebSphere EJB [Enterprise JavaBean] implementation," Cohen says. IBM uses the term "on-ramp" to describe how easy it is for customers to start using WAS Express and still have the capability to upgrade to the full-blown WebSphere product as they require more sophisticated applications and their skill level increases.

IT analysts at META Group call IBM's WebSphere Express strategy a "preemptive strike" against Microsoft's .NET strategy, an expansive undertaking that seeks to link companies' Windows applications through Web services technologies. While the .NET architecture has yet to leave the ground in any recognizable form, .NET is expected to garner many followers in the SMB space, where Microsoft dominates.

IBM is seeking to take a page out of the Microsoft playbook with its new SMB strategy for WebSphere--ubiquity. Whereas Microsoft holds the cards because of the ubiquity of its desktop operating system and the widespread use of its C, C++, and Visual Basic development environments, IBM seeks its advantage by having thousands of ISVs standardize on its WebSphere platform. "The key test for us is what kind of adoption we will get in the ISV community," says Cohen, who foresees attracting upward of 6,000 ISVs to WebSphere Express in the coming years.

An equally important test for Cohen and IBM's ISV partners is whether they can convince the "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" shops that still use 20-year-old legacy applications that it's in their best interests to make the jump to WebSphere. "That population hasn't totally embraced e-business capabilities to the fullest extent," Cohen says. "The time is right to leverage these types of technologies."