HISTORY OF IBM IBM is a well known American computer manufacturer. It was founded by Thomas J. Watson.

IBM has had great success in making different kinds of computers , whether it is business computers used in offices, personal computers useful to people for personal use or mainframe computers used in large organizations. IBM or international business machines was formed when three companies came together , the tabulating machine company, the international time recording company and the computing scale company. Thomas Watson favourite slogan was THINK meaning if the employees of the company would think before performing a particular task they could achive anything, this later became a corporate mantra. Watson also encouraged extra curricular activities among the employess of IBMcompany band, family outings etc as they were part of his value system. Open door policy was followed in IBM meaning any employee could approach Watson or any other executive in case they had a problem. The emergence of a new IBM was seen in the 1950s with the leadership given to Thomas Watson Jr. He welcomed the policy of no discrimination amongst employess way . Technology was growing at a phenomenal rate and the new chief executive was faced with the daunting task of guiding the company during that time . He was a bold, innovative thinker for instance approving the project for system 360 . IBM is as well known name today because of people like him who are not afraid of taking risks.

INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY AND IT INFRASTRUCTURE Information technology in a typical company environment The term infrastructure includes all those components that are installed in a company to provide IT services. Hardware, software and network together make up infrastructure in an IT environment. In a typical IT environment the users of the system whether it is desktop or laptop are known as end users. End users may or may not be employees of the company. Lets say for instance a user is interacting with a software through desktop computer or a laptop. Applications installed in the desktop/laptop are designed to serve to help the user perform his/her job role. User will be using different software pertaining to their department , for instance an investment banker using excel to do calculation., Customer service department in call center using CRM software to enhance customer service to ensure the next time the customer calls all the information needed is available in advance which saves time and cost of the company The company would also have heavy duty computers known as servers. The server is running some applications when in use which are accessible by the employees through browser that is web based applications. Normally a company has multiple servers which are running multiple applications. One or more servers of the company are running databases. Databases manage data. Software running on other servers would interact with the the database server for either retrieval of data , input new data or updation of data. In some cases database servers can be different from other servers wherein the server is designed to run databases.

Now comes the question how is every component connected to each other in an IT environment.

The desktop/laptop interact with the server to carry out tasks . The application server need to interact with the database server to manage the data as the application server will have all the application related logic but the data would be residing in the database server and users run multiple applications on desktop/laptop which may need to interact with the application server and the database server and in some case with each other. For instance one user is sharing a screen with other user , a pathway is needed to enable flow of data. That pathway is called a network in an IT environment. IT infrastructure in IBM

Information Infrastructure for Data Warehousing Data warehouse are large and contain no new data. They are used because complex queries can be performed by them at a faste rate and efficiently. But a data warehouse scan also requires ten times the storage of raw data.

Information Infrastructure for Medical Imaging Medical imaging systems require large storage space incase of data that has not been frequently accessed. New images need to be stored at a faster pace so disks with faster speeds are needed for carrying out new tasks. Information Infrastructure for PeopleSoft These applications are useful in supporting human resources , enterprise resource planning and customer relationship management.

Information Infrastructure for Storage Virtualization Virtualization in storage makes is flexible so that data can be easily managed and replicated and is easier to work with. TRADITIONAL SYSTEM USED IN IBM BEFORE UPGRADATION OF TECHNOLOGY Initially when traditional system was followed , IBM came up with machines following the traditional system. Tabulating machines like the Hollerith tabulating machines were seen which were once used for census taking but found applications in industry. The year 1964 was a a significant one for punching machines for instance the IBM 80 coloumn punching machines which came in continuous form cards and was just a basic punching machine the first of its kind. There was also the multiplying punch which could perform calcuations upto eighth decimal and add subtract and multiply but had no printing capacity. Eventually a machine was made by IBM helping in the field of education , the IBM test scoring machine which was useful in evaluating marked answer sheet with special mark sense pencils. The same principle is followed till today for evaluation of objective type exams. After that vaccum tubes were inducted into the market , it was faster than its predecessors but it had heating problems and technology was evolving everyday and vacuum tubes were not enough and had its flaws. This era was followed by the era of computers. First among them was the system 360, a project that took 5 billion dollars to develop but the size of the system was smaller, and the customers of the computer knew they could perform increasingly demanding tasks on the computer if need be through reprogramming of application software or replacement of peripheral devices. This was followed by development of business computers one among them being the system 360. Having 2800 help screen and unique offline storage mechanism, it redefined the term user friendly. This was followed by the initiation of the era of supercomputer development aiming to design fastest computers. One among them being the blue gene , a project from IBM to develop computers that can reach increased speed with lower power consumption . COMPARISON BETWEEN MICROSOFT, IBM AND ORACLE

Oracle Microsoft
More effective choices The range of choices gives is wider by Microsoft, a customer could opt for service within his premises , the cost remaining the same and quality remaining the same

IBM
Focus on multiple platforms not on individual customer IBM doesnt really focus on product development and it offers so many different platform that it cause confusion and increases cost. Oracle products dont really work well together. Oracles sales force is extremely aggressive about pushing a range of products and often it comes down to the customer to learn how to use the products as whole which is a fault on part of the company..

Greater productivity and anywhere access Be it PC,phone or tablet Microsoft provides a unique experience with easy to use features and business collaboration is available for all three platforms Richer user experience Microsoft gives users a consistent and integrated experience across all platforms be it in cloud computing or usage of a business computer.

Limited capabilities IBM lacks in coordination to develop customer oriented products like the Lotus Symphony for instance which doesnt even compare to Microsoft Office .

Clever design of of company solutions. The services provide by Oracle are designed in such a way that it would suit individual needs thus improving user productivity.

Lower cost, lower complexity The approach followed here is single,low cost optimized infrastructure with focus on productivity. Substantive innovation and a common architecture Focus is on sustained and substantive innovation and a common platform integrating innovative ideas.

Chaotic user experience IBM products are not really customer oriented, thus causing a chaotic user experience , increasing time taking and reducing user productivity Higher costs and complexity The approach followed here is complex, the user experience are inconsistent increasing the cost involved. Innovation by acquisition Results in disjointed, overlapping, partial solutions with inconsistent user experiences.

Oracle Real User Experience This helps oracle user to identify their problems across a common platform and thus enriching the user experience.

Lower complexity, higher cost than Microsoft. Since the products are designed keeping the user in mind , it is simple in nature ,cost of products is less than IBM but more than Microsoft. New innovation solution Oracle Innovation Management. This new solution helps organizations increase revenue growth from new products and achieve a competitive edge

Market server share

Others 27% SQL 47%

IBM 9% Oracle 17%

Explanation As we can see the major market server share goes to Microsoft SQL i.e 47 %.. There is one simple reason for that information. Microsoft has built such a strong community and its members are
committed to helping each other. Oracle and IBM are still living in the old days..Its high high time they changed their business strategy . IBM were the first to use punch card technology but they need to focus on customer satisfaction. That is the reason Oracle and IBM have only 17 % and 9 % of the market share respectively.

Bar graph comparing price of servers of IBM, Microsoft and Oracle

700 600 500 400 300 200 100 0 SQL Oracle IBM 0

Data availability Performance Any data

Explanation Microsoft follows the motto of low cost high value here, complex infrastructure with more accessibility with lower cost. IBM and oracle still follow the old school thought process, and the cost involved in production is so high that to break even the pricing of servers need to be high. Thus we can see why the prices of Microsoft servers are low.

CONCLUSION IBM might be lacking in some aspects at the moment but if it can differentiate itself in the marketplace by extending the market reach with more profitable returns. . The main source of revenue for IBM even today is hardware and the revenue from software based products is very less compared to its competetitors. If it can integarate its hardware and software services it can achive immense success. To get the major part of the market share in the current market IBM will have to deliver on four fundamental capabilities Information Availabilityto deliver continuous and reliable access to information Information Retentionto retain business information in a cost effective, efficient, and secure manner Information Complianceto reduce business, legal, and regulatory risks and costs Information Securityto protect and enable secure sharing of information. The IBM management will have to really THINK about their future plans, repeating the trend started by the founder Thomas J Watson. To get better than their competitos IBM needs to analyse why its rivals like Microsoft and Oracle pose a threat to it . There are numerous reason but there is one simple answer: information. Microsoft has built such a strong community and its members are committed to helping each other. There are so many forums out there you just don't have time to go to them all. And one of the most amazing things I've found is

that the MSDN forums are actually sharked by Microsoft's own PSS and dev teams. You just can't get any better than that. You've got both the guys on the support team, and the guys who actually write the code helping you with your problem. They're really giving up all the secrets on how SQL works, and what you can do with it. So the real difference between these the three is community. Microsoft has gone to great lengths to build a community and really support it. And Oracle is still doing business the old way as is IBM.