By Network World Staff
Network World, 12/25/00

IBM spent a considerable amount of time and effort in 2000 continuing its e-business conversion.

Highlights of this include branding all servers under a new "eServer" umbrella, and the launch of a new server line aimed at Internet business users. It also added the Linux operating system as a preloaded option on its on its computer systems, running the gamut from entry-level PC servers to huge mainframes.

Connecting the Web to those old mainframe hosts represents a big chunk of IBM's e-business opportunity. With the Web-to-host market growing rapidly -- from $240 million in 1999 to $1.5 billion by 2004, according to market research firm IDC -- it behooves IBM to maintain its market lead. As such, IBM collapsed several host-access packages into Web-to-host software suites that could save users tens of thousands of dollars.

Elsewhere in e-business, IBM Global Services forged a $450 million agreement to buy collocation services from AT&T. The agreement lets IBM scale its network of 13 Web-hosting centers quicker than an internal build-out would have allowed. By the end of the third quarter of 2001, IBM will be providing Web-hosting services from nine AT&T data centers.

Another of IBM's major e-business undertakings comes through an e-marketplace alliance it forged with Ariba and i2 Technologies. Since their March teaming, the companies have accomplished baseline interoperability among Ariba's B2B Commerce Platform, i2's TradeMatrix software and IBM's hardware and middleware. The IBM products include WebSphere Business-to-Business Integrator, DB2 Universal Database and Tivoli e-Marketplace Manager. The trio will continue working together through the year.

Also in 2000, IBM devoted considerable resources to e-commerce-related standards development. It has helped develop the Web Services Description Language, expected to be the standard for Internet publishing; the Simple Object Access Protocol, for binding; and the Universal Description, Discovery and Integration protocol, expected to be the standard for finding goods to buy on the Internet.

While e-business has knocked some companies off their game, IBM is faring well under its strategy. In line with analyst projections, revenue for the third quarter 2000, which ended Sept. 30, was up 3% during the same period in 1999, to $21.8 billion. IBM anticipates fourth quarter revenue to reach $26.6 billion, or $1.48 per diluted share. The company says revenue should reach $4.45 per share for the whole of 2000.

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