Thoughts on IBM in 2023 Part II
Before you jump into Part II please have a look at Part I of the article if you haven’t already — https://medium.com/version-1/thoughts-on-ibm-in-2023-part-1-2aa8e991956c
If your organisation uses IBM software, the following predictions for 2023 will provide some food for thought as well as some useful advice.
Part I of this blog series focused on the likely increase in IBM audits and on licensing changes, with this post discussing SAM tooling, the cloud, partnerships, and something which might be a huge play by IBM.
Let’s jump in.
SAM Tools
Before we delve into this topic and my predictions for 2023, a word of caution on SAM tools generally.
Our considered strategy at Version 1 is to be SAM tool agnostic — software licensing is simply too complex for a single SAM tool to be able to do the whole job. More insight into SAM Tools in my colleague’s blog post and webinar.
IBM themselves have had to change their SAM tool of preference a few times over the past few years initially from TAD4D to ILMT (using the BigFix engine) and there is a view that they may be looking to change it to yet another tool in the future.
Developments such as containerisation require constant development and even IBM themselves had to develop a new SAM tool, the IBM License Service, to manage IBM software usage which is containerised.
Relatively recently, IBM also added Flexera One IT Asset Management (SaaS) and Flexera One with IBM Observability to the tools approved for measuring IBM software licensed on sub-capacity.
I note the increasing amount of collaboration between IBM and Flexera and do wonder whether this may increase further leading to some form of partnership between the two in 2023.
The ‘observability’ element of this (the Turbonomic element) should be drawn out separately but should ultimately be considered the same way.
Ambitious claims are being made about how Flexera One with IBM Observability can “automate software license compliance” [1]
My advice here is keep it simple and ensure you have an IBM licensing specialist who can help you as opposed to believing a tool can do the whole job, finding out you have invested heavily and the embarrassment of discovering the costly tool falls short.
Cloud
IBM have taken a different approach to Oracle, Microsoft, and AWS with regards to the cloud.
At a very high level they seem to be acceptant of their position behind these vendors in terms of market ownership, at least, in what I call the ‘commodity’ cloud — the provision of virtual machines, storage, databases etc.
Indeed, IBM have announced further partnering activities with Microsoft and AWS recently.
IBM have instead acquired Cloud technologies through Red Hat with its OpenShift and OpenStack technologies (to say nothing of Red Hat Enterprise Linux and Ansible) and through Turbonomic, amongst others.
My advice here would be to ensure your house is in order for any Red Hat products as signs across the industry are that Red Hat audits are on the increase.
A final note here on IBM and the cloud is that I believe there will be a continued number of acquisitions (some of which are likely being progressed at this moment in time). I also believe IBM will likely continue to focus their cloud services on the specific high-margin sectors such as Pharmaceuticals, Financial Services and Telecommunications.
IBM and Microfocus
A final prediction, not necessarily for 2023, although, who knows with the pace IBM are showing at the moment!
Mainframe software is clearly vital to IBM as demonstrated by the announcement that IBM has taken legal action against Microfocus for “ … illegally copying and reverse engineering IBM software in violation of copyright law.” (IBM, Nov 2022)
IBM will not have launched into this without prior due diligence. Might this be a play for IBM to force Microfocus into a huge settlement, one which could arguably be best resolved through IBM acquiring some portion of Microfocus at a hugely discounted price?
Will OpenText in turn be questioning whether they want to go through with the acquisition with such a big risk?
My advice here, watch this space.
For more information
As IBM license experts, we are deeply familiar with a wide range of license considerations and are happy to help with any license queries you may have.
We are offering a complimentary licensing advisory session to understand any license concerns or projects that may impact your compliance position to advise on the best way forward.
Alternatively, we can look at your ILMT Audit Snapshot and provide a recommendation as to how you might carry out exclusions or classifications and an indication of how much this might save you in financial terms.
To arrange one of these sessions, please go to our website or contact us.
Alternatively, we have produced a number of other blogs on IBM licensing such as the following:
· 24% price increase for IBM software and how Version 1 can help
· IBM License Metric Tool (ILMT) and the IBM License Service
About the Author:
Kevin Barnes is an IBM SAM Consultant at Version 1.
