The headline “IBM May Quit Technology Standards Body”, if true, marks an important change in direction at IBM. The article here references the Wall Street Journal asserting:
IBM has become frustrated by what it considers opaque processes and poor decision-making at some of the hundreds of bodies that set technical standards for everything from data-storage systems to programming languages…
In my opinion, IBM’s effort to support open source was a useful endorsement of open source. The Eclipse Foundation owes IBM a debt which it may not be able to repay. Now, IBM and other super platforms may be shifting back to the good, old, and lucrative days of walled gardens. In a world distorted by Google’s gravitational pull, companies like IBM have to protect their assets. Standards may be a problem, not a solution. The losers? I think it will be small fish like me.
Stephen Arnold, September 24, 2008