Father of WebSphere Leaves IBM For Microsoft

jg21 writes ".NET Developer's Journal is reporting that Don Ferguson, the 'Father of WebSphere,' has left IBM to join Microsoft CTO Ray Ozzie's office. Ozzie, whose efforts to rebuild Microsoft have been discussed previously on Slashdot, is gaining a man who while at Blue championed Web services, patterns, Web 2.0, and business-driven development — a potent combo for the future that Microsoft is trying to bring into being."

*shivers*

[Whiney Mac Fanboy]

...the future that Microsoft is trying to bring into being.

*shivers*

Re:Nebulous Terminolgy

[eclectro]

Do you even know what WebSphere is?

An orb of internets??

so..

[mastershake_phd]

a man who while at Blue championed Web services, patterns, Web 2.0, and business-driven development

So this guy comes up with all those damn buzzwords?

What is websphere?

[symbolset]

The parent is suffering from infectious gibberish. I'm coming down with a bit of it myself after browsing Big Blue for your answer. If my debabbleizer is working it's a fork of the Apache webserver and some java applets. Apparently it costs from $2k-$16K per server CPU, so no doubt a salesman will be along shortly to educate us both on what wonderfully synergistic applets they are, how it's an "application framework" for Web 2.0 and yadda yadda.

It seems they have some sort of pricing voodoo going on. Example:

With this announcement IBM is introducing Value Unit based pricing for the products referenced. Value Unit based pricing will help to align the prices of these products to the principle of the PSLC pricing curve which provides for a lower price per MSU for larger capacities. There will also be a price benefit when customers grow their capacity. Additional capacity will be based on the number of Value Units (MSUs) the customer has already installed. Additional capacity will not be priced starting at the base with a higher price per unit but on the capacity that is already installed.

Proof of entitlements (PoEs) will be based on new Value Units. Value Units of a given product cannot be exchanged/interchanged/aggregated with Value Units of another product.

Anyway it's a webserver and some applets. Here's a direct link to the list of stuff that's been stuffed into the Websphere brand envelope: SW By category [ibm.com]

If they're running their website on it I feel sorry for their customers trying to do ecommerce -- getting a price is impossible, you can't proceed from the product page to the purchase, it keeps asking where I'm from, etc. etc.

But my heart really goes out to the poor soul that's got to translate that gibberish into meaningful chinese. I love IBM, but American Geek is my mother tongue and I can't make out what they're saying here.

Re:Nebulous Terminolgy

[Cee]

Orb of Internets:
Binds when picked up
Mainhand
-15 Stamina
+7 Intelligence
-12 Strength
-2 Spirit
Equip: Decreases actual work done by up to 20.

ooh! ooh! and!

[Dion]

The guy behind Rational, MS needs him too!

That way MS will have the maximum amount of suckage that have ever existed in one place.

I propose that this will form a singularity of suck, a black hole of sorts, which in short order will concentrate all the suck on the planet and keep it locked at the MS campus for all time.

Enjoy the sucking, because it will end soon!

I know we're all thinking it...

[Godji]

...so let me ask it out loud: What kind of person does one have to be to leave IBM and join Microsoft?