IBM's penguin passion
Meet Irving Wladawsky-Berger, IBM evangelist.
Wait just a nanosecond. IBM? Evangelism?
The Cuban-born Wladawsky-Berger, who has a PhD in physics, was the unstoppable force in 2002 behind IBM's bold, $1 billion bet on Linux, the free computer operating system that isn't controlled by Microsoft, Apple or any other computer company. The life of Linux is determined by a "gated community" of programmers who, while working at varying companies, also donate their time to developing the operating system; they collaborate on writing the software so that it will run any computer. Companies like IBM package Linux on their various computers with accompanying software.
Microsoft controls the majority of operating systems with its own software that it spends hundreds of millions of dollars developing, and earns even more from selling it. Linux, which lies at the heart of what's known as the OpenSource software movement, makes Microsoft very nervous.
Twenty years ago, before Microsoft was more than just a DOS blip on the radar screen, the idea that any computer anywhere being controlled by anything other than IBM software would have been such an unfathomable idea that you may have just as well pictured Ross Perot as a dope-smoking hippie.
Today, in 2002, IBM is evangelizing the future of computing, and it's not IBM-centric.
"IBM has done far more and made a greater investment in Linux than any other major vendor," says International Data Corp. analyst Dan Kusnetzky.
His efforts to steer a company worth $185 billion and 316,000 employees toward a new (yet, dot-com cliche) paradigm shift is helping rally a substantial and vocal community of believers to fight for his cause.
How has he turned steered such a huge ship into waters it has never sailed before?
He clearly defined the cause.
IBM launched its Linux strategy using a brilliant iconic campaign. The three symbols representing "Peace/Love/Penguin" were instantly recognizable.
To give its cause for Linux street credibility with the skeptical programmer crowd, IBM went to the streets, literally. In Chicago and San Francisco, IBM's ad agency was supposed to have stenciled the three icons at busy intersections using biodegradable chalk. But somehow the agency ended up using a fairly permanent spray paint. IBM claimed ignorance of the effort and paid fines to clean up the graffiti, the publicity surrounding the stunts proved to be invaluable and helped show that Big Blue ain't so stodgy anymore.
A subsequent television commercial ("they stole all our servers" but we later find from a techie that they were consolidated onto one IBM mainframe) brought mostly positive buzz on the technologists' online haunt, Slashdot.org. After the launch, there was little ambiguity that IBM stood behind Linux in a new and offbeat way.
"We are members of an industry that's out to change the world," Wladawsky-Berger told Linux Magazine.
He's built and nurtured a community.
Since 2000, Wladawsky-Berger has been surveying the technology community to gauge its needs. Linux is a customer-driven phenomenon that is shaping the future of computing, and Wladawsky-Berger's team has talked to thousands of developers, asking them how IBM can support them while simultaneously encouraging them to develop Linux-based programs.
He speaks reverently of the community of Linux lovers that has grown exponentially; in interviews, Wladawsky-Berger often defers to "the community" before formulating major strategic decisions. Technologically, IBM sees Linux as the operating system of choice for all of its software. Ten years ago, when IBM controlled the vast majority of mainframe systems, this would have been heresy, and programmers know it. IBM's change of heart has been consistently winning over the technology community.
IBM is committed to embracing Linux across all of its product lines: Intel servers, Power-based servers, iSeries, mainframes, storage, OEM (original equipment manufacturer) technology and everything in its $9 billion software group.
He makes knowledge widely available.
At its core kernel, OpenSource is just that: open. widely available. Here's how Wladawsky-Berger describes it: "If you look at professional communities, there is a very long tradition of researchers writing papers and publishing them openly. Their peers then read the paper, write additional papers on the topic, and everybody builds on everybody else's ideas.
"The sharing of this information, whether you're in a university, a research lab, or the private sector, is what advances research and innovation for the benefit of your community."
He talks to customers. Lots of them.
With its Linux initiative, IBM has avoided the typical trap so many technology companies fall into: thinking they know what's best for the customer and that technology customers don't know what to ask for if it hasn't been invented yet.
Wladawsky-Berger says IBM has surveyed 2,700 customers and asked what they found appealing about Linux and where they're heading in the future. From those results, IBM has built its Linux strategy.
There is a sense of irony to this: For at least two decades, New York-based IBM arrogantly monopolized software and computer systems, then struggled with government anti-trust lawsuits. Meanwhile, Microsoft snuck in with better jujitsu and usurped the monopoly. For the past several years, it has been the titans of Seattle who have struggled with government anti-trust lawsuits while IBM marshals resources of the surrounding villages to topple the giant.
Guy Kawasaki, CEO of Garage Technology Ventures and the father of evangelism marketing, loves this idea.
"There's a fascination of how IBM can be evangelistic with Linux," he says.
The irony is not lost on Wladawsky-Berger. As he told Business 2.0 in 2001, "The Internet and Linux are far bigger than IBM."
(Excerpted from the book "Creating Customer Evangelists".)
