30 Reasons Why Software Rules at IBM

by Darryl K. Taft

IBM is the world’s second-largest software company by revenue with $22 billion in revenue last year.

Software accounted for more than 42 percent of IBM’s profits last year.

IBM is the market leader in middleware products, according to Forrester Research.

IBM Software Group has 50,000 employees.

IBM Software Group has 25,000 software developers building and maintaining IBM’s software portfolio.

IBM Software Group employs more than 15,000 sales employees to get its software out to the market.

Early in 2010 IBM created two umbrella organizations: IBM Software Solutions Group and IBM Software Middleware Group, to align its industry and analytics growth plays.

IBM Software Group is essential to the company’s Smarter Planet strategy, particularly the Tivoli brand, which helps manage complex systems that characterize “Smart” environments.

Smarter Planet is about modernizing and automating the world’s physical infrastructures—from railroads to water management, to food traceability and health-care modernization.

Since 2000, IBM has acquired nearly 100 companies, including more than 60 in the software space such as Cognos, Filenet, Telelogic, Micromuse and MRO Software.

IBM is investing in high-growth markets such as the business integration software market, which IDC estimates will grow nearly 15 percent annually over the next few years to reach $3 billion by 2013.

IBM has invested significantly in its business analytics offerings by acquiring companies such as SPSS. The business analytics market is estimated to be a $100 billion opportunity, growing at 8 percent annually, analysts say.

IBM has proven asset management technology in its Tivoli software, and IDC estimates that asset management solutions represent a $122 billion IT opportunity today.

At least $5 trillion worth of application investments currently reside on IBM systems and software, and nearly 80 percent of all transactions pass through IBM’s WebSphere software, IBM says.

IBM is the market leader in SOA (service oriented architecture) with more than 8,000 customers and more than 53 percent of the SOA market, according to analyst firm Wintergreen.

IBM is ranked No. 1 in the BPMS (business process management systems) market, according to both Gartner and Forrester.

IBM’s Rational tools suite took first place in the 2009 Evans Data Software Development Platform User Satisfaction survey.

IBM is No. 1 in application integration market share, according to Gartner.

IBM is No. 1 in IT operations software based on total revenue, according to Gartner.

IBM Software Group profit has grown from $2.8 billion in 2000 to $8 billion in 2009.

In 2009, IBM invested nearly $6 billion in research and development and IBM’s Software Group draws heavily from IBM Research for innovations.Photo: Dr. John E. Kelly III, senior vice president and director of IBM Research

For the 17th year in a row, IBM led all companies in U.S. patents with more than 4,900 in 2009. A significant number of those patents were for software.

Since 2005, IBM has invested $10 million in its business analytics push, including 14 acquisitions.

IBM is making inroads in the collaboration software space. IBM says its Lotus division’s Project Vulcan is the first expression of the advanced properties needed to create next-generation collaboration systems. IBM Project Vulcan is designed to exploit the convergence of cloud and on-premise systems; collaborative services business applications and social networks; and desktops, netbooks and mobile devices. The capabilities of IBM Project Vulcan will be delivered in future releases of products such as LotusLive, Lotus Notes and Domino, Lotus Connections, Quickr and WebSphere Portal.