>> Yea, but so does Microsoft and Symantec, and you dont see Microsoft buying up... oh wait...
The current rumor, according to the Veritas technician who has been helping us with the i3 product, is that IBM is looking at Symantec.
It makes more sense than Microsoft. IBM can easily brand Symantec's desktop products as a side business, but the real meat of the deal is 2 things:
1. Veritas clustering and related enterprise level stuff. Goes along with IBM's enterprise services vision, as well as affording tighter integration with IBM products, like MQ and Websphere to provide more robust and highly available solutions.
2. i3 kicks major ass as a montitoring tool for j2ee and database based applications. Apparently, tighter integration with Websphere is on their minds...which would kind of be a blow to BEA (weblogic).
I also work with guys from IBM pretty regularly, and they hear the rumors on their side as well.
The hard core, enterprise level stuff has never really been a Microsoft area of business. They see happy with just taking over the desktop, and providing small to mid-range business solutions. At least that's my take on it....
