Back in 2004 IBM announced they would move the company to Linux desktops by the end of 2005 (via InfoWorld). What turned out to be mission impossible throughout 2004 was that most of IBM’s internal web applications had been written "Internet Explorer only" style.
Internet Explorer is the only browser supported by IBM’s internal support desk. […] If you don’t use Internet Explorer, you might not get very far with them helping you with the problem.
Oopsie. Browser lock-in anyone?
On a related note (via Goran Aničić who faithfully publishes Svakodnevnica), IBM is encouraging its employees to use Firefox as "a significant step in lessening dependence on a product from rival Microsoft."
Sounds like a good plan: to lessen browsed dependence. "Gates, we want a divorce. We don’t love you any more (even after you wrote OS/2 for us but we flopped it). We’re packing our s###."
By supporting Firefox internally, IBM is also furthering its commitment to open-source products based on industry standards, said Brian Truskowski, chief information officer at IBM.
Again, a noble quest!
Because Firefox is based on industry standards–as opposed to proprietary technology–IBM has some "comfort" that it will interoperate well with third-party products, Truskowski said. By contrast, Microsoft’s Internet Explorer uses some proprietary technology, such as ActiveX for running programs within a browser.
Industry standards are good. Interoperation is good. ActiveX… wait a second. Internet Explorer doesn’t use ActiveX to create funky web pages. You do! Don’t like ActiveX controls, don’t use them! Period.
"What I will avoid is anything that is proprietary in nature," Truskowski said.
Ok, now I’m confused. What exactly does Firefox have to do with proprietary nature of Internet Explorer here? Those were IBM’s internal web applications that were coded for IE. Did anyone hold a gun to their developers’ heads? Why blame IE?
If you code a web application that works in Firefox, will it quit functioning in IE? Or Opera? Or Konqueror? This is an issue of their code being compliant with web standards, not browsers. Isn’t it our goal to build cross-browser web apps, so it wouldn’t matter what browser you adopt in the company? IBM’s only choice is to rewrite support web apps, not shuffle browsers around.
Look again at the article title:
IBM is encouraging its employees to use Firefox, aiding the open-source Web browser’s quest to chip away at Microsoft’s Internet Explorer.
Aaaaah, now it makes sense. "Chip away", eh? I guess it’s not about web standards or interoperability, but likes and dislikes and personal preferences. C’mon, folks, spill it: who went golfing with Truskowski and sold him all this Prozac bulls##t? Maybe we need to beg Zeldman to fly there and put them on the straight and narrow?
IBM as Designers?
This one is truly hilarious: IBM Design Consulting Services (thanks for the link go to 37signals).
You know, with all this, IBM reminds me of a fish pulled out of water and thrown on ice. It flip-flops gasping for air, but has no clue where water is.
What’s With ’Heil IBM’?
Looks like IBM would have to defend itself in Geneva and do some explaining why they collaborated with Nazis (yes, Nazis) during WWII while their fellow Americans were dieing in Europe (via ComputerWorld, ITWorld, CNN, etc).
I wish IBM’s president Thomas J. Watson could explain how he scored a Star of Merit award from Hitler in 1937—when the Nazi regime was thriving—and why the US State Department had to nag him to give it up for three years. He must’ve loved his prrrrrecious. You see Watson and Hitler pictured here.
Throughout WWII IBM operated in Europe via its subsidiaries, Deutsche Hollerith Maschinen GmbH (Dehomag) and Watson Business Machines (Watson Büromaschinen), personally overseen by Thomas J. Watson and run from Poland. Through their cronies in Czechoslovakia, France, Switzerland, Poland and Romania IBM laundered money back to their offices in New York. What exactly did they do?
They leased punch card machines ("death calculators") to keep "inventory" of concentration camp and ghetto prisoners. With millions of people moved back and forth (and killed), the Nazis needed good hardware, and IBM was happy to oblige. IBM printed millions of punch cards and supplied their European subsidiaries to keep the machines running.
You see, back in the 1940’s QuickBooks Pro Concentration Camp Edition wasn’t available yet. Therefore IBM custom "coded" punch cards for the camps. Code 4—executed, code 6—death by gas chamber, code 8—Jew; code 12—Gypsy, etc. Multiply that by millions of cards… You get the idea of the magnitude of their involvement in the business of most effective and cost-efficient genocide. I’m sure their “stakeholders” were happy.
Imagine this for a second: those weren’t laptop-size machines. These days you buy a Dell laptop, it arrives a few day later and you carry it in a bag. Back in the 30s and 40s those machines were… well… bigger and needed constant maintenance. Again, IBM had maintenance contracts with the Nazis and serviced them on a monthly basis.
IBM installed and serviced punch card "computers" in 78 concentration camps. To them profits from the second largest customer—Nazis—were (and still are) far above the value of life, moral and ethics. They will never wash off this shame. Never.
Sieg Heil, IBM!
