WORDS OF WISDOM FROM THOSE WHO HAVE VOLTED IN

See related stories:

Inquirer, GMA 7 join forces on the Web

HP-Intel partnership shows sign of the times

Partnerships: The Big Blue way

ALLIANCE, partnership and integration may be three of the most overused words in the Internet industry today. However, who wouldn't admit that the race among Internet and technology players to "volt in" and finally beat the Bozanian competition is becoming more of a necessity than a passing fashion?

The advent of the Internet has made more tech companies realize that shaping up also includes consolidating resources - be it in marketing, distribution, technology and research collaboration. These are the building blocks for stronger vertical or horizontal market presence or geographic service capabilities. And unlike the "boat-is-sinking" game where a player's survival depends on the master's whim, forging alliances in the Internet economy is a lot more like grabbing hold of quality allies.

This is "coopetition" in the technology industry - competing and cooperating at the same time.

IBM Corp. and Compaq Computer Inc., for instance, announced July 6 in New York a strategic agreement that would highlight storage companies' increasingly vital role to their customers' Internet infrastructure. Howard Elias, Compaq's storage global business unit VP and general manager, said that this would "assure both companies' customers of a complete portfolio of critical storage technologies that would work seamlessly with future Compaq and IBM products." This is a classic case of two competitors in the hardware, software and services industry complementing each other's strategies.

Both IBM and Compaq said that they are "committed to the interoperability of each company's storage hardware and software." Both also agreed to sell significant products from each other's storage portfolios. Total investments currently planned by the companies for this major partnership agreement could exceed $1billion.

IBM also announced that it is involved in a new strategy of partnering with enterprise application software vendors. Since March, Big Blue has teamed up with 22 software manufacturers such as Ariba, i2 Technologies and Siebel Systems and enterprise application software vendors such as Aspen Technology, Industrial and Financial Systems, Intentia International, IT Design and Mincom.

Unlikely partnerships have also been formed between IBM subsidiary Lotus Software and its rival Microsoft Corp. - two of the fiercest adversaries in the software arena. In this case, Lotus wants its software to run on Windows NT.

"Strategically we are positioned to be an independent software vendor, meaning when we say independent, we are platform independent. Our software runs on Solaris, we also have Domino for AS/400. By virtue of Lotus thriving on all these different operating systems or platforms, strategic partnerships are formed. It's been the direction of Lotus ever since - to work with different vendors," said Lotus Software Philippines managing director Victor Silvino. "In the case of Microsoft, we also develop products that are optimized to the Windows NT platforms so there is partnership and 'coopetition.' This is in agreement with Microsoft. We jointly develop Lotus Notes products."

Silvino explained that from Lotus' customer support center, should there be problems involving NT, Lotus coordinates with the right people from Microsoft's support center in Singapore. He said that Lotus products are strategically positioned to complement other products such as NT.

"You see competitors coming together because they see complementary solutions that they can work on together to expand their market base. Now, that will happen in different times. It's not a trend that is increasing. It's not uncommon, for example, for companies to have joint partnerships and then next year the partnerships are gone. It's done. They have to move forward or they have to change their direction because it's a very dynamic and fast-paced industry," said Silvino.

Microsoft Philippines was unable to respond to the queries regarding Lotus and Microsoft's coopetition.

Another team of technology partners was formed recently. This time it's a four-company agreement among Unisys, Microsoft, Intel and EMC. This team of e-business partners announced at a local technology road show on July 19 that they have banded together to provide complementary products and solutions to form what they call the "data center for the new millennium." The team hopes to build a reliable platform for e-business transaction systems.

The combined forces of the four is touted to bring "breakthrough" technology and services from Unisys Enterprise Server ES7000 which is combined with the Microsoft Windows 2000 Data Center edition.

The ES7000 is a server designed for the power of future Intel IA-64 Itanium processors (Intel's 64-bit chip).

As explained during the road show, the ES7000 can accommodate up to 32 Intel Pentium III Xeon processors that can be field-upgraded to the IA-64 processor. EMC comes into the partnership because the data center architecture will be equipped with EMC storage solutions.

Joey Pengson, Unisys Philippines sales director for horizontal solutions said that Unisys' recent alliance with Microsoft, Intel and EMC has formed a dream team of sorts. He stressed, however, that the success of the partnership relies on the execution of the strategy.

"The key to the success of a dream team, is in the execution. Desire may be present but how a team will execute is another matter altogether. Just like a basketball team, if you have many superstars but cannot get them to play like the Philippine Philharmonic Orchestra, you will only get a lot of noise," he said.

Although the idea of having Danny Seigle, Danny Ildefonso and the whole San Miguel team play cellos, violins and trombones doesn't sound appealing, no company is an island in the Internet industry where everyone is connected.