Web 2.0: IBM as a Host

IT Analyst has a posting about what IBM needs to do to get more involved in the web 2.0 world. Here is my response to James: Re. Buell, or anyone at IBM, would say that WAS CE is IBM's answer to the Web 2.0 question. <shamelessPlugForMyOldProduct> WAS CE is really intended to answer the question: "how do we deal with customers, developers and partners that want a rock-solid, light-weight J2EE application server with the latest innovations from an open community, that can be used for free or a minimal cost?" </shamelessPlugForMyOldProduct> Now to the broader question posed by James re. Web 2.0. I think we need a definition of Web 2.0 before discussing it. I like the technologies that drive Flickr. Now, with this in mind: As stated by James, turing on the infrastructure for hosting a Web 2.0 platform for customers, developers and partners isn't the major issue, since IBM already has the infrastructure. But having the infrastructure isn't going to guarantee a "success story. To ensure success for IBM's Web 2.0 hosting platform (which I'm sure any number of IBM strategy teams are looking at, have looked at, or will look at), IBM needs to give precedence to Web 2.0 technologies over Java. To be fair, this is happening already. If you visited this or this from Oracle, they stand to miss addressing the core customer need. Web 2.0 notables like Digg or Flickr (Yahoo) wants to use a technology like PHP in a fashion that highlights the light-weight, yet powerful and iterative, nature of PHP. Putting PHP inside of a Java container of any size, adds complexity that a Web 2.0 developer isn't truly willing to accept, especially when the code-save-refresh metaphor of Web 2.0 development is hindered with the structured development/deployment model associated with Java/J2EE. Most of the time, given the choice, all established companies will take the less risky route. IBM, BEA, Oracle and Sun are no different. Option 1 above would be laden with risk, but the benefit would be giving the grassroots developer, customer, and partner, what they want, really, really want (random best infrastructure that Web 2.0 stars are using, namely LAMP. So James, I'd propose that the hosting infrastructure for Web 2.0 is one part of the puzzle for IBM's strategy for Web 2.0. If the hosting infrastructure is just a way to push more Java towards the customer/developer/partner, then a significant portion of customers/developers/partners will look for an alternative platform that lets them use LAMP to get whatever it is they need to get done. At least in the (critical) short term while they get familiar with the brave new world'. blog about enterprise open source topics.