WebSphere Revolution

“We jumped on the WebSphere project and in less than 12 months the team put it together.” —Steve Mills, IBM Senior Vice President and Software Group Executive first-generation HTTP server). Hurricane would also support other HTTP servers including those offered by Microsoft® and the open source Apache organization. Steve knew it was a time to favor openness over proprietary standards it was a time to embrace change. As the Hurricane team was readying the product, Chris and Paraic came to a point where they had to establish a formal name for the product. They wanted it to be something truly new. So, after considering hundreds of possible product names, they had a meeting with Steve Mills to propose their best ideas—and Steve didn’t like any of them. So Steve started thinking. He wanted something that would give the connotation of a global product centered around the World Wide Web. That’s when the name “WebSphere” occurred to him. So IBM started planning to announce Hurricane as “WebSphere” at the annual IBM Technical Interchange Conference for software developers in Orlando, Florida. But a problem arose and it was a big one. The name “WebSphere” was owned by a small Web integration company based in Carlsbad, California. So IBM approached the company about buying the name. Negotiations went back and forth as the announcement date approached but still no agreement was reached. As it turned out, the owners of the California-based company were surfers, so the IBM marketing team offered to throw in an all expenses paid trip to Hawaii for them. This creative move closed the deal on a Friday night and IBM announced the WebSphere Application Server and the WebSphere Performance Pack tool on the following Tuesday morning, May 5, 1998. This was less than four months after the initial meeting between Steve Mills and Chris Wicher an amazingly short period of time for such a fundamental shift in both technology and strategy. At this point, the team saw that WebSphere could use a boost to help draw more attention to it in the emerging Web application server marketplace and they came up with a surprising idea. The original version of WebSphere Application Server was built on top of IBM’s own HTTP server—Internet Connection Server. But Steve and the team clearly understood that it was critically important to adhere to open standards thereby avoiding fragmentation, encouraging adoption, and setting the stage for explosive growth. While competitors and the software industry in general were creating their own proprietary platforms that tended to lock in their customers, Steve understood that IBM and WebSphere could gain an advantage by using a more open standards-based approach and increase value for customers at the same time. So while the initial version of WebSphere Application Server supported the open source Apache HTTP Server (among others)…that wasn’t enough. For this next release, Steve decided to take the open source idea to the next level. He decided that the next release of WebSphere would not only support the very popular Apache HTTP Server but actually ship with the Apache Server, effectively replacing IBM’s own technically superior but less well known HTTP server. While “WebSphere instantly challenged the proprietary approaches all the competitors currently ship.” —Tim Sloan, Director, Internet, Aberdeen Group (1998) An all expenses paid surfing holiday was part of the deal when IBM purchased the name “WebSphere.” 1998 WebSphere Application Server is announced in Orlando, Florida. 1998 New York Yankees beat San Diego in the World Series. 1998 Steve Mills decides to ship Apache HTTP server with WebSphere Application Server. 1998 France beats Brazil in soccer’s World Cup. 14

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of WebSphere Revolution

WebSphere Revolution Table of Contents The Rise of Internet Business WebSphere Takes the Stage WebSphere Application Server Evolves Beyond the Application Server WebSphere and On Demand Business New Flexibility through SOA An Eye Toward the Future

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