OS/2 e-Zine! - The IBM Technical Interchange

The IBM Technical Interchange - by Rollin White

Each month, OS/2 e-Zine! invites a prominent member of the OS/2 community to share his or her opinions, experiences and stories with our readers. Knowing that Rollin White, Relish Product Manager at Sundial Systems, would be attending IBM's premier OS/2 conference and exhibition last month, we invited him to join us as our guest in the "Celebrity Corner" for this issue.

He willingly agreed and, with notebook in hand, set out to St. Louis to record the events and surprises from this year's TI. The following is his exclusive "Man on the Floor" report for OS/2 e-Zine!.

The IBM Technical Interchange
St. Louis, MO.
May 11-15

Each year, IBM hosts a week long technical conference, the Technical Interchange (or TI), focusing on key IBM technologies and products. Historically, this was an OS/2 only event. In recent years that focus has changed to include AS400, RS6000, and S/390. This year was no different.

Arrival and Reception

The whole event started with a welcome reception on Sunday night. The food was fair, and attendance was pretty good. I ran into several old friends -- one of the big reasons I like to attend the TI. The entertainment was a wacky game show. Think of it as Nickelodeon meets Jeopardy meets the Price is Right. A little too "over the top" for my tastes, but a lot of people were into it.

The TI consists of three main parts -- the exhibit hall, conference sessions, and the social events. The exhibit hall had a better ratio of OS/2 vendors to non-OS/2 vendors than last year, however, it was much smaller than previous years so there were fewer OS/2 vendors total.

Speeches and More Speeches

First thing on Monday morning was the Opening Session. This was held in a theater, where the conference attendees waited eagerly to hear what the IBM execs had to say. There were not a lot of surprises. Jeff Mason, General Manager of Solution Developer Marketing and the host of the event, was the first speaker. His speech seemed rigid, was low on real content, but rich in marketing lingo.

After Mason was Irving Wladawsky-Berger, General Manager of the IBM Internet Division. I have to give him credit -- his speech seemed to be much more well thought-out than a typical IBM executive's speech. It was also evident that it was from the heart and not from a speech writer. The focus of his speech was the market forces driving the global move to doing business on the 'net, such as internationalization, individualized access to information, shortened product life-cycles, and the increase in the at-home work force.

Finally, Steve Mills, General Manager of the IBM Software Solutions Division, gave his talk. Instead of a speech, he used the opportunity to announce a new product called Component Broker. It was a typical IBM product announcement that included a good dose of video clips featuring customers singing the praises of the new product. One character on the video could not have hid the fact that he was reading from a cue card if his life had depended on it. The audience got a chuckle out of this.

The bad news was that OS/2 was only mentioned once in the entire opening session and that was in describing the availability of Component Broker (after NT of course).

The Exhibition

Later on Monday night, there was a reception to mark the grand opening of the exhibit hall. This is always the busiest time for a vendor -- a time that I enjoy. The reception was from 7:00 to 10:00. During the first two hours I demonstrated Sundial Systems' products nonstop. It felt like I talked to only three people during that time, but others said it was more like 6-10 groups of people. It's sort of a blur to me.

The people that visited our booth that evening were really into it. They wanted to soak up as much information on OS/2 and OS/2 applications as they could -- always a good feeling! This was a nice counterbalance to the disappointing opening session.

Seminars and Certification Sessions

The exhibits were open during the day for the remainder of the week. Traffic was considerably less, but that is normal at a TI; during the week, the sessions become the focus of the attendees. The topics ranged from how to connect your AS/400 to the Internet to how OS/2 stacks up against the competition. Almost all of them were technical in nature and presented by the best IBM has to offer.

Of the several sessions I attended, the best was on NetRexx by Mike Cowlishaw. For those who don't know, Mike Cowlishaw is the creator of Rexx, and now NetRexx. There was something awe-inspiring about hearing him explain a design problem he faced in NetRexx, and then the elegant solution he came up with. Several people in the back of the room could be heard saying, "He's good. Real good."

Also, during the entire week, IBM offered free testing for all of their certification programs. In the past I have avoided the certifications (for no particular reason), but this year I decided to see what I could do. The tests were all 60-75 minutes long and had about the same number of questions. There were a lot of strange, poorly worded, or unusual questions, but I fared pretty well.

The Buzz About Java

Throughout the week, attendees browsed the exhibit hall. It was interesting to hear the talk from the attendees and the exhibitors alike. Amid all the excitement, there was a fair amount of skepticism about Java. Some felt that it was just the technology of the day that IBM was interested in (just like Mirrors, PowerPC, Open32, or OpenDoc before) and that IBM's interest wouldn't last. Others questioned whether Java 1.02 or even Java 1.1 was robust enough to write commercial software (and have enough functionality to replace existing Windows and OS/2 software). There was also talk about Bluebird.

BlueBird is the IBM code name for one of their Network Computer (NC) projects. Select people at the TI had a preview of Bluebird and their reactions varied from, "nothing new," to, "it raised the hair on the back of my neck," (in a good way). The disparity of reactions seems to follow the wide range of interest in Java. Bluebird is relevant to OS/2 users because it is based on OS/2. However, when IBM touts it, there is not one mention of OS/2.

Some Positive Notes?

As in prior years, IBM & Lotus provided access to the conference schedule, session material, and e-mail through computers connected to a Domino based server. Unfortunately, there were all too frequent problems with the system. Several prominent OS/2 advocates lectured the Lotus staff about the system's unreliability -- running on Windows of course.

On the final evening of the conference, I was very pleased to be introduced to Mr. Kohichi Yoshinaga. Each year in Japan, IBM also hosts a Technical Interchange and Mr. Yoshinaga was personally responsible for making sure the name of that event was "IBM OS/2 Technical Interchange". As my friend Marty Cawthon said, some people at IBM say they are committed, others show they are committed.

I was unable to attend the closing session, but the focus was on the coming era of the Network Computer. Several friends who attended noted how different the visions of the IBM and Lotus speakers were -- despite the fact that they are now the same company. Happily, Mike Lawrie, General Manager, IBM Personal Software Products Division, mentioned OS/2 a lot in the closing session, even if Jeff Papows, the president of Lotus, didn't.

A Rewarding Experience

The TI is a long and tiring week. In some regards it is similar to COMDEX, but because you are absorbing technical information rather than marketing information, you are exhausted in a different way. This year's TI was no exception. It was a changing mix of good and bad vibes about OS/2. I look forward to next year's TI in Orlando.

Rollin White is Relish Product Manager at Sundial Systems. In his free time he is cofounder and President of the Southern California OS/2 User Group.

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