A friend of mine pointed out that commoditizing someone's product was a great offensive move. He thought that was why IBM funded so many open source projects, many of which were in the Java space. He pointed out that Eclipse is one of the slickest Java IDEs, and what is an Eclipse, but an occlusion of Sun?

IBM and Microsoft have taken two different tracks. IBM is trying to everything except custom software development and support contracts because those are the most profitable short-term. They give away low-quality software that is difficult to use and missing important features; then they charge every user the full cost of fixing these problems. Basically, IBM wants you to rent expensive people to run your free software.

Microsoft is trying to make custom software development and support contracts unnecessary by selling quality, feature-full software. I'm sure lots of people want to say something snarky about Microsoft's actual software quality, but at least recognize that it is the plan. Basically, Microsoft wants you to buy software that ends up being much cheaper than renting people. Ultimately, they want you to computing appliances that are powered by their software and which don't require any maintenance or custom coding.

By the way, there is nothing slick about Eclipse. I am using it every day to write S60 applications and I hate it. I am using IntelliJ IDEA 5.1 (three or four years old, three major versions behind) and IntelliJ is much, much better.

You've no argument from me about IntelliJ being a better IDE. But remember when Eclipse first came out. In my recollection, it set a new bar for Java UI slickness.

This is key. Open Source often fail to reach a certain level of polish unless they find some way to receive corporate funding.

You're forgetting about all the Microsoft Certified people and their consulting services, e.g. http://www.microsoft.com/uk/services/consulting/adc.mspx

No, I'm not. Microsoft does have consultants and certification and probably always will. However, every release of every one of their products is designed to reduce the need for those people. For example, the ultimate goal of SharePoint is to remove and/or substantially reduce the need for custom website development.

Joel wrote "Commoditize your complements":

http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/StrategyLetterV.html

That's along the same lines, but my friend thought that IBM's strategy was to eliminate much of the profit potential of what Sun was developing in the Java (software) space by commoditizing it. (Joel points out that with Java, Sun is commoditizing its own hardware.)

This brings to mind Apple. Software, Design, and Integration are what distinguish Apple Computer, allowing them to charge a markup above the commodity level. The hardware is largely commodity hardware, except for the fact that it's slickly designed in a way that Apple's competitors have some difficulty matching, and that it's (supposedly) the only hardware that can run OS X. Various Hackintoshes testify to the true commodity nature of Apple hardware.

I've been predicting that someone is going to enter the low cost space and offer a truly integrated software/hardware experience based on Linux. I'm wondering if Apple is planning to do just that.

Reminds me of the day Compaq announced they bought DEC...

Evolution needs diversity.