Rackable Plays It Cool

Some would argue that IT vendor partnership agreements are commonplace to the point of being mundane, but we find the IBM/Rackable deal notable for a number of reasons. First, it addresses the issue of how smaller vendors can effectively compete in markets dominated by large players.This is a thorny point in new or emerging areas, such as blade servers. In those markets, large vendors, such as IBM and HP typically enjoy better funding, deeper R&D expertise and longer market reach. Smaller players find these advantages difficult or essentially impossible to beat.

By working out an agreement with IBM, Rackable can immediately begin populating its customized Ice Cube modular data centers with one of the markets premier blade server solutions. That will offer the company a range of financial, technical and marketing benefits, while providing its customers with a host of highly flexible system and solution options.

In addition, the availability of IBM’s BladeCenter T and HT blades, engineered for extreme datacenter conditions, should play particularly well in the harsh, remote environments where containerized data centers are gaining initial ground. While some vendors are promoting modular systems as solutions for quickly expanding conventional IT infrastructures, we do not expect to see them crowding executive parking lots anytime soon. Rackable can also leverage a wide variety of networking, storage and other BladeCenter products developed and delivered by Blade.org members, whose community the company plans to join.

In fact, the community aspects of the Rackable/IBM deal may be at least as profound for the companies than commercial opportunities that may accrue fromthe agreement.

IBM’s decision to support a unique, collaborative community around the BladeCenter architecture has had far-reaching effects for the company and its customers and partners. Blade.org now has over 100 hardware and software vendor, developer, distribution partner, and end user members who provide insights and guidance on fundamental BladeCenter issues and decisions.By joining Blade.org, Rackable can certainly add its expertise and voice to the community, and enjoy the results of that association. But if other smaller vendors see Rackable profiting as a result of its membership, and join Blade.org themselves, it could accelerate a fundamental shift in the way server solutions are collaboratively developed and delivered to market.

In short, the agreement between Rackable and IBM should provide both companies tactical and economic advantages in the months and years ahead. But it could also result in significant strategic benefits that play out for years to come.

— Charles King, Pund-IT president and principal analyst, focuses on business technology evolution and interpreting the effects these changes will have on vendors, their customers, and the greater IT marketplace. Charles began working in Silicon Valley in the early 1990s writing on technical, business, and strategy issues, then became an IT industry analyst in 1998. Since founding Pund-IT in December 2004, Charles has published the Pund-IT Weekly Review, which contains this blog and additional industry analysis. King has also produced numerous client projects, and has been quoted in a wide variety of IT industry and media outlets.

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