Interview with John Swainson
IBM Corp. has been working extremely hard to convince computer professionals of two things: e-commerce is where you want to be, and it will be IBM that takes you there.
John Swainson, IBM’s general manager of application and integration middleware, was in Toronto recently. Swainson is responsible for products including VisualAge, CICS and MQSeries, and he oversees the operation of IBM’s worldwide research centres, including the Toronto software lab.
Lately, Swainson’s time has been consumed by e-commerce – or e-business — to use IBM’s lingo. He spoke with ComputerWorld Canada editor Peter Wolchak about IBM’s initiatives and its competitors.
CWC: IBM has been spending a lot of money getting its e-business message out, but many industry watchers have said Microsoft and others are waiting and preparing to take that market away. Is that a threat?
Swainson: The head of marketing at Oracle was quoted as saying Oracle is delighted IBM is doing this campaign because then they can come in and steal all the business. We are not na