Ibi Reaches Out to D2b Web Query Customers, Discusses Cause of Breakup
March 25, 2024 Alex Woodie
Nearly six months after ibi and IBM abruptly ended their OEM relationship, ibi is now reaching out to Db2 Web Query customers and encouraging them to license the business intelligence product it was based on, its own WebFOCUS suite. An executive with ibi also provided IT Jungle with some insight into the source of the breakup and what its IBM i customers can expect going forward.
On the same day that IBM was unveiling the Fall 2023 Technology Refresh last October, it made an unexpected announcement that shocked the IBM i community: It would no longer sell Db2 Web Query, its flagship business intelligence and analytics offering for IBM i. IBM would continue to honor existing contracts, but the OEM partnership with ibi (formerly Information Builders), in place since 2007, was over.
According to Vijay Raman, the vice president of products and technology for ibi, the OEM breakup was due to an inability for the two sides to agree on a restructured contract following the ownership change of ibi. Information Builders’ founder Gerald Cohen had sold his New York City-based company to TIBCO back in 2020; Cohen died the same year. TIBCO established a new holding company called Cloud Software Group, with ibi as one of its companies.
“In the course of the last renewal, we could not really come to an agreement on the best way forward for the benefit of all customers and how to additionally create more value for the same customers,” Raman told IT Jungle last week in an interview. “So our business model now, as Cloud Software Group, has changed, meaning that we focus on all our existing customers . . . so really looking at how additionally more and more incremental value we can keep providing.”
One of the sticking points was licensing and product packaging, Raman said. Cloud Software Group ownership preferred to use a flatter pricing structure, where customers would get access to the full suite of capabilities and be billed for that on a per-user basis. But IBM used a tier-based licensing and pricing scheme for the base version of Db2 Web Query, with additional charges for additional capabilities, according to Raman.
Ibi’s flat “everything-you-see is everything-you-get” didn’t jibe with IBM’s approach, and neither side compromised enough for the OEM relationship to continue. “We really tried to work out a mutually beneficial arrangement for both of us,” Raman said. “Unfortunately, we could not come to an agreement.”
The ibi team understands that the sudden end of the partnership distressed Db2 Web Query customers, and they regret that it turned out the way that it did, Raman said. However, the company sticks by its decision.
“It put customers in a tough spot, which is something that I personally hate and my brass and my company didn’t really want,” he said. “But again from a point of view of how I wanted to give value to all the customers, and also modernize their offering, and IBM’s business model, particularly in this case, we could not come to an alignment on what would be the right value here. So that was the primary reason I would say that we decided to end the partnership.”
Moving Forward with WebFOCUS
There are approximately 2,000 Db2 Web Query customers around the world, according to ibi. When their support contracts are up with IBM, they will be forced to make a decision: continue using the product unsupported or move to another product.
IT Jungle readers have been reading about the various alternatives for BI and analytic functionality. Among the alternatives is WebFOCUS itself, the product that Db2 Web Query was based on and which runs natively on IBM i and its Db2 for i database. If customers like Db2 Web Query, there is one very practical reason for customers to adopt WebFOCUS: It is essentially the same product.
According to Raman, ibi is currently working with 35 to 40 Db2 Web Query customers to help them make the move to WebFOCUS. The company has set up a webpage where Db2 Web Query can request more information from ibi.
Moving from Db2 Web Query to WebFOCUS will require a “mini migration,” Raman said. The migration is necessary because of the IBM-specific packaging that Big Blue used to install Db2 Web Query, which is different than ibi’s packaging. A migration basically involves pointing the new WebFOCUS instance at the old Db2 Web Query database, and “sucking up” the artifacts and reports, Raman said.
Migrations will typically take a week or so to complete, in most cases. Some customers with many artifacts and reports, or complicated security environments, may require more time, Raman said.
“It’s a case-by-case basis,” he said. “I think as we talk to more customers, we are also learning and then eventually we’ll be able to provide a tool, which I’m hoping will be one-size-fits-all for all the customers.”
Analytics Modernization
While the two products are quite similar, WebFOCUS currently has some features and capabilities that the IBM product doesn’t have, Raman said. For instance, the report authoring and report distribution environments have been upgraded and are superior to what IBM offered with Db2 Web Query, he said.
The content authoring tool that Information Builders offered IBM via the OEM deal was never upgraded and today is a “legacy” tool, according to Raman. “Since then, we have migrated and brought forth much more modern browser-based experience to be able to author your content, which is the bread and butter of how you do your reporting,” he said.
The Report Caster and Data Migrator components have also seen significant upgrades over the years, which never made it into the OEM product that IBM sold. “So all of those features are now going to be available to all of the IBM i customers,” Raman said.
Despite the breakup, IBM and ibi still have a working arrangement. IBM is helping ibi by providing names of Db2 Web Query customers and product features, and ibi is helping IBM by continuing to develop a BI and analytics tool that brings OLAP workloads to the Db2 for i database.
“We’re still very amicable with IBM on how things ended,” Raman said. “So definitely it’s a win-win for IBM, that their ecosystem continues to remain and expand.”
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You are missing a huge part of the equation… COST. I’ve talked to them twice about a migration path to their product. I was told directly that unless we’re a $150,000 per year account, they’re not interested.
How many of the 2000 IBM customers meet that criteria? My guess is the 35-40 they are working with.
I don’t think we missed it. I think we didn’t have any data.
What Raman fails to mention is webfocus does not run native to the IBMi, like web query does. This is a showstopper for some. Webfocus requires a linux or windows web server to run.