14 DAY TRIAL // IBM is not known for issuing public challenges, unlike other companies, but it seems it broke this policy, or skimmed on its edges, in its recent dealing with HP on the market for integrated software and services.
As end-users know, the IT industry, besides being the playground of companies and consumers alike, is also a battleground of sorts.
Many rivals on every segment of the industry often trade barbs and challenges, while others outright sue each other over patents or other sorts of disagreements.
ARM and Intel, for instance, are trying to invade each other's turf, that of smartphones and PCs/Servers, respectively.
In a similar fashion, AMD and Intel battle over the CPU segment, while the former and NVIDIA also duke it out on the GPU market.
A more recent rivalry was sparked between IBM and HP, when the latter decided to try its luck on the market for integrated software and services business.
It appears that IBM did something more or less unprecedented for it and actually stated that it did not see HP as in any way likely to threaten its position.
IBM Global Technology Services senior VP Mike Daniels said that IBM has been staying well ahead of HP and will keep increasing its lead over the next five years thanks to how it made sure that its software and services branches were more closely knit.
All in all, having one more company in the same market isn't seen as overly relevant, according to Daniels, who also said that potential purchases won't be pushed up in price just because of HP's intent to expand in software.
"I think it would take a long time for anybody to accumulate the kind of capability that we have.,” the VP supposedly stated. "I don't see one more person in the marketplace as changing things."