Why is that shocking ? IBM is deeply ingrained in enterprise all over the world. They have a footprint in most banks, airlines, government, telco and healthcare companies.
I know, right? I remember in 1984, Apple made fun of IBM with their commercial that unveiled the Mac to the world for their Superbowl ad. Crazy to think that they're still somehow relevant 41 years later
Will IBM ruin Confluent? Pro’ally yes; it doesn’t have a good track record with acquisitions. Will it ruin Kafka? Unlikely, Big Blue knows well enough not to ruin an open-source ecosystem.
I was trying to find a Confluent subReddit but it’s not out there. Just curious on how Confluenters were taking the news, what’s the sentiment from the inside? Thanks.
You mean centos that was always planned to be turned down?
Centos stream exists and alternatives like Rocky, Alma.
Rolling releases in this era are much better for security and distros like Debian will continue to exist for people needing a slower cadence, which should generally be rare.
CentOS wasn’t planned on being sunset until IBM was going to buy RedHat from what I remember.
Also, depending on the use cases, the slower releases for our clients are much better but I get your point especially for newer companies or newer type deployments. I used to deal with a lot more legacy systems to be fair so my perspective is old school.
CentOS isn't sunset, it's just different now. In the old structure it couldn't fix bugs or accept contributions, but now it can. The plans for this change predate the IBM acquisition.
We're slowly migrating to a more container centric lifestyle where I am that can maintain stability with newer versions with the benefit of getting the security that comes with it. And we can always roll a snapshot back if we get issues with the OS.
Still, I bet stream or Debian would work just fine - both are still very stable
A lot of people are relieved that it's IBM and not private equity... not that IBM is any better. Everyone I talked to is already prepping for interviews - morale is not high.
Yeah, I've worked with Confluent Kafka, self-run Kafka and third-party-cloud Kafka (Aiven).
As a dev, outside of the very little benefit that Confluents cloud GUI gives, there's little to no difference.
Granted, I have no idea how the difference looks to the Ops/Infra teams, but I would guess that it's quite little after the initial setup/onboarding.
IBM is worried that their market share is too low.
IBM buys a competitors solution.
IBM starts turning that solution into an IBM product.
Customers don't like it and run away.
IBM is worried that their market share is too low.
IBM buys a competitors solution.
It feels weird to see this fossil is still acquiring other companies left and right, while I expect it to keel over and croak any time, like a proper dinosaur should
Oracle, Cisco. and HPE are out there doing it too. All of them should realistically be bankrupt at this point because they don’t innovate at all. They’re using newer, innovative tech companies like blood boys.
We say innovation like every year you need to launch a new server or database with ground breaking changes like early smart phone era. True is, the change is now incremental. Those big companies provide a relatively consistent product and service.. this is enough to stay big and relevant.
Also.. I’m so bored of the word innovation. Very few things are innovative, we just re-wrap, rename and call it new.
I get that. I hate how overused the word “innovate” is too, but the reality is that they continue to charge more for the same products they haven’t truly even iterated on in 15 years. Sure, hardware gets better over time, but these companies aren’t the ones making it better. The only innovation old tech companies really do is in predatory pricing schemes.
I will also agree on the predatory pricing etc. and some of them make some massive mistakes, Dell I know have made a few big ones over the years. But they do every now and then do good stuff. I’m not going to say what good stuff Dell did because laptop and server people are brutal and I’ll be here arguing all night.
Honestly the passion people hate Dell with is intense.. 😄
I think you’re underestimating the foothold they have in enterprise across the world. They are probably the biggest technical integration company out there maybe second to Accenture.
I’m not sure I agree with that. However, the entire point here is that they bought their way into whatever footprint they currently have instead of dying off like they probably should have.
IBM loves event buses.
Hey, we all love public transport... protocols!
What is IBM doing with all these open source companies. What was the RedHat strategy?
Confluent was launched by engineers who led the creation of Apache Kafka.
Wasn’t Kafka developed by LinkedIn?
Yes, engineers at LinkedIn created it and spun off into Confluent
IBM had 11 billion lying around?
What’s crazy is that in 2024 they bought Hashicorp for 6.4b, and 2023 Apptio for 4.6b.
Not short of cash/debt/credit at all it seems
They also bought datastax (Cassandra)
Just checking wikipedia, and I'm shocked to see that IBM had a net income of $6B in 2024 -- and they have $137B in assets!
Why is that shocking ? IBM is deeply ingrained in enterprise all over the world. They have a footprint in most banks, airlines, government, telco and healthcare companies.
And they are literally the only vendor for critical systems in banking, airlines, government and healthcare. They can just extract revenue at will.
IBM does not grow because these industries do not grow. They are also terrible to their employees.
It is an MBA graduates dream!
I know, right? I remember in 1984, Apple made fun of IBM with their commercial that unveiled the Mac to the world for their Superbowl ad. Crazy to think that they're still somehow relevant 41 years later
Oh for fuck sake please don't ruin Kafka for me
“lol fuck this guy” -IBM, probably
Soooooooo.... bad news......
Did they ruin Red Hat ? I haven’t kept up.
Bc they kind of let red hat to operate by itself, so it’s more or less ok. But the moment they try to “integrate” it, it will go to shit.
The announcement on Confluent acquisition claims that "Confluent will continue to operate as a distinct brand and business within IBM post-close."
IBM already have spaghetti plugins for Kafka to MQ, this will only introduce much more funky spaghetti.
All to force more users to use their products.
Will IBM ruin Confluent? Pro’ally yes; it doesn’t have a good track record with acquisitions. Will it ruin Kafka? Unlikely, Big Blue knows well enough not to ruin an open-source ecosystem.
I was trying to find a Confluent subReddit but it’s not out there. Just curious on how Confluenters were taking the news, what’s the sentiment from the inside? Thanks.
Haven't ruined Red Hat so far
If they put it under Red Hat portfolio there is hope
They ruined CentOS
You mean centos that was always planned to be turned down?
Centos stream exists and alternatives like Rocky, Alma.
Rolling releases in this era are much better for security and distros like Debian will continue to exist for people needing a slower cadence, which should generally be rare.
CentOS wasn’t planned on being sunset until IBM was going to buy RedHat from what I remember.
Also, depending on the use cases, the slower releases for our clients are much better but I get your point especially for newer companies or newer type deployments. I used to deal with a lot more legacy systems to be fair so my perspective is old school.
CentOS isn't sunset, it's just different now. In the old structure it couldn't fix bugs or accept contributions, but now it can. The plans for this change predate the IBM acquisition.
We're slowly migrating to a more container centric lifestyle where I am that can maintain stability with newer versions with the benefit of getting the security that comes with it. And we can always roll a snapshot back if we get issues with the OS.
Still, I bet stream or Debian would work just fine - both are still very stable
A lot of people are relieved that it's IBM and not private equity... not that IBM is any better. Everyone I talked to is already prepping for interviews - morale is not high.
Yeah, I've worked with Confluent Kafka, self-run Kafka and third-party-cloud Kafka (Aiven). As a dev, outside of the very little benefit that Confluents cloud GUI gives, there's little to no difference. Granted, I have no idea how the difference looks to the Ops/Infra teams, but I would guess that it's quite little after the initial setup/onboarding.
I don't think IBM has ruined Hashi / Terraform yet...unless I'm forgetting something?
You're responding to the wrong comment.
I read confluence and was confused for a min.
IBM is worried that their market share is too low.
IBM buys a competitors solution.
IBM starts turning that solution into an IBM product.
Customers don't like it and run away.
IBM is worried that their market share is too low.
IBM buys a competitors solution.
[...]
A lot of people at Confluent about to lose their jobs
Ugh I literally started there 2 months ago.
No no, you worked for IBM for 2 months so far!
Is that a good thing? 😂
IBM layoffs are surprisingly rare unless you're old.
The age of unchecked monopolies is coming back swinging I see. Did I say "monopoly"? Oops, sorry, I meant "consolidation".
It feels weird to see this fossil is still acquiring other companies left and right, while I expect it to keel over and croak any time, like a proper dinosaur should
Oracle, Cisco. and HPE are out there doing it too. All of them should realistically be bankrupt at this point because they don’t innovate at all. They’re using newer, innovative tech companies like blood boys.
We say innovation like every year you need to launch a new server or database with ground breaking changes like early smart phone era. True is, the change is now incremental. Those big companies provide a relatively consistent product and service.. this is enough to stay big and relevant.
Also.. I’m so bored of the word innovation. Very few things are innovative, we just re-wrap, rename and call it new.
I get that. I hate how overused the word “innovate” is too, but the reality is that they continue to charge more for the same products they haven’t truly even iterated on in 15 years. Sure, hardware gets better over time, but these companies aren’t the ones making it better. The only innovation old tech companies really do is in predatory pricing schemes.
I will also agree on the predatory pricing etc. and some of them make some massive mistakes, Dell I know have made a few big ones over the years. But they do every now and then do good stuff. I’m not going to say what good stuff Dell did because laptop and server people are brutal and I’ll be here arguing all night.
Honestly the passion people hate Dell with is intense.. 😄
I think you’re underestimating the foothold they have in enterprise across the world. They are probably the biggest technical integration company out there maybe second to Accenture.
I’m not sure I agree with that. However, the entire point here is that they bought their way into whatever footprint they currently have instead of dying off like they probably should have.
They are really big in Cloud, especially for government.
“Confluent an IBM company“
get ready for price increase, less free tier like redhat after ibm purchase
Really cool
When you do not have any great ideas or the best people you write a check. It’s strange that all other clouds seem to innovate on their own.