Rational GM: Microsoft Relationship Cooled Since IBM Purchase

This week at its IBM Rational Software Development User Conference, IBM Rational executives reiterated their commitment to supporting Microsoft Visual Studio with Rational tools.

In an interview with CRN at the show, however, IBM Rational General Manager Mike Devlin admitted that the relationship between Rational and Microsoft has cooled since IBM acquired Rational in February 2003.

Devlin said the "good news" is that Microsoft is still a "good engineering partner" for IBM Rational.

"They still give us access to all the APIs and technology," Devlin said. "There are views that Microsoft is a bad company and if they don't like you they don't give you access to technology, but our view is that they are a good company to work with, they have great ISV programs, and they give you what you need to make your product available on their platforms."

Even so, Microsoft and IBM Rational are doing "less joint marketing than we used to" and hardly any joint selling now since IBM bought Rational, he said. "I don't expect that to change," said Devlin. "That's not entirely surprising."