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First Microsoft buys Groove and hires Ray Ozzie –- creator of Lotus Notes. Then they announce that Ozzie will replace Gates. Now Microsoft has hired away the father of all things WebSphere from IBM, Don Ferguson.

Interesting moves from a company who would like the world to believe that Notes is dead and WebSphere is no competition. It seems obvious that Microsoft would like to emulate what IBM has done with both products, irregardless to what they say about them in the press, by hiring the most influential people associated with them. But what exactly does this mean? Are these truly loses for IBM, or will this mean better products from Redmond that will spur development of stronger software from the WebSphere and Lotus groups via increased competition from Microsoft? Or is this just the beginning of a concerted effort to harvest the top personnel from IBM? Are the leaders of Tivoli and DB2 next?