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Personally this is a good thing for IBM. For someone to be an effective 'blogger' one has to have 'freedom' to speak their mind out side of their employer about their employer. If IBM is to be successful in getting their high quantity of tech staffers to do this, who work for a company that is very supportive of open source, open standards and best of breed solutions (e.g. 'coop-etition' with Microsoft, Oracle, etc.), the 'blogger' can't be subject to editorial scrutiny by his employer.

There were already many IBM'ers in the "blog-isphere" and many of those, hearing IBM's interest in it, are raising a lot of the above valid concerns within IBM along with IBM's interest in encouraging more external voices for the company. This active dialogue within the tech circles of IBM is all that this report is really about, i.e. not really any news.

Overall this is a good thing for IBM, IBM stockholders, IT in general, and open architectures. I think it's simply a news 'notice' of IBM taking an active education step forward to expand on their employee's already present activities in this area, as well as encouraging more to do same. Other tech companies probably are far ahead in this area, others will follow.

One 'sample'IBM employee blogger (Ed Brill) [blog]