IBM Equals Cost and Complexity
June 16, 2009
I had heard that this PR push was coming. That’s the reason I posted the story detailing the steps required to connect OmniFind to other IBM software. If you don’t recall that post and the eight Web pages of technical procedures and code snippets, you can read “Teaching IBM OmniFind to Index IBM’s Portal Document Manager Content” or my other Web log posts about IBM’s technology.
The New York Times’s “IBM. to Help Clients Fight Cost and Complexity” is a Big Bertha information blast, and I was delighted to see the story getting such strong pick up and play. Disinformation is a wonderful thing in the opinion of the addled goose.
The story, by Steve Lohr, stated:
In the cloud market, I.B.M. plans to take a tailored approach. The hardware and software in its cloud offerings will be meant for specific computing chores. Just as Google runs a computing cloud optimized for Internet search, I.B.M. will make bespoke clouds for computing workloads in business. Its early cloud entries, to be announced on Monday, follow that model. One set of offerings is focused on streamlining the technology used by corporate software developers and testers, which can consume 30 percent or more of a company’s technology resources.
Mr. Lohr concluded:
I.B.M.’s cloud strategy, the company said, is the culmination of 100 prototype projects with companies and government agencies over the last year, and its research partnership with Google. “The information technology infrastructure is under stress already, and the data flood is just accelerating,” said Samuel J. Palmisano, I.B.M.’s chief executive. “We’ve decided that how you solve that starts by organizing technology around the workload.”
Several comments:
- Nary a mention of IBM’s previous cloud initiatives. I was hoping to read about the IBM Internet dial up service or the grid system that I learned about from a person in West Virginia (definitely a hot bed of massively parallel computing). I was hoping for a reference to the early cloud system used inside IBM for its own technical information center. No joy.
- Complexity is not reduced with cloud computing. If anything, data interchange and access becomes more complex, particularly if the IBM customer has other hosted services plus a vegetable medley of mainframes, mid range, and client server IBM gear. Hooking this stuff up and reducing latency without using the equivalent of the GNP of Switzerland perhaps should have warranted a comment?
- IBM is a trend surfer. It is becoming more and more dependent on engineering and professional services. I was looking for a comment, maybe a hint of doubt that the IBM cloud push would assist companies now, not at some vague time in the near future.
Will IBM run a full page ad about its new cloud services in the newspaper? I don’t know, but I will be looking for one. An ad will be a nice complement to the story I just read. Just my opinion, Big Blue and Gray Lady. Just my opinion.
Stephen Arnold, June 16, 2009
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