Over the past four weeks, Big Blue, not to be confused with the ever confusing 'Pale Blue'(HP)has been getting more and more of my eyeball time.
From a new mainframe to the personal IBM Cloud for $56.00 a month, it seems Big Blue is emerging - well, emerging isn't the correct word, IBM has always been there - they've become more illuminated.
Ever since the "troubles" in the '90's - you remember - back then everybody thought IBM had lost its mind by getting out of the PC business - Big Blue has toiled and prospered unseen by most.
Deep Blue defeated chess champion,Garry Kasparov, back in 1997. Watson took on Jeopardy champs and easily sent them packing.
That was a few years back and represents only what IBM wanted to come out - the real Genie is still in the bottle.
While Apple dances in the spotlight, a skipping, joyfully computing hippie, IBM has been in the cave, forging new steel.
Things to remember about IBM:
- They've already gone through the biggest transformation in history
- They haven't stopped R/D
- They haven't forgotten who they are
- They employ the smartest people on the planet
- While the rest of the world is talking about printing less, a life of screens and the latest 99 cent app, IBM has been developing machines that learn cognitively, like us.
The type of computing power about to fall into the palm of our hands will amaze and stupify even the bleeding-edgers of today. This month, IBM announced their intent to bring the power of Watson to each person - we'll be able to carry it around and access it from anywhere on the planet.(Mobility)
Google, Microsoft and Apple - look out...
IBM has been designing and is currently building devices that think and learn. Maybe this isn't that stunning as we've been talking about the 'thinking machine' since Mary Shelly's Frankenstein. But when you stop and consider
In the not too distant future, Siri" might be regarded as a toy, that cute high school girl everybody had a crush on, while IBM's instincts remain basic, like Sharon Stone. Google with her web of energy sucking data centers and anti-privacy business model, may be considered too slow and invasive. Bing/Microsoft may have its Kodak moment and HP will be valeting cars.
Three is no doubt that the computing landscape is going to look different in the next few years. Perhaps we will shift from data-center-centric processing BACK to the centralized, big-iron, mainframe-centric approach.
Mainframes compute huge amounts of data, every day, the cloud grows and grows and everyday users want immediate access to whatever it is they want. Information is accessed in a stream not by batch. The more computing power, the faster the stream. Serving the masses will require massive amounts of hardware - something IBM has been producing for decades.
####
I'm going to call it now. Apple & IBM & create the biggest most, powerful computing center on the planet. Not a collection of DC's - The Forbin Project...
More here about how our little industry is responding.
More here about Gestner and IBM.
More here about IBM and Big Data.
More here about Big Data.
0 comments:
Post a Comment