Lou Gerstner has performed his annual rallying-the-troops ritual. The theme for this year’s oratorial was unequivocally the Internet. And as far as Gerstner is concerned, if it is not Net- enabled, it’s history. Steven Solazzo, European general manager of IBM Corp’s client-server computing, says that according to Gerstner’s three-pronged strategy, the company has successfully emerged from its survival stage and entered into a period of relative stability. Now IBM plans to return to leadership by rallying around the network computing thing, and turning the entire group into a network computing company, said Solazzo. To coincide with its new strategy, the firm has teamed up with London-based Web design and production company, Webmedia Ltd and Internet consultancy and Web service provider Limitless Technical Dimensions Ltd to launch a full World Wide Web site development and hosting service, named IBM Web Services. There will be three levels of services availiable. An entry-level Web page is based on a set of templates pre-designed by Webmedia, an intermediate level that involves more design consultancy to create a personalized Web page and an advanced level targeted at those companies that want a more advanced service to be incorporated into a general marketing strategy. IBM Global Services Internet manager Charlie Pyne said that the advanced sites would probably be designed and managed by IBM itself, but stressed that that would be a collaborative initiative. Pyne said the idea behind the venture was to establish a firm customer base predominantly at entry level, before the Internet becomes an important business tool. When people realize it’s possible to buy things like CDs from the US via the Internet – and have them delivered to your door cheaper than you can buy them in the UK, business is going to have to sit up and take note, said Pyne. IBM said it would provide a complete consultancy service to guide newcomers through their Internet paces, to take customers through the three levels of IBM Web Services. As part of its Internet strategy IBM has an ingenious team of experts it hires out to external organizations to check the integrity of their networks. If there’s a hole in the system, the rent-a-hacker crew will find it, said Solazzio.
