Bill Zeitler, senior vice president and group executive for IBM’s Systems and Technology Group, told ComputerWire, that the company believes collaboration is key to delivering on-demand technologies.
We’re focused not just on securing a strong position with traditional IT, but securing a strong position in the next stage, said Zeitler. This gets to where I think will be the next stage of what’s going on in on-demand.
The Power.org consortium and IBM opening up the specifications for its future Cell processors are examples of how IBM sees this new collaborative approach working, with Zeitler citing the example of Mercury Computer Systems Inc, which recently struck a deal with IBM’s Engineering and Technology Services group to build new Cell-based radar, sonar, MRI and digital X-ray systems.
Engineering and Technology Services comes under Zeitler’s remit alongside servers and storage, and IBM Microelectronics, and is leading the way towards collaborating at an intellectual property and R&D level.
According to Zeitler, early successes have also been seen the likes of Sony, Microsoft, and Nintendo sign up to collaborate on Cell developments for future versions of their games machines. Game companies are the first evidence of a move from microelectronics to introduce technology like Cell into their products, he said.
You’ll see this in a whole variety of industry segments, he added. I think with Cell, any application that does any sort of image processing you’ll see an advantage. The major difference with Cell, according to Zeitler, is that partners get to collaborate on development, rather than being presented with a finished processor.
As well as developments on the Cell processor, Zeitler said the company also has an interest in the collaborative approach for telecoms equipment, medical equipment, aerospace, and defense.
An example of the former is the company’s recent development deal with Nortel Networks Corp to collaborate on new research projects in the telecommunications market. We have no interest in being a telecoms equipment manufacturer, and in turn Nortel has no desire to outsource their development, but to collaborate, Zeitler said.
We’re using different parts of IBM as we go to these clients, he said. If we’re open to bringing the technology we have to the problems they have, a lot of doors will open. While the examples so far involve technology partners, Zeitler said there is also interest from other industries. He cited the company’s recent $402m eight-year deal with the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, which sees IBM overhauling the medical center’s technology infrastructure, but also investing in joint development on new medical solutions.
The company also struck a collaboration agreement with the Mayo Clinic in late 2004 to work with IBM’s Blue Gene supercomputer and collaborate on new medical systems, disease modeling, and the use of medical data to improve patient care.
We conceived of Blue Gene to do protein folding. It doesn’t do transactions, but it does do a lot of interesting things, said Zeitler. I believe you’ll see more of that from direct customers, working in collaboration to develop on-demand infrastructure. We are crafting a program for some of these large clients to help them.
