Marc Dietz, Director, IBM SmartCloud Solutions
By Marc Dietz
Traditionally relegated to back office IT managers reporting to the CIO, enterprise technology decisions are often made by a small subset of employees – generally not by executives closest to the business.
But cloud computing is changing all that.
Executives across the C-Suite are recognizing that they must reorient their businesses to become more competitive in a digital economy. This comes with a deeper understanding of how mobile and social technologies are reshaping the way people consume, disseminate and share information, and how the data generated from these applications is helping businesses transform their organizations and personalize their interactions with customers. New technologies – such as cloud computing – hold a new promise to open up powerful new lines of engagement.
But what truly excites these executives about cloud? Continue Reading »
Jessica Carroll, Managing Director, Information & Digital Technologies, USGA
By Jessica Carroll
A nimble, dynamic infrastructure, with round-the-clock support, and an environment where you can deliver on your customer’s needs faster. This is what the smart CIO wants. The cloud promises all of these advantages (and more), but does it come through on the promise?
At the USGA we’re a case study in action. As a non-profit organization, our focus is not on technology or sales. It is on serving the game of golf and the growing universe of people who play the game or want to learn more about it. The cloud enables us to support this mission by focusing technology on these growth areas, rather than legacy IT utility services.
There’s no better place to see this than on usopen.com, the USGA’s online destination for the U.S. Open, golf’s national championship. With over 6 million visitors, over 83 million pageviews, and 1.3 million video streams across all platforms in one week alone, the infrastructure to serve up a high performing website is a brilliant case for using the elastic cloud. As we consider the hardware, bandwidth and manpower required to support this volume for one week of the year it’s obvious that the investment needed could not possibly make long-term sense for us. Continue Reading »
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Steve Hamm, IBM Writer
By Steve Hamm
In the coming era of cognitive systems, fundamental changes will be required at each level of technology–from nanotechnology to the software programming layer. These shifts will require remarkable feats of science and engineering. Yet it’s possible that even greater challenges will come as we go about harnessing the new technical capabilities and using them to solve the world’s most challenging problems. So it will be essential for tech companies like IBM to form deep collaborative partnerships with organizations that possess domain expertise, including those in health care, financial services, media and government.
This was one of the messages delivered by John E. Kelly III when he spoke last evening at the Computer History Museum in Silicon Valley. Kelly was interviewed by John Hollar, the museum’s president, in the institution’s Revolutionaries speakers’ series. Just minutes earlier, the two had participated in a photo-op in the museum’s new IBM Watson exhibit. IBM has donated the stage set it built for the Jeopardy TV quiz show, where Watson in 2011 defeated two past grand-champions.
Patty Fritz, Vice President, Corporate Affairs and Operational Excellence, UCB
By Patty Fritz
Despite afflicting 65 million people worldwide, including nearly 3 million Americans, epilepsy remains one of the least understood and most individualized chronic conditions. A recent special issue of the medical journal, The Lancet, highlighted the significant unmet medical needs in epilepsy and called on public health officials to treat this disease as a global health priority.
To address this pressing public health issue, global biopharmaceutical company UCB and IBM have announced phase one completion of a proof of concept project that will use Big Data and advanced analytics to potentially offer more personalized care to millions of people living with epilepsy.
Currently, a team of IBM researchers is poring through de-identified, anonymous data on more than 1.5 million U.S.-based epilepsy patients – approximately half those affected by the condition in our country – using machine learning tools and patient similarity analysis. The goal of the project is to demonstrate that an interactive system can be developed that translates massive amounts of patient data and scientific insights that healthcare providers can consult at the point of care to inform their treatment decisions. Continue Reading »
By Michael Karasick
Michael Karasick, Vice President and Director, IBM Research-Almaden
The world is on the cusp of a new era of computing, which we call the era of cognitive systems. New computer technologies are coming that will help people and organizations penetrate complexity and make better decisions. At IBM, we believe that this coming revolution in artificial intelligence has the potential to transform the way business is done and dramatically accelerate innovation. Cognitive systems will enable humans and machines to interact together and achieve things that neither could do on their own.
The victory of IBM’s Watson on the TV game show Jeopardy! was one of the milestones in this new phase of computing. Scientists at IBM and elsewhere are pushing the boundaries of science and technology fields ranging from neural networks to machine learning to create machines that sense, learn, reason and interact with people in new ways.
(IBM Research Director John Kelly is speaking about the future of computing today at 7 p.m. Pacific Time at the Computer History Museum in Silicon Valley. His book about the new era, Smart Machines: IBM’s Watson and the Era of Cognitive Computing , will be published in the fall by Columbia University Press. To read a free chapter now, go to the Columbia University Press web site.
Craig Sowell, Vice President, IBM SmartCloud
By Craig Sowell
With all the hype around cloud computing you’d be forgiven for thinking that it’s reached saturation. The truth is, for enterprises, it’s just beginning to take hold.
Industry watchers tell us that public cloud services will reach $131 billion in 2013. By comparison, this year enterprise IT spending will reach $3.7 trillion. In other words, we’ve barely scratched the surface.
On Tuesday, IBM, already one of the world’s largest cloud computing vendors, announced an agreement to acquire SoftLayer, the world’s largest privately held cloud infrastructure provider.
The acquisition is intended to speed IBM’s ongoing focus the Fortune 500, which have yet to capitalize on cloud computing, as well as expand our reach to new clients including born-on-the-web companies. Continue Reading »
Jane Munn, Vice President and Business Line Executive, Cloud, IBM Systems & Technology Group
By Jane Munn
When mapping out a cloud infrastructure, one of the first things that becomes clear is the bifurcation between low-end, commoditized products and enterprise-class solutions.
But even within that second category, a quick look under the covers of certain solutions often shows a patchwork of proprietary products that lack integration and optimization – a little server virtualization here, some specialized apps there, and a little “something-as-a-service” somewhere else – with no real thought to the enterprise as a whole.
For clients to gain the full advantages of this technology, a strategic cloud solution should include virtualization, standardization and provisioning for efficiency, cost-effectiveness, ease of management and fast deployment. Just as important, that solution should cover software, servers and storage, with deep roots in open standards, to ensure that clients can take advantage of cloud’s benefits today while beating a path to the future. Continue Reading »
Thomas Erickson, Social Scientist, IBM Research
By Thomas Erickson
What do we mean by “smarter?” Most of us have technology in mind. Sensors gather data, networks aggregate it, analytics process it, and the result is that systems are able to act more efficiently. Traffic flows more smoothly. Energy is distributed more effectively. Healthcare is delivered more economically.
I have a different view of “smarter.” In my view, people can enhance digital smartness. Just as sensors can gather information, so can people. Just as digital systems can analyze data, so can people. Just as control systems can act in the world, so can people. Because people do these things very differently from the way digital systems do them, it means they can add layers of value, interpretation and innovation. “Smarter,” in my opinion, means human intelligence and digital smartness working together, in a complementary fashion
Just as advanced technology has enabled digital smartness, it has also enabled what I call social intelligence. Continue Reading »
Elizabeth O’Brien, Worldwide Sponsorship Strategy, IBM
By Elizabeth O’Brien
Big Data is a term we hear a lot about in the business world. But these days, thanks to the insatiable hunger for player, team and league stats and analysis, it’s also becoming widely used in the world of sports.
In tennis, for example, Big Data includes tournament, match and player stats, things like serve speeds, rally counts, winners and aces. But more important than what Big Data includes, is how it is used to enhance and, in many ways, transform how we experience and enjoy the sport of tennis.
This week marks the 28th year of IBM’s partnership with the French Tennis Federation in support of Roland Garros (also known as the French Open). IBM brings a suite of solutions to Roland Garros, all centered on real time and historic Grand Slam data. We capture, analyze, secure, store and distribute the data—in fact Big Data is the heart of our collaboration with the FFT. Continue Reading »
Les Rechan, General Manager, IBM Business Analytics
By Les Rechan
Corporate finance is often thought of as the central support system of an organization. It is key to ensuring that the organization not only survives, but thrives. While the core function of the CFO has remained consistent, the responsibilities and approaches of the position are rapidly evolving.
Over the next five years, the role of the CFO will continue to transform under the influence of analytics. As the primary guardians of information across all lines of business, CFOs can and should foster an analytics culture to support fact-based decision making.
Some CFOs are already ahead of the pack, applying analytics to their data to uncover hidden pockets of profitability. As data continues to grow, those CFOs who uniquely capitalize on it can proactively set leading business strategies. In fact, Gartner predicts that the amount of data stored by enterprises will grow 650 percent by 2018. Continue Reading »
