Cloud computing and IBM
IBM (International Business Machine) is a New York-headquartered computing infrastructure manufacturer and seller, which also has interests in information technology consulting.
Founded in 1889 and incorporated in 1911, HP is also one of the oldest information technology companies and one of the very few companies that have managed to continuously hold dominant position in their industry for such a lengthy period of time.
In the year 2008, IBM got a revenue totaling $103 Billion, earning a net income of $12 Billion in the process.
The company’s 398,000 employees help make it the biggest employer in the information technology field.
IBM’s Products
IBM’s product range encompasses all computing infrastructure—from computer hardware to computer software and consultancy.
IBM’s hardware includes personal computers, minicomputers and computer peripherals like printers and plotters, data storage equipment, modems, power supply units and more.
IBM’s software includes an operating system, programming language compilers and a host of popular applications software.
IBM also develops and sells a range of what are called middleware for the ‘WebSphere,’ which range from a transaction gateway to a large scale relational database management system, a virtualization engine, a workplace web content management system and more. The company was the second biggest software company in the world as of 2007.
Cloud Computing at IBM
IBM was one of the first companies to see the potential for cloud computing, and has been one of the key companies supporting the concept of cloud computing from the very beginning.
In this respect, IBM has developed what is marketed as a dynamic infrastructure, within which cloud computing becomes a possibility.
Some would argue that IBM’s enthusiasm for the cloud is out of self-interest—seeing that IBM has been focusing its energies on the type of infrastructure that would be needed to make the cloud possible—since its near-ouster from personal computing several years ago.
Even though IBM remains a hugely successful operation today, there is a huge possibility that the cloud could lift the company to even higher levels of prosperity.
In a SWOT analysis, and as things stand now, one would be tempted to see cloud computing as more of an opportunity to IBM, and a threat to its competitors who have put almost all their energies—and indeed thrived—on producing small, powerful computers, whose demand would surely be hurt by the cloud at its maturity.
Of course, the cloud is not such a clear cut opportunity to IBM (one in which it has so much advantage over its competitors,) because the shift into the cloud is bound to be a gradual one, giving IBM’s competitors the time they need to develop key products to confront the unique requirements of the cloud.
The Future of Cloud Computing at IBM
IBM’s recent launch of a formal Cloud Computing division shows just how seriously the company is taking the whole cloud computing thing.
Likewise, the position of the director to the cloud computing division at IBM (in the pecking order of the company’s huge hierarchy) also shows just how far IBM seems to be going with their cloud computing plans—given that the director of the Cloud Computing division is supposed to be directly answerable to the company’s topmost brass.
Meanwhile, most of the existing clouds are built on IBM-supplied infrastructure—either in the form hardware components or so-called midware. IBM recently announced the release of systems software for Amazon’s Elastic Compute Cloud, which (based on the number of people signing up) is showing signs of how high the cloud is likely to take us in the future.
As things stand now, IBM seems to have a clear head start over their competitors, when it comes to cloud computing. Whether or not that head start will translate into actual success when the cloud matures is question that is yet to be answered—as IBM also had a head start in personal computing, but others (who came in much later) still managed to effective hedge them out of their most dominant position.
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