IBM: Sporting A New Look

Project eLiza and Blue Velocity are buzzwords that are doing
rounds among the top echelons of IBM today. Big Blue advocates that the two can
transform the way organizations do business. Most organizations today have
"islands of Web applications" and are still at the first stage of
e-business. For instance, there are e-commerce sites that support online
shopping, customer self-service applications or e-procurement services. Each of
these areas is dedicated to a single application and is not a part of an
integrated business process.

While standalone implementations could mean lower network
costs, there are a number of benefits that can be achieved by tying all
applications together. This would lead to integration, which is the second stage
in e-business. Says Randy Walker, GM, business innovation services, "The
second phase in e-business is just beginning to take off. Businesses are
investing in innovative projects that can deliver near-term payoffs."

Lessons for Big Blue

As businesses start innovating to create better business
models, they would have to go for business process re-engineering, which needs
disciplined implementation. This would lead to the third stage in the evolution
of e-business, with new paradigms and business models. This stage of e-business
is based on business processes without technological and organizational
boundaries. This is unlike the past, where systems were largely created by just
automating manual processes, which still worked under the constraints of
existing organizational structures and physical boundaries.

As Internet and e-business technologies bring about more
flexibility in the working of businesses, it creates many new opportunities for
solution providers. IBM wants to cash in on these emerging opportunities in the
areas of integration and infrastructure for e-business, with Project eLiza and
Blue Velocity.

The company is going all out to keep up with changing times
and does not want to repeat the mistakes it has made in the past. When the rest
of the world was making pots of money on desktops and servers, IBM had made the
mistake of clinging on to its mainframes a little longer than desired. The
company has now learnt its lessons. So, now there is a fresh new approach to
branding, with focus on new projects in e-business.

So, what’s new?

Going a little deeper into what IBM is advocating, one finds
that Big Blue is offering old wine in a new bottle. This is not to say that
there is nothing new in Project eLiza and Blue Velocity. It is also true that
IBM has been doing a lot of research on various technologies and has been
constantly upgrading its products. Project eLiza, for instance, revolves around
the philosophy of self-managing, self-diagnosing and self-healing servers, that
will contribute towards e-business infrastructure.

However, the fact remains that iSeries is the new name for
the erstwhile AS 400 servers! Also, the major goal of project eLiza is to
"spread mainframe-like management qualities along with new advances
throughout the IBM eServer, storage and software families." Now, if this is
not old wine in new bottles, then what is?

Perhaps IBM finds it convenient to follow this roadmap at
this particular juncture. After the bursting of the dot-com bubble,
organizations have become skeptical about e-business. To overcome this
skepticism, IBM is offering Project eLiza as the panacea for all the information
needs of enterprises going in for the Internet as a business tool.

Time to step up

At a time when technology is growing ever more rapidly and,
at the same time, getting highly complex, IBM’s move is timely. The objective
of Project eLiza, to have self-diagnosing and self-healing systems, could very
well match the expectations of large corporations. Moreover, the credibility and
reputation of IBM in delivering high-complexity systems remains undisputed. But
the time has come for IBM’s research labs to go a step further. It has to now
deliver heterogeneous workload management systems to keep up with the times.

To make self-managing systems a reality, Big Blue is taking
help from a research project called Oceano, which looks at scalable cluster
management. Oceano is an integrated, parallel system that monitors everything
from compute and network resource use to application workload and database
performance, and automatically allocates compute resources to various workloads.
Self-management is the goal in other areas as well. In the area of distributed
server management, IBM wants to establish wireless management of anything from
anywhere.

Dynamic e-business

By now, IBM has become famous for its advocacy of open
standards in general and its huge investments in developing Linux, in
particular. Says CJ Martin, senior middleware manager, Asia-Pacific, IBM
Software Group, "Non-proprietary software standards create integrated
business processes that allow for dynamic e-business."

While the early stages of e-business depended on
browser-based access to relatively static information and person-to-system
interaction, currently IBM is working on intelligent Web transactions to create
integrated and dynamic systems.

Emphasizing the need for wireless technology at this stage,
Terry Hopkins, director, wireless e-business solutions, says only a scaleable,
flexible and secure wireless technology would put e-business infrastructure on a
sound footing. Wireless e-business is the next phase in the e-business continuum
where IBM wants to play a major role by trying to establish a common
infrastructure that supports access to data from any device, anywhere.

Adding velocity

Along with Project eLiza, IBM Net Generation Business group
has come up with Blue Velocity, another new initiative. Based on a four-pronged
approach–programs, partnerships, people and offering –it is also targeted at
Internet companies and service providers. Says Timothy Wong, director, IBM
NetGen Business, Asia Pacific, "There is added pressure on the Internet
companies to focus on their core competencies to translate their promises into
profitability. Blue Velocity is meant to turn infrastructure investments into
increased revenues and sustainable growth."

Under Blue Velocity, IBM’s ASP Prime initiative is being
enhanced to ASP Prime Online. Under this program, developers and independent
software vendors would be provided education, application evaluation, technical
support and consulting services on the Web. With the launch of this new
initiative, IBM has added Bangalore to its NetGen City model, while Delhi is
already a part of it. The NetGen city concept has been developed to allow faster
and easier access to IBM.

Project eLiza and Blue Velocity are meant to provide a new
momentum to IBM’s strategies on e-business. With a mix of old and new in
Project eLiza, IBM is sure to continue its market dominance in providing
e-business infrastructure to enterprises.

SYLVESTER LOBO in Kuala
Lumpur