‘We strive to Differentiate and Change Business Rules’

IBM's Alistair Rennie elaborates on the company's new social business solution and how it enables organizations to become more ‘globally integrated'

Tell us about ‘connections'.
Today, we are moving out of conventional ways of working and the next phase of work will be on social platform with your employees and clients. IBM invested in social media to develop a product called ‘Connections' in 2007 and has been steadily investing in it. ‘Connections' allows real-time sharing, and one of the tools within this is rich profiles, which goes beyond names and designations. With this, organizations are now more empowered as it helps them to execute more quickly by using dynamic networks of co-workers, partners, and customers. IBM works with its customers towards great business purpose, not just to collaborate but also to transform into a Globally Integrated Enterprise, and strives to differentiate and change business rules.
How is IBM Connections different?
For an enterprise, integrating with other systems is important. Connections has APIs to connect with the social world. Customers using SAP, Oracle Financials can connect with customers on different levels through Connections. Also, sensitive work of clients can be done in a private setting. From a security perspective, regulated industries like finance and banking cannot risk public settings and unknown connections. Keeping this in mind, IBM's security element has been built. The technology allows more and more global access to all devices and platforms. The most important is the business analytics that is available to customers.
How much time does it take to implement?
Once the business problems are identified it takes a couple of months to get started. With Pure Systems, the implementation time will get shorter.
What is going to be the biggest challenge for organizations to work on a social platform?
Technology is not complicated, but the real problem is in adoption. This type of working will be a cultural shift for many organizations. So, the challenge will be in adapting to such a platform.
What's going to be the biggest gain for customers intending to embed social in their business?
The value in terms of investments would pay for itself in a matter of months and at times, a couple of years. The key is capability and speed.
How would Pure Systems help users who have already invested in virtualization and other solutions?
In virtualization, you still need to do the infrastructure management and configuration. Pure Systems takes that in and pushes it to the next level as it takes care of all the configuration, the management, and the settings among others. You might have image of db2, websphere but what you want is an optimized system for high scale client access. We can bring it all together in Pure Systems.
How do you visualize the future of IT infrastructure?
People are looking for app patterns for highly sophisticated systems, integrated content management, access control, and mobility. So, the pressure on highly sophisticated systems is going to increase. In the future, we are going to see more and more focus on capability, and a consistent set of deployment options based on the different trade-offs that clients are looking for.