Business Value
IBM spelled out three areas where integrated service management can provide businesses notable value, in industry, design and delivery, and for the datacenter. For industries this means industry-unique architectures and capabilities for integrated management of the technology infrastructure, including IT. This may be general, such as energy optimization and energy management, but is more likely to be a vertical industry or market focused, as in offerings designed for the specific needs of government, healthcare, and retail organizations.
Everything associated with the design, delivery and management of software engineered into intelligent devices and services. That gets into areas and markets typically not deeply associated with IT, such as power and water utilities. However, a number of IBM products and services, including Rational, Tivoli, and WebSphere integrations should provide the company entry in these areas. Moreover, IBM views cloud computing as elemental to the design and delivery of these services.
For the datacenter, IBM views data centers as providing the brains for the Smarter Planet so its efforts here are about delivering expertise and capabilities for improving the efficiency, for which the hoped for result is "cost containment" instead of "cost reduction" of IT operations and the effectiveness of IT-delivered and managed business services. This also describes the intersection of Smarter Planet and next-generation data center processes, in which Tivoli has a wealth of products.
As an illustration, the Web has been moving through stages starting with content and on to commerce, then people-focused and "things"-focused. That does not mean that the first three areas of focus will be diminished in importance in any way--in fact, the opposite is true--but it means that things will take their place as part of what needs to be managed. Interconnectivity will continue to grow with the addition of things to the network, but that also requires instrumentation, so that things can collect data, and intelligence, so things can understand what the data means and act on it. And each of the three areas discussed above plays a key role.
While understanding the big picture is important, most Pulse2010 attendees needed to turn their attention to more focused tasks, such as to how particular products could be best used in their environment. Consequently, the majority of time allocated for the conference was devoted to a wide range technical tracks and breakout sessions. That was augmented by an "Ask the Experts" area where participants could ask questions not addressed in the technical sessions.
