In a world of big data, increasing complexity and social everything, only the most perceptive will survive, reckons IBM, which is why it's pinning its future on the powers of cognitive insight.
Speaking at the company's annual PartnerWorld leadership conference, in New Orleans last week, Mike Rhodin, senior VP of the software solutions group, outlined the major new markets IBM aims to help shape and pursue as “a new era of computing changes the IT landscape”.
The company's concept of smarter computing - born in 2008 amid a turbulent global environment that marked the death of the PC era - has grown beyond a mere corporate catch-phrase, argued Rhodin. It had become a broader approach extending across industries, and one IBM is investing considerable financial and R&D resources into.
It's also an idea underpinning its major emerging market domains, all of which incorporate the more efficient use of data for intelligent decision-making on the fly.
1. Business analytics and optimisation
A long-standing focus area for IBM, analytics remains a key market, particularly the move from reaction to prediction, as smarter programs enable companies to not only respond to events as they're happening, but prevent them from occurring altogether. This includes the instrumentation of the physical and virtual worlds to create data streams that can be aggregated and analysed for deeper insights, to drive better business outcomes, said Rhodin. Identifying repeatable patterns means processes can be automated and makes it possible to digest and act on the vast amounts of complex information that have become far too extensive for humans to manage.
2. Smarter cities
IBM has been hard at work pushing its Smarter Cities platform, an extension of the analytics portfolio and indicative of broader social and economic realities. With an increasing percentage of the population in developing countries moving into urban areas, demands on the world's major cities are growing substantially. IBM's description of cities as a “system of systems” demonstrates the possibilities available, with everything from basic services like water and energy, to transport and security offering opportunities for more efficient information management. Couple this with the focus on citizen engagement via social media, and IDC's prediction that global investment in smart city technologies will rise to $40.9 billion this year doesn't seem far off. “We see the same pattern of interconnecting data and making it visible, whether it's in the enterprise or sensors on a manhole cover. This pattern is going to repeat itself in every single solution space going forward,” said Rhodin.
3. Smarter commerce
4. Social business
Social networking has continued its creep into the corporate world, blurring the lines between personal and commercial spheres. The field of social business now accounts for 22% of all time spent online, said Rhodin, adding that for the first time people are spending more time on social networks than on porn sites. What this means for business is that a solid ROI case can be made for social media activities. According to a survey by research firm Yankelovich, 75% of consumers believe companies don't tell truth in ads, while 78% trust peer recommendations, according to Nielsen. “You have to be part of the community, you can't just show up and start pushing stuff at people,” said Rhodin, noting that companies have to move to an influence sell rather than a direct sell. “Powerful new forces are compelling clients to rethink how they connect and collaborate,” he said, and the way companies connect social networking to business processes is a key emerging market for IBM.
5. Watson solutions
Last year, IBM's AI creation Watson made headlines when it took on human geniuses at the trivia game Jeopardy. But, while this proved an entertaining publicity stunt, it is Watson's enterprise applications that could prove far more game-changing. Rhodin said Watson technologies mark the shift from an era of deterministic computing to probabilistic computing, and are enabling next-generation solutions in the field of enterprise content management. The potential to understand natural language use, learn when it makes mistakes, and generate hypotheses - such as in the medical field - means Watson technologies could have major impacts not only in business, but practically every other area where society engages with computers. It's a virtually inexhaustible market, which IBM will no doubt carry on exploring as long as this 'new era of computing' lasts.
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