IBM internal sense of crisis, positive to meet the impact

In June 2013, Amazon beat several traditional giants such as IBM, Microsoft, and AT & T and was shocked by the official win of a cloud computing billion-dollar bill worthy of the CIA cloud computing project. The entire industry. In fact, regardless of the final outcome, this dispute represents the impact of Internet companies on traditional IT companies has been spread from the commodity market to the enterprise market.

Recently under the influence of the prism project, IBM's project in China has also been some impact, the recent "IBM is behind, IBM arrogant I do not know the changes of the times" and so heard. However, the fact is that the same sense of crisis within IBM is more pressing than the imagination of the outside world in the field of cloud computing IBM how to deal with positive impact? Titanium media editor of the former editor-in-chief Zhang Qunying analysis article editor recommended as follows:

For months, two claims are very popular.

The first argument is that the old people are screaming that Cisco is getting down on the SDN. The second argument is that old people are crying out that IBM has fallen completely behind in the era of cloud computing. At the beginning I also debated with some people:

1, layoffs are commonly used by Western companies to adjust the strategy, the individual may be cold on the business is a routine;

2, not only the financial status of these two companies is very strong, and technical leadership can not be replaced in the short term;

3, IBM Ye Hao Cisco is also good, indeed facing difficulties, but their direction of the transition clear and clear, even for the big business dragged down a little slow action, management's determination to see;

4, both companies are willing to invest huge sums of money to research long-term market demand, but also willing to invest heavily in research and innovation in the field of basic, long-term development strategy;

5, both companies have had the trough of his heart, which is their precious wealth;

6, there are many successful cases of preemptive, post-defaulters have many success stories.

However, everyone is very stubborn, including me, who can not convince anyone. So now I give up the debate, we all dissent, waiting for future judgments. But I firmly believe that the two companies in the future remains the IT industry leader in philosophy and technology.

IBM, a former dying enterprise, has been deeply caught up in the fear of collapse tomorrow and has experienced the desperation and suffering of the First World War, feeling the bitterness and loneliness of transforming itself through questioning all over the world. From the blossoming of life to the failure of a complete mess, and then to the death of the Phoenix nirvana until the red sky again overlooking the world, how many companies appreciate such a memorable experience of failure can not be copied and suffering history, after time erosion and After settling, it has become an irreducible and valuable survival instinct that permeates IBM's genes and becomes the primary motivation behind its success.

There is no eternity in this world. Everlasting foundations are beautiful dreams. One day IBM will disappear. However, it must not be in this era.

After I talked in depth with Daniel Sabbah, Chief Technology Officer and General Manager of IBM's Next-Gen Platform and several senior executives, I'm more convinced of this.

At the high-level meeting after the first quarter, CEO Luo Ruilan issued solemn warning: "In those areas where we are not moving fast enough, we are in a very difficult situation, and this huge technology company needs to accelerate to new calculations Model transformation to revive. "

This is with the outside world that IBM is on the brink of danger but do not know completely different, IBM is not Kodak nor Nokia. Changes are affecting every aspect of IBM, and the ways in which the company's hardware, software, and services are built are all undergoing radical changes, but IBM, which is too large, is a bit sluggish and clumsy.

For IBM, this is a huge challenge. However, during the long span of a hundred years, the number of rivals who claimed to be subversive ceased to exist in the dust of history, and IBM remained with us. From a historical point of view, at every change In front of the challenge, IBM's response is successful. This time, in the transition to a new computing paradigm, IBM, which chose to post-expire, will prove it again?

I think, yes.

Lost? Not so exaggerated

Cloud computing in 2010 was identified as one of IBM's four major growth areas, CEO Luo Ruilan proposed by 2015 IBM cloud computing revenue reached 70 billion dollars goal.

IBM began to expedite the understanding of the cloud delivery model. On the one hand to achieve the cloud of IBM products, such as PureSystem, PowerCloud, on the other hand to speed up the understanding of the delivery of software and services in the cloud system. In the following year, IBM introduced cloud computing platforms SCE and SCE +. The former is dominated by x86 technology, which combines IBM's Power technology and more software capabilities such as WebSphere.

In the view of IBM, cloud platforms popular on the market such as AWS are standardized and have few customized capabilities. But in fact most companies have many customized capabilities on this basis because of the different workloads in the enterprise environment and their different needs in terms of optimizing performance and expanding the scale. "There is a very popular modular commodity cloud on the market today, but IBM wants to deliver it to the market with high value, customizable clouds," said Daniel Sabbah, CTO and general manager of IBM's Next Generation Platform.

This value seems to be not very close with the market, so IBM has been criticized in the field of cloud computing seldom. Gartner even listed IBM as the most unpopular IaaS provider. This sound is even more rampant after IBM lost a big one.

In 2013 June, a "cloud giants" staged a battle, IBM and Amazon compete for a value of up to 600 million US dollars billboards - the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) cloud computing projects, the lawsuit hit the United States Department of Audit , Alerted the entire industry.

The bidding for the project also included several vendors such as Microsoft and AT & T. The initial result won the Amazon, which is considered the provider of modular commodity clouds. In fact, regardless of the final outcome, this dispute represents the impact of Internet companies on traditional IT companies from the commodity market to the enterprise market.

Relative to the industry as a whole for IBM's exaggerated reaction to the lost bill, Sabbah is very calm,

"Amazon did hit a very good battle, but no business will ever win the list, we did lose this list, but it is just a list of course, we also learned something from this market has just begun, This new era has just begun, with a very vast world, and everyone needs time to learn. "

In his opinion, IBM has learned a lot, his tone indifferent but firm: we have confidence in the cloud to do more, let us wait and see.

The competition between IBM and Amazon is due to the fact that CIA's big orders have drawn much attention, but in fact the two companies are not on the same level at all. From a single point of view, IBM has 25 large data centers and 37,000 cloud computing experts, a figure that exceeds the combined cloud computing experts from other vendors in the market, let alone an Amazon one. IBM knows that most businesses need a hybrid solution that integrates cloud and local data center technologies. In stark contrast to Amazon's patent solution and 60 APIs, IBM offers an open source solution and 2,200 APIs. IBM has deep industry expertise and numerous consultants to help industry customers transform and address industry-specific challenges, and Amazon has only experience in the retail industry. "Think of some of the likes of Blue Giants such as Digital, NEC, Fujitsu, Compaq, AT & T, and more than Amazon." Rob Enderle, Enderle Group president and chief analyst, Masking the faith of IBM in defeating Amaxon.

Just days after the CIA big order, IBM announced the acquisition of SoftLayer, the world's largest privately held cloud computing infrastructure provider, for $ 2 billion.

Some foreign media evaluation of IBM's move on Amazon's sales impact "as if butter with a hot knife the same."

This is IBM a major inflection point in the cloud computing journey, means that IBM in the field of cloud computing learning, adaptation has reached a new height, making IBM have the most complete across the large-scale enterprises, SMEs, enterprise-class cloud computing platform. IBM's original publicly-owned cloud computing platform SCE will be deeply integrated into the SoftLayer platform, combining the security, confidentiality and reliability of IBM's private cloud with the economics and speed of public clouds to bring enterprise-class reliability , Security and management to the public cloud platform. "IBM will take this opportunity to build high-value private cloud, public cloud and hybrid cloud portfolio services and SaaS business solutions," said Erich Clementi, senior vice president of IBM Global Information Technology Services.

In 2012, IBM cloud revenue increased by 80% over the same period last year; IBM cloud business achieved 70% growth in the first three quarters of 2013, with more than one billion US dollars in a single quarter; in the next 18 months, IBM's cloud revenue Expected to reach 7 billion US dollars per year; IBM has more than 5000 private cloud projects worldwide. "With a little bit of calculation, you can see where we are now and how much we have compared to other cloud players." One of IBM's top executives made no secret of pride and pride. The acquisition of SoftLayer, IBM began to accelerate the shift, identified the private cloud, public cloud and solutions "three-pronged" cloud approach.

Many people do not trust IBM's cloud report card. Even the SEC specifically sent to review the transcript. IBM submitted all the information required by the SEC and made its own statement that it was able to withstand the inspection. In China, because cloud computing architecture also pulled "IOE" thing, is considered a landmark event of IBM's decline in the cloud era. However, more people are laughing at it. Cloud this thing, really make the world upside down.

Of course, cloud computing is no doubt as a general trend. However, the cloud race has just begun. At IBM, cloud computing is still at an early inflection point and the value of being a business innovation tool has barely been developed. In the coming years, the focus of cloud computing will be on industry and business transformation. The high value of cloud computing, which has not yet been recognized by the market, will become mainstream in the future.

The impact of the cloud on the world has just begun

Lost a single, was fired uproar; win a single, but can not attract attention. This world is so baffling, the so-called good things do not go out, a bad thing Chuanli it. The CIA 600 million dollar big single event has just ended, another larger super single surfaced, IBM became the United States Department of the Interior premier cloud service provider, in the next 10 years to obtain about 1 billion dollars in revenue. It is said that the characteristics described by IBM SCE + SoftLayer touched the interior. The U.S. Department of the Interior hopes to save 100 million U.S. dollars annually in infrastructure and IT management through cloud computing between 2016 and 2021, which is why the U.S. government is keen on cloud computing.

In fact, this is a realistic portrayal of the current cloud computing market. Although the concept of cloud computing has become mainstream, but the impact on the entire IT world has just begun.

The current focus of cloud computing is mostly focused on transforming data centers to reduce IT costs. But the market is not fully aware that cloud computing is an important force driving business innovation and transformation, not just a change in the way it purchases IT resources, but the potential in this area is almost untapped. In the late 1990s, very few people realized very well the great potential of the web and how it would change the way we live and work. This is the stage that IBM experienced, when it hit the world the "e-commerce" four characters around the laughter. Today, e-commerce is changing our world. In the eyes of IBM, cloud computing is also at an early turning point, and the value of being a business innovation tool has barely been developed.

At the same time, cloud computing is the "hearth" social business, mobile computing and big data analysis of the core link. One of the most important foundations is its openness. OpenStack is rapidly gaining prominence as the most important open architecture in cloud computing. In April 2012, when IBM announced its participation in the OpenStack organization and became a platinum member, Du Yujie, head of the OpenStack China community in Shanghai, China, was very excited to write on Weibo: "IBM's membership will go a long way in promoting this Cloud open source project development.

"We have learned a lesson from IBM in supporting open standards and this time we take the lead again and work with many organizations to set the standard for cloud solutions that make cloud computing safer, more reliable, and easier to work with. This is the gold standard for cloud computing, "said Angel Diaz, vice president, IBM Cloud Computing Lab. As a first step, IBM is offering new private cloud offerings based on OpenStack and other cloud standards and plans to expand those offerings to the IBM public cloud later this year.

In addition to promoting the establishment of an open standard, IBM is also pushing cloud computing to drive high-value mining in business innovation and believes there are two major trends in cloud computing going forward:

The front line business has become the mainstream of enterprise cloud computing consumption, including CMO, CFO, CHRO, etc., their spending on IT will be far greater than the CIO.

The future of enterprise-class cloud computing is not public or proprietary, but rather both must be open: Customers want the privacy, protection and reliability of private clouds, as well as the economics and speed of public clouds.

These two points are also the location of IBM's high-value cloud. "IBM has been constantly doing business judgments, and constantly explore and go to the market to see what things are gradually lower value, what is the emergence of some new high-value things.High-value performance should be knowledge Property rights. This kind of intellectual property can represent knowledge and experience in the minds of adults, can also be expressed as a number of technical forms, such as some comprehensive automated analysis technology or a cognitive artificial intelligence learning system, etc. You go To judge, what turns to low value and what is high value is not an easy task, and many times people find it hard to understand, "Sabbsh said.

According to Gartner's forecast, cloud revenue will exceed 250 billion U.S. dollars by 2015. In contrast, overall IT spending is expected to reach $ 3.7 trillion in 2013, with cloud computing accounting for only 6.8% of overall IT spending. The IBM study found that in 2013, only 60% of enterprises expected to adopt some form of cloud computing, and to achieve a limited range. Therefore, the cloud computing is only in the early inflection point, the market is very broad, there are many things to do, who three to five years after the command cloud world, we must wait and see.

Two worlds, need a bridge

Cusp mouth more than Amazon. I heard that selling millet phone crazy, and I heard Taobao double 11 sales reached a crazy 39 billion. Have to say that Internet companies with a terrible destruction of all the old things, the pressure brought to IBM can be imagined.

"Now the fastest growing market is the Internet, the Internet has cloudized, it does not matter with the lBM, cloud computing has cut into the core areas of finance, telecommunications IBM, the next two years, these customers fully accept the cloud computing is not a problem, these markets turned out to be IBM's expansion market, customers once preclude the use of cloud computing architecture, lBM so the advantages immediately disappear, we must regain a starting line competition, the odds how? Even won, the business value has shrunk dramatically .IBM in emerging markets can not participate in the original Is the commercialization of the core market substantially reduced or even completely lost? "This is a common saying, and this explains why there is" happy go to IOE. "This improvisation has aroused the public's joy. Is IBM brave enough to withstand this" go "?

'Going to IOE' is a market game in itself, very narrow and biased, it gives the market a lot of misleading, unscrupulous companies that blindly follow can not be measured. "Sabbsh's statement, in the eyes of some, is" Cooked duck, "but three financial IT guys from different banks told me that Sabbsh's words were no exaggeration. "Traditional industries are different from the Internet companies in the current internal and external environment. Therefore, in addition to the well-known technical problems of acid level, the scale, division of labor and management system in development, operation and maintenance do not support large-scale scale-out Management confusion and cost out of control ", one of them said.

Yes, no one can deny that the new world brought by the new things such as Internet and cloud is dazzling and full of temptations. However, the existing system is ensuring the smooth operation of the world. The new world that has just arrived is far from maturity, and even if One day is ripe, can all move to the new mode?

In the eyes of IBM, the current world can be seen as three parts: first, the existing world represented by "IOE"; second, the new world that Internet companies talk about; and third, combining the two worlds Bridge. Enterprises will have the confusion: from the technical feasibility to the commercial cost-effective, which business can be transferred to the new model, which must also be done in the existing model? This is more than just a technical issue, but a technology And the combination of business issues.

When companies find Internet service providers, they often fail to get mature advice. They can not tell companies what they want to retain and what they want to change. New internet service providers have explored this new world and may still be growing rapidly. But their lack of knowledge of the existing world, which is not only IT knowledge, more awareness of the business. Of course, there is no limit for young people, who can not underestimate the learning ability of Internet companies, and perhaps they will eventually have a clear understanding of the old world, but before they go this step, they will make a lot of mistakes in the end to the old and the new It is just like IOE who make mistakes in new fields as well.

"They trust IBM, Oracle and EMC because they understand both the old and the new world, and we're not going to be naïve and immature judging so we're in trouble," Sabbsh said.

Indeed, changing the old and new account, the market is the new world coexist with the traditional, business needs a bridge between the old and new world barriers, because the existing mature technology can not afford to throw away. A qualified service provider needs to have a very deep understanding of both worlds in order to help many enterprises to achieve a smooth transition from traditional to new era. IBM has learned this skill in the industrial revolution from generation to generation, understanding the history of the industry and exploring the future brought about by innovation. Its understanding of the past has deepened its understanding of the new era.

"Different workloads need to be done in different paradigms, some fit pretty well with new infrastructure services, others need to stay in the old paradigms, and maybe change years or even decades Of the time, such examples have occurred in the past, too numerous to mention. "After reading the Sabbsh IT blossoms in the past 40 years and IBM, there has not been scrutinized graceful eyes. However, chatting with him, you will be amazed at his understanding and understanding of new things.

He has the veteran gentleman's style, but is not outdated.

One hundred-year-old IBM, also in the classic and popular rhythm efforts. Today's IBM represents more than just hosting, Power, DB2, WebSphere, but also the direction of cloud computing, big data, mobile, social networking and more. Sabbsh said: "We let ourselves assume the task of grafting a bridge between the two worlds, because the customers have placed great hopes on us.The future world is not just one or the other.We not only understand the customer's current situation, but also understand their new needs, We firmly believe that IBM is really eligible to do this thing. "

This reminds me of a statement from Xue Hongjian, deputy general manager of ICT product line at ZTE Corporation. He said: "Those who ridiculed IBM stupid Huangkou children, do not know IBM's profound business computing skills and centuries-old. This is like the new mobile phone manufacturers look down on Qualcomm as ridiculous as business computing is not Google, Facebook, Twitter Nor is Microsoft, Cisco, a massive and rigorous business model and operating system built on science, technology and engineering that underpins the core business of keeping governments and businesses running. "Those words are about IBM's ability A vivid exposition, let me have a new understanding of the core of business computing, but also reminds me of a few days ago saw two messages (one is that IBM will open Watson cognitive computing platform API, the other is IBM When I was working with four universities such as MIT to create a human brain-like computer, I wrote a few words in my notebook: Time could overwhelm the hills, but it could not be overwhelmed. Maybe performance was not good enough. It might be difficult, however. Whether it is commercial computing or cutting-edge research areas, who can surpass the blue peak?

A broader future than the cloud

In our understanding, IBM's current CEO Luo Rui-lan in "business" and deliberately pleasing Wall Street. In particular, after the layoffs of 8,000 people in the world were launched in June of this year, some of the departing employees thought that she had transformed IBM from a humanized enterprise into a short-sighted and profitable enterprise that only knew profit-seeking. However, those executives who are close to her feel that, compared with the previous CEO Palmisano, Luo Ruilan more emphasis on corporate innovation. She asks the entire executive team to understand a broad range of markets and then make technical and business innovations for those markets and persevere in driving the whole company forward - driven by a profitable hundred-year-old company The difficulty of continuous innovation can be imagined. She only uses a balanced strategy: she needs to be accountable for short-term interests and needs a faster transition to have a broader future.

Many times, compromise is the first step forward, from this perspective, Luo Ruilan indeed wise.

Each innovation requires that every business think in new ways and ways to re-think how to operate the market, how to show the core values ​​and the technological changes behind. In response, Sabbah, who has been with IBM for almost 40 years, is especially touched by the fact that he said:

"Every step of success is not easy, not overnight, we are constantly adjusting, filled with many setbacks in the middle of each of my participation in technology innovation and business model changes, we have gone through this cycle of development, Has made progress.Every company has experienced ups and downs, it is important to understand the core competitiveness of enterprises where, and ultimately put this core competitiveness into the new field of the market.IBM has been doing this.We The reason why we have been able to successfully go through so many changes and transformations is that we finally learned how to match the core competencies of enterprises with the needs of new markets and technological changes. "

The Centennial Foundation, derived from IBM's in-depth reflection of new directions and inventions in the core technology space, has given IBM a farther look. "Cloud computing is a mechanism, but not the only mechanism we use, such as how to understand the shift in hardware, as we understand the shift in service, how to treat software packaging, pricing, to market this series of operations So the idea of ​​a Next-Gen platform from IBM has a lot to do with cloud computing, but the next-generation platform is more than just this, but involves a few other changes that are equally important in the long run. Seeing is the future development, we are constantly exploring and judging, "Sabbah said.

In the tide of cloud computing, IBM has come a long way to learning, correcting and loading over the thicknesses of the world outlook and values ​​that have lasted for centuries, and the power it implies may exceed universal understanding and Imagination. The transition to a new computing paradigm may be as difficult as that of the transition from the late 1993s to the deadly market forces that will not give sympathy to the infirm, and IBM must win a fourth transition to a radically new The world proves yourself.