Stuttgart, Germany, February 24, 2003 - Under the heading 'discover the on demand era' IBM is featuring at this year's CeBIT an entire range of solutions, technologies and innovations for the next stage in the e-business age. It is characterized by a change in the way that technologies are used. "In a global world economy, companies can only hold their own in the market if they can react fast and flexibly ? with variable cost structures, concentration on core competences and 100% availability," says Walter Raizner, Country General Manager of IBM Deutschland GmbH. On demand means flexible and variable utilization of IT resources. What is more, he adds, there will be a fundamental change in business processes. On 4,500 square meters, IBM will document in Hannover how it is accompanying this change with a new and dynamic IT infrastructure. Scenarios for Autonomic and Grid Computing as the basis for the new business model illustrate that e-business on demand is already a reality. IBM is presenting the latest results from its research and development centers in the Innovation Zone in Hall 1.
Swift reactions to the market, services around the clock, variable instead of fixed costs ? decision-makers in all industries, in educational facilities, in the public sector and at other institutions are engaged in a quest for ways to make their organizations faster and more flexible. Customers are no longer prepared to invest in lengthy and expensive IT projects. What they want are ready-for-use solutions - products and services that can be called down as required and without delay.
"Much more is involved than IT from the wall socket," says Raizner. "Customers are headed for a new business model combined with a totally new approach on how to utilize information technology. The new possibilities - and that is the most convincing argument of all - will make a decisive contribution toward restructuring business processes." Firms used just to be on the Net. Now they are part of it. Promising on-demand business models call for end-to-end integration of business processes - throughout the company and along the value-added chain with partners, suppliers and customers. "Enterprises, especially SMEs, can in this way respond more flexibly to the ever faster pace of market requirements," Raizner says. Take the financial sector, for example. A bank can check credit and tax data immediately and make a loan offer. Processing times can be reduced markedly in this way, cutting costs by 50%. Take the automotive industry, for example. Inventory control can be managed much more efficiently and brought into line with the high standards achieved in production.
The IT industry is undergoing a change from product orientation toward process-oriented, integrated consulting. On demand technology must support new business processes seamlessly. That presupposes an IT infrastructure which fulfills the following conditions. It must be integrated, based on open standards, virtualized across disparate systems, and be largely self-managing.
Raizner sees IBM as ideally equipped for the on demand era: "We have many years of experience as an end-to-end corporate solution provider, have strengthened our service business and industry know-how enormously by acquiring PwC Consulting, and reinforce our commitment to technology leadership by investing around $5 billion a year."
Flexible computer power
Sound business models are a mainstay of the next, on demand phase of e-business, and innovative technologies such as Grid Computing (distributed computing over the Internet using open standards) and Autonomic Computing (automation of IT maintenance and operation) are the platforms on which e-business on demand is taking shape. Development of the appropriate technologies has long been a part of IBM's strategy and pervades its entire product and service portfolio.
Grid Computing means networking a large number of different computers over the Internet using tools based on open standards. It will make the Next Generation Internet a gigantic, virtual supercomputer with computing resources, applications and storage capacities that are as easy to access and as readily available as electricity is today. Companies will in the future be able to meet peak demand in this way, fulfilling immediately their need for more resources.
IBM is demonstrating at CeBIT with a grid node how to set up an open and integrated infrastructure by using grid computing to improve resource utilization in heterogeneous computer networks. The scenario will show how virtual Linux servers form a grid infrastructure jointly with other IBM platforms. An example from the biosciences will illustrate synergy of Web services and grid technologies.
Computer systems that administer themselves
Two thirds of investment in IT systems is spent on infrastructure maintenance. In Autonomic Computing, IBM offers computer systems that increasingly diagnose, configure, optimize and protect themselves. Computers will thereby take over much of their administration autonomously, easing the burden of increasingly routine tasks on IT employees. In the process, Autonomic Computing makes use of a concept that is to be found everywhere in nature, such as in the human circulation. At CeBIT, this approach will be visualized by means of examples taken from the field of biology.
The workplace of the future
With its Dynamic Workplace concept, IBM will be showing how integrated and flexible communication and information make new work processes possible. It stands for a new portal environment in which the desktop is largely superseded by the browser. Employees can call down from their browser all the company's information, applications and intranet content. The benefits are that all workplace-relevant information is bundled in advance according to the different roles and tasks in the enterprise and that access to it is gained by means of a single log-on. That makes handling large quantities of information simpler and reduces sharply the complexity of day-to-day business. In-house productivity and innovative power register sustained growth, and business processes speed up significantly.
IBM has implemented successfully since 1998 the principle on which this flexible working environment is based. Holding Web meetings in Dynamic Workplaces alone has saved around $50 million. A number of innovative companies in Germany, with the emphasis on the financial, automotive and manufacturing industries, is in the process of introducing Dynamic Workplaces. At CeBIT, for example, the development of an information-oriented employee portal at Audi to support work processes will be on show.
Innovations for people tomorrow
With around 3,300 patents applied for in 2002, IBM is one of the industry's largest think tanks. At CeBIT this year, it will once more be presenting technologies that demonstrate today what will be possible tomorrow.
Blue Space is IBM's concept for the office of the future. Well thought out right down to the smallest detail, all the new office concept's technologies and equipment are interactive and can be geared to the individual user's personal needs. The office's technical highlight is the Everywhere Display that can project a screen's user content undistorted anywhere in the room, on the wall, the desk, the floor, no matter where. Using new technologies the projected image can be used in much the same way as a touchscreen.
The Heart Rate Monitor is a prototype that in an emergency will send an automatic message to a mobile phone. This small, lightweight device is worn on the body. If the wearer's heart rate reaches a level that is rated as risky, a wireless emergency signal is sent by IBM Bluetooth to an SMS-enabled mobile phone such as the physician's. The Heart Rate Monitor is the first wireless device of its kind to work on the Net. It is a development that is ideal for athletes and heart patients.
IBM Mastor (Multilingual Automatic Speech-to-speech Translator) is a universal translation system that combines for the first time speech recognition, machine translation and speech output. The speech-to-speech translation demo will show in English and Mandarin Chinese how people can converse in real time despite language barriers.
An audiovisual speech recognition prototype will demonstrate how conventional speech recognition can be optimized by means of visual data such as lip movement analysis. It enables maximum recognition accuracy to be achieved even with background noise, slurred speech or the like. This technology will be of crucial importance especially for the future intuitive handling of machinery by spoken instructions.
IBM at CeBIT 2003
'Discover the on demand era' is the motto of IBM's presentation at CeBIT from March 12 to 19, 2003. It reflects IBM's realignment toward providing a new, dynamic IT infrastructure characterized by performance, flexibili-ty and simplicity. At the main booth in Hall 1 (Stand 4G2, 5D2, 4G1), IBM is featuring examples and demo points from the hardware, software, services and research sectors on an area of around 2,000 square meters. You'll find the IBM Careers Meeting Point at Stand 4G2 too. At the IBM PartnerWorld in Hall 4 (Stand A12, A04) over 100 leading IBM business partners are represented on more than 2,400 square meters with partner solutions for a wide range of industries. In Hall 6, Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) is on show. Further information and pictures are available from the Internet pressroom at www.ibm.com/de/pressroom/cebit2003
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Etta Pouw
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