By introducing the “IBM Cloud Service Provider Platform”, Big Blue signals that it “gets it” when it comes to competing for its rightful share of enterprise spending on the amorphous idea of “cloud computing. As described here, Big Blue’s first step in establishing primacy in the “cloud services” business it to provide telephone companies around the world with a combination of hardware, software and services designed for them to offer a broad array of “infrastructure as a service.”

At base, IBM is taking a pragmatic, “feet-on-the-ground; head-in-the-clouds” approach that has its roots in the idea of “the Service Grid” which I first saw described in depth by John Hagel (then at McKinsey) in his 2002 book, “Out of The Box: Strategies for Achieving Profits Today and Growth Tomorrow Through Web Services.” While this idea may be orthogonal to the idea of “cloud computing,” Hagel uses the beginning of the book to describe a layer of functionality that’s required to solve key problems surrounding security, reliability, transaction integrity, billing and orchestration of functions. These are the proven strengths of global telecom carriers.

In this era when phone companies are most fearful of becoming “fat, dumb pipes”, IBM proposes to provide them with ready-made resources to make their living through the care and feeding of a highly-reliable service grid in support of better Web services (which, in many cases is left up to third-parties who will take advantage of maturing standards, API’s and “ontologies” to create better mechanisms for intra- and inter-enterprise communications and commerce). This approach is very consistent with IBM’s own efforts to support instantiations of its products and services as hardware, software or “hybrid” offerings. IBM is careful not to obsolete, commoditize or cannibalize its current product and service mix. Yet it will continue to make its living by creating bigger opportunities for its customers, partners and technology providers to bring their own solutions to market.

Big Blue is taking the calculated risk that those solutions will incorporate a sufficient share of IBM branded SKUs. In the true spirit of RC (Recombinant Communications) IBM will provide the genetic material that comprise forward-looking solutions and let the specialists splice them into made-to-order solutions. The product lines span hardware (from appliances to super-mainframes), software (which has been moving steadily away from “brands” like Lotus, Tivoli or Rational and toward WebSphere branded middleware that supports the services oriented architectures (SOAs) that make cloud-computing and Web services possible and professional services, from the likes of IBM Global Services.

The largest telephone companies are the target customers for IBM’s platform, but this marketing initiative creates a whole new “ecosystem” of entrepreneurial firms poised to play their wares as part of a broader service grid. Mentioned in the product launch are the likes of Broadsoft, Corent Technology, deCarta, Jamcracker, Juniper Networks, NetApp, Openet, RightScale and Wavemaker. IBM has been a major investor in many of these platform providers. Big Blue also expects a broader range of application, technology and infrastructure providers to join the ecosystem as the demand for new features and functions are made manifest.

Pilot projects have already been launched by Orange Business Systems in Western Europe, as well as Shanghai Telecom and SK Telecom along the Pacific Rim.

Categories: Articles

Tags: Cloud Computing, IBM, Recombinant Communications