Posts Tagged ‘singapore’
Live @ IBM InterConnect 2012: IBM Announces New Cloud Computing, Big Data Analytics Capabilities
Earlier today, here at the IBM InterConnect event being held at the Royal Sentosa Resorts in Singapore, IBM made two significant announcements that will help IBM clients derive more value from their IT investments via improved cloud computing solutions, even as they work to gain new business insights through enhanced analytics capabilities.
To help global organizations make sense of the massive influx of data being created daily, IBM first announced an expansion of its PureSystems family of expert integrated systems with the introduction of PureData System.
Now, clients can more efficiently manage and quickly analyze petabytes of data in minutes and intelligently use those insights to support specific business goals across their organization including marketing, sales and business operations.
IBM estimates that 2.5 exabytes of data is created every day — so much that 90 percent of the data in the world today has been created in the last two years alone.
Given this data deluge, clients can use the new PureData System for high performance data services for traditional or cloud environments. The new system builds on the initial PureSystems family of offerings that can deploy Web applications in less than 10 days, a task that once took at least six months. The PureSystems family is the result of $2 billion in R&D and acquisitions over four years.
PureData System will start shipping to customers at the end of October. For more information about these offerings, visit the IBM PureSystems PureData Website.
IBM Partners With AT&T On Expanded Cloud Computing Capabilities
IBM also announced today that it had partnered with global telecommunications leader AT&T to deliver a highly secure, first-of-its-kind “network-enabled” cloud service that uses private networks rather than the public Internet.
The companies are combining AT&T virtual private networking and IBM SmartCloud Enterprise cloud capabilities with breakthrough technology from AT&T Labs to create a new, fast and highly-secure shared cloud service.
Targeted to Fortune 1000 companies globally, the service will be offered in early 2013 as a powerful new option for clients who are deploying cloud solutions that demand high levels of security and availability. Many businesses often cite security as a key inhibitor to cloud computing adoption.
You can learn more about this new cloud capability here.
Live @ IBM InterConnect 2012: IBM’s Steve Mills On Big Data, Smaller IT
After months of build up and market anticipation, the IBM InterConnect event got kick started here at Royal Sentosa Resorts on Sentosa Island in Singapore, and after a quick introduction by IBM growth markets executive, John Dunderdale, IBM senior vice president Steve Mills hit the stage and outlined the core value proposition behind the event and, more broadly, behind IT circa 2012.

IBM senior vice president Steve Mills explains to the gathered IBM InterConnect 2012 audience in Singapore Tuesday morning the immense opportunity and value that a reconsidered IT investment strategy presents for its customers around the globe.
“We know all of you involved in running businesses are challenged with delivering outcome and results,” said Mills. “We clearly love technology, but the end goal is improving your business and business model.”
Delivering real, discernible business outcomes. IT as a means to an end, not an end in and of itself.
Mills’ talk, entitled “Smarter Planet Solutions increasing Demands of IT,” then went on to explain and support that core thesis for the next 40 minutes, along the way sharing some eye-opening sound bytes and anecdotes.
Mills indicated that the IBM InterConnect event was designed “to give you more insight and more contacts and relationships that you can take advantage of to support your businesses.”
So yes, there would be plenty of best practices and lessons learned to come, but this convocation was also an opportunity to share and network with your peers and colleagues.
Information Technology: A Transformative Tool Of The Past 60 Years
Then Mills began to provide a big picture backdrop of IT, explaining that “technology is the transformative tool of the last 60 years, and no tool has ever done so much for humans as IT.”
But, Mills warned, we humans “sometimes get out ahead of ourselves,” and we become enraptured with the tools instead of focusing on what we can do with those tools.
The core questions, Mills went on to explain, that IT and business executives everywhere should be asking themselves is, “How do I use IT effectively, and at a price my business can afford, and in a way I can measure those discernible outcomes?”
Anything else, my own thought bubble indicated, is nothing more than snake oil off the back of a covered wagon!
Mills then went on to explain the specifics behind the IT challenge. More servers, more users, more scenarios…more everything except, perhaps, more money and people!
Moving Away From Mundane Administration And Towards Increased Business Value And Innovation
And therein lies the core of the issue. So much technology requires management and administration and focus by humans. And yet, oftentimes we’re not even making full use of the IT we have.
By way of example: There are an estimated 32.6 million servers worldwide, but 85 percent of them are often idle, and 15 percent run 24/7 without being actively used.
They’re also energy hogs — data centers alone have doubled the energy use in the past five years, and most expect an 18 percent increase moving forward in data center energy costs.
And all the numbers trend upwards, Mills noted: Between 2000 and 2010, servers grew 6X and storage 69X, so if what’s past is prologue…
But it’s not even just that, all the growth we’ve witnessed in IT hardware and software. All of this has a cumulative effect — it’s not simply the money you spent in the current year, but in ALL the investments you’ve made over an extended period of time.

IBM senior vice president Steve Mills explained to the IBM InterConnect audience in Singapore earlier today the opportunity for organizations around the globe to break through the IT budget and resource barrier and realize new business insights and outcomes through an increased focus on innovation.
Though IT has been a big labor saver on the one hand, it’s also been a very expensive proposition in that it requires new skills and labor to manage. And that was another core point of Mill’s argument, that that labor cost has grown to a size to where we need to bring the overhead down while striving to increase the value IT delivers.
An Explosion Of Big Data…And Big Insights!
Mills went on to note there’s also been an explosion of data and information. Google alone processes 24 petabytes of data in a single day, the New York Stock Exchange 1 terabyte of trading data in a single session.
What if…you could apply intelligent analysis to all that information, with an eye towards being more predictive…what if…you could be just 20 minutes ahead of your time…then what could you do???
Finding patterns in data that a single mind could never see, but with the right computing capacity…
So, both burden and opportunity, and this IT overload presents a management challenge — businesses want to be able to do more with what data they have, but they’re uncertain if they’re really getting to what the analysis could actually bring them.
Now, to the actual economics: IT operating costs were expected to have grown from $100 billion in 1996 to an estimated $217 billion in 2012, a trend NOT going in the right direction.
But as Mills explained, “The more servers you have the more servers you have to feed.” Yet that spend on mundane tasks like server administration means you have to rob Innovation Peter to pay Administrivia Paul.
All that sprawl, Mills detailed, means costs to manage growth of inventory consumes the IT budget, and in turn, only 1 in 5 organizations are able to allocate more than half their IT budgets to drive innovation.
As it is, 23 percent of new IT projects deploy late, and 55 percent experience application downtime for major infrastructure upgrades once deployed. Top causes of project delays include troubleshooting and tuning production environments (45%), and integration, configuration and testing of applications (41%).
To add insult to injury, security incidents add an additional layer of complexity and frustration here: The average cost per data breach in 2011 was $3 million, figured in terms of lost customer loyalty.
These, Mills concluded, are the challenges that lay before you, the global IT audience.
Through the remainder of the event, and via several announcements emerging this week in Singapore, Mills suggested IBM would aspire to play a key role in helping clients address the velocity of change in business and IT, and help them redouble their efforts to garner those desired business outcomes.
Connecting @ IBM InterConnect Singapore
Greetings from Sentosa Resort Island in Singapore.

The Republic of Singapore, a southeast Asian city-state off the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula, is 85 miles north of the equator, and is playing host to the IBM InterConnect event this week, which Turbo will be covering here in his blog and as part of IBM’s InterConnect Livestream video coverage.
What’s past is present, except when you’re traveling on business in Asia, when what’s present is prologue. In the case of Singapore, that’s likely to be the case in more ways than one.
Yes, earthlings of the West, I now come to you from the future, some 13 hours ahead of you here in this antiseptic, futuristic city-state, where broadband is plentiful and where the world’s global diaspora lands along with the beams of light helping Singapore to lead us all into the information future.
You’ve heard of the man with the plan? Well, Singapore is a country with the plan.
“Intelligent Nation 2015,” a 10-year masterplan by the government here to help Singapore realize the potential of “infocomm,” is a blueprint for navigating the city-state’s transition “into a global city, universally recognised as an enviable synthesis of technology, infrastructure, enterprise and manpower.”
If Singapore’s future is in information communications, then it is only appropriate that IBM clients, business partners, employees and others in the IBM ecosystem began landing here over the weekend to attend the IBM InterConnect event.
As we positioned the event on the Web site, “In this era of interconnected industries, businesses and consumers, a new kind of leadership is required to turn opportunity into business outcomes. Smarter businesses are capitalizing on information as a bountiful resource and using technology as the catalyst for unleashing innovation.”
Now, for a moment, just close your eyes, and imagine the word cloud that is emerging in front of you: Interconnected. Opportunity. Smarter. Resource. Technology. Innovation. Outcomes.
Starting tomorrow, Tuesday, October 9th, we will begin exploring that word cloud in some depth — “we” being IBM clients, business partners, execs, subject matter experts and others.
First, we’ll look at the 10 hot topics that address key business imperatives in this uncertain climate, helping organizations to unleash innovation while pacing the velocity of change.
Second, we’ll share best practices that have been learned directly from successful IBM clients and partners.
Third, as is always the case at our favorite IBM events, we’ll foster a milieu for collaboration: With business decision-making peers and other like minded folks.
And we’ll enable you to meet many of these decision-makers and industry experts, face to face.
As for me, I’ll be covering some of these sessions, in particular the keynotes, here in the Turbo blog.
I’ll also be interviewing those numeourous thought leaders and partners and clients and IBM executives for our LiveStream video coverage.
So, keep your eye out here, and be sure to follow the #ibminterconnect hashtag on Twitter to get all the latest.
In future posts, I’ll convey a little more about the city-state that is Singapore.
Chatting To Connect
I’ve been watching this whole Apple “Mapgate” discussion from the sidelines with some bemusement.
If you’d have told me a few weeks ago the emerging chatter about the iPhone 5 would come down to a map app’s dysfunction, I would have laughed, but such is the state of our technology polity.
On the one hand, the debate may seem filled with frivolity. On the other hand, it speaks to the seriousness with which users take their smartphones and their apps, particularly when it involves one that could be the very thing that comes between they and their next cup of java at Starbucks…assuming they can still find one!
Whether or not Apple will relent and offer a Google Maps app in the Apple App Store, says a story by Reuters and citing Google chairman Eric Schmidt, will be a decision made by Apple.
Me, I’m still trudging along just fine with my LG “dumb phone,” although I am keeping an open eye towards the looming iPad Mini.
I love my original iPad, but I think it needs one of those “Clean My PC” solutions reoriented for original iPads. It’s become more and more lethargic in terms of performance, and sometimes, when I’m in an application the thing will just reset and take me back to the home screen. Not quite the equivalent of a Microsoft Windows “General Protection Fault” or blue screen of death, but coming close.
Speaking of finding my way, I wanted to remind folks that the IBM InterConnect event is only a short couple of weeks away in Singapore, October 9-11 at the Royal Sentosa Resort.
My airplane tickets have been bought, my hotel booked — now if I could just figure out a way to place myself in a state of somnolence as I board the plane for the longggg journey eastward.
If you’d like to learn more about the InterConnect event, IBM is hosting a Twitter Chat this Thursday, September 27, from 9-10 EST.
If you’ve never attended a Twitter Chat, now’s your chance. Our own social business guru, Sandy Carter, will be moderating the chat, fielding questions and relating details of the coming InterConnect event.
The hashtag for the chat is #IBMInterConnect, so simply log in to your TweetDeck or other Twitter app of choice, enter that hashtag, and be prepared for the discussion this Thursday evening.
If you don’t have a Twitter app, you can also log in to the following URL to follow the action:
http://tweetchat.com/room/ibminterconnect
A little background: IBM InterConnect 2012 is a new and unique event to provide you with opportunities to meet and collaborate with business and IT leaders in your region.
The IBM InterConnect conference will explore topics and key business imperatives, including unleashing innovations, managing the velocity of change and reinventing relationships and uncovering new markets.
IBM’s Scott Hebner and John Dunderdale provide some background on InterConnect in the video below:
From Here To There
It’s been a big week for IBM and the field of travel and transportation.
A subject, of course, near and dear to my heart (BTW, I think I’m over my AP jet lag now).
On Monday, at our Impact event in Las Vegas, IBM announced the new Travel and Transportation framework, a combination of IBM software products and IBM industry assets that provide a platform for new transportation solutions.
Interconnected systems allow a single view into business operations, saving time and money by allowing a company to be aware of the location, status and availability of all their equipment and assets.
This new framework uses industry and open standards and identifies key capabilities required by almost every transportation company, including:
- Reservation System Modernization – Helps to facilitate the modernization of airline and passenger rail reservation and ticketing systems by using a new customer-centric model which supports the imperative to offer innovative and unbundled services to better compete.
- Asset Optimization – Allows clients to manage capital assets throughout their revenue-producing lifecycle. The types of assets managed include aircraft, passenger rail rolling stock, locomotives, tracks, and equipment located along the right-of-way such as signals and facilities.
- Safety, Security & Surveillance – Supports the use of sensors, RFID, digital video, biometric identification, and wireless devices. These are coupled with analytic tools to monitor operations, identify risks to safety or security such as unexpected events occurring in terminals and along railroad right-of-way.
- Multi-Channel Sales and Service – Helps to provide a seamless customer experience across pre-travel sales channels and on-trip touch points by providing the client with a single view of the information known about the customer / traveler.
- Operations Control Systems – Helps improve operational effectiveness and reduce environmental impact through better planning of schedules, load plans, facilities, crews and equipment. For railroads, this includes optimizing timetables, assignment of rolling stock and train and station crews. For airlines, this includes optimizing flight schedules and flight crews.
Click here to get more information on the IBM Travel and Transportation Framework or for details on how IBM is helping transportation clients and Business Partners to make smarter, faster travel and transport decisions.
Yesterday, IBM announced it would be working with the Finnish Transport Agency to build a single view of road and traffic information in Finland in order to help improve road management.
Using analytics from IBM, the agency is aggregating its view of road conditions, accidents and other road and traffic information, which helps build a safer and more adaptive road system for the citizens of Finland.
Also yesterday, back here in the great state of Texas, IBM and the Texas Transportation Institute (TTI) (the largest university-based transportation research agency in the U.S.) have agreed to collaborate on research and development of intelligent transportation projects in Texas and beyond.
That agreement will bring together research scientists and engineers from IBM and TTI researchers, faculty and students, who will work with state and municipal agencies to explore technologies and innovations that will help solve transportation issues in Texas initially, and eventually worldwide.
IBM has engaged with the world’s leading airlines and railroads on projects for more than 50 years, and has already helped several cities around the world make their transportation systems smarter.
For example, the city of Stockholm is using IBM’s streaming analytics technology to gather real-time information from GPS devices on nearly 1,500 taxi cabs to provide the city and its residents with real-time information on traffic flow, travel times and the best commuting options.
The service will soon expand to gather data from delivery trucks, traffic sensors, transit systems, pollutions monitors and weather information sources. IBM is also assisting the cities of Brisbane, London and Singapore to address traffic management and congestion challenges.
Visit the IBM Smarter Planet Website for more information on these and other IBM Smarter Transportation projects.
Blue Kangaroo
I’m getting ready for a very long plane ride.
I’m heading over to Singpapore and Australia with some colleagues to meet up with some other colleagues manana.
We’ll be talking all things digital, and I’ll be traveling with my newfound lightweight laptop ThinkPad X200s.
The X200s is my new work-issued computer. Although it feels a little primitive returning to a machine with WindowsXP after using machines with Ubuntu Linux and Mac OS X, I have to say the whole weight tradeoff is worth the exchange.
The X200s is more than a netbook, but less than a full laptop. Having less weight also meant less processor performance — it’s not the fastest computer I’ve ever had by a long stretch. But, I added 1 extra GB of RAM and it does the job just fine.
Now if I only had an airplane adapter for the 20+ hour ride to Singapore!
That’s okay, it’ll give me plenty of time to try and digest the wealth of news coming out of Facebook’s f8 developer conference this week.
Question: Does Mark Zuckerberg want to take over the Interwebs as we know it?
Answer: Uh, duh.
The ever reliable Scobleizer goes long on explaining what the FB is up to in its quest for global digital domination.
Uh, and you thought you didn’t understand those privacy controls on Facebook before?
Good frickin’ luck figuring them out as they expand their tentacles onto the Facebook API info superhighway.
Me, I’m just hoping to see a kangaroo.