Cloud Computing: With Apple at Its Side, IBM Grasps for a Shiny New Future
May 2, 2015
Grazed from Wired. Author: Jessi Hempel.
On a recent morning in downtown Manhattan, IBM’s Virginia Rometty and Apple’s Tim Cook sit on a small riser, each leaning back slightly with legs crossed. Between them sits Taizo Nishimuro, an older Japanese man with heavy black orthopedic shoes and an elegant cane. Nishimuro helms the Japan Post, a company that owns the country’s postal service, a bank, and its largest life insurer.
We are gathering to hear the trio make an announcement that, just by virtue of their attendance, must be important. But it also feels a bit curious: what could be this important? The venue is IBM’s new global headquarters, a 12-story glass tower designed by the Pritzker-Prize winning architect Fumihiko Maki. It sits just across the way from Facebook’s Silicon Alley outpost in Astor Place, eight blocks south of Google’s New York offices…
It’s a building so modern the elevators don’t have buttons inside. The lobby’s dominant feature is a red sculpture of a balloon rabbit by Jeff Koons. This is the symbolic face of IBM’s future. Just 38 miles north, the company’s Westchester offices, built by iconic architects of the last century like Finnish-American Eero Saarinen, have been emptying out even as the company makes plans to bring 600 IBMers to Manhattan. The changing geography becomes a metaphor for the changing business landscape…
Read more from the source @ http://www.wired.com/2015/05/apple-side-ibm-grasps-shiny-new-future/