IBM Eyes Lead In New Computing Era With PureSystems
April 11, 2012
Computer technology has made many big shifts the past 40 years — mainframes to minis to desktops and networks — and IBM says its newest product puts it at the forefront of the newest shift.
IBM (IBM) on Wednesday is unveiling PureSystems, a computer it says is built to lead the move into so-called "converged systems."
But rival Hewlett-Packard (HPQ) might have gotten the jump on IBM. On Tuesday, HP announced HP Converged Cloud, responding to the "changing way infrastructures are built" and "major shifts in how services are delivered."…
Like IBM, HP says companies are increasingly encumbered by a mishmash of stitched-together technologies that are increasingly difficult and expensive to manage.
"Once every decade a technology comes around that enables business to do things in new ways, from mainframes to client server to the Internet," said Frances Guida, HP manager of cloud solutions and infrastructure. "Now we’re moving beyond the Internet to the world of cloud computing."
In general, the name given to this new era is "converged computing." Enterprise computer users are looking for all-in-one computer systems that can keep them in the lead of hot tech trends such as big data, cloud computing and virtualization.
Companies look to give their employees easy and cost-effective ways to access corporate networks and the Internet on all manner of wired and wireless devices. And when they access these networks, companies want to make it easy and cost-effective for employees to use all the data and apps available.
IBM’s PureSystems is basically an all-in-one computer that can be adapted to the specific needs of a business, says Rod Adkins, senior vice president of IBM’s Systems & Technology Group.
Most Flexible System?
The idea is to include within PureSystems the storage, virtualization, networking gear and software a business user needs. That could represent a big threat to providers of those products, such as storage maker EMC (EMC) and gear maker Cisco Systems (CSCO).
"No other platform is as flexible as this," said Adkins, whose group generated revenue of $19 billion last year, about 18% of the company’s total. "This is a leap forward unlike anything else."
HP, though, on Tuesday said its HP Converged Cloud is the industry’s first hybrid delivery approach and portfolio based on a common architecture spanning traditional IT, as well as private, managed and public cloud computing, in which users get apps and data from the Internet, or the "cloud."