IBM builds out concierge services so internal IT departments can satisfy the business

TBR perspective

The recent IBM Cloud Analyst Day continued a theme introduced at IBM Think 2018, with numerous IBM executives reiterating “the axis has flipped” in the market for IT solutions. Nowhere has the axis flipped more than in the relationship between IT and lines of business (LOBs). Where IT hardware and software were once costly components, the IT department served more as a security guard meant to ration the business use of IT. Today, with virtualizing compute and storage turning computing ubiquitous and 5G set to disrupt network virtualization, IT must shift to the role of concierge — listening to LOB demands and then stitching together the requisite IT assets to enable successful execution.

At IBM Cloud Analyst Day, IBM Analytics General Manager Rob Thomas discussed the concept of data virtualization, made possible by adhering to specific run times that allow for abstracting the requisite data from where it resides and transporting it to where it is needed with pervasive encryption, to deliver the business insights required for the LOBs. That vision is what IBM described as the “ladder to AI,” or the climb the business must make to infuse its operations and integrated IT stack with artificial intelligence (AI) insights, deploying all IBM AI assets from SPSS to Watson.

At IBM Cloud Analyst Day, IBM Analytics General Manager Rob Thomas discussed the concept of data virtualization, made possible by adhering to specific run times that allow for abstracting the requisite data from where it resides and transporting it to where it is needed with pervasive encryption, to deliver the business insights required for the LOBs. That vision is what IBM described as the “ladder to AI,” or the climb the business must make to infuse its operations and integrated IT stack with artificial intelligence (AI) insights, deploying all IBM AI assets from SPSS to Watson.