Power of the System

What IBM and partners want

International Business Machines, better known as IBM, held the Business Partner Leadership Conference in May, an event for key business partners. Our correspondent attended this event.

IBM's business is distributed across the planet. As BusinessWeek noted, India's Tata, which produces software for the US market, is a much more American company than IBM, which does business around the world.

Blue platform

IBM's area of ​​particular interest is small and medium enterprises. This market in the world has already exceeded $500 billion per year in volume and is developing rapidly. IBM has plenty of competitors here: Microsoft, SAP, Oracle, local companies.

IBM presented a new program for working with small and medium-sized businesses, called the “Blue Business Platform” (blue is the color of IBM, the company’s nickname is “Blue Giant”). It contains a web 2.0 platform - a company that bought software from IBM can launch and maintain its own social network without any special tricks. True, none of the IBM representatives could really explain why this was really necessary, other than to distract employees from the work process.

Dependence on Chubais

IBM has a special interest in rapidly developing economies, including Russia. The BRIC countries (Brazil, Russia, India, China) have provided the company with the greatest revenue growth over the past few years. "Explosive growth with partners." The “Round Table” with this name was included in the central part of the conference program. Russia was represented by Ruslan Zaedinov from CROC, one of the largest domestic IT companies. He explained what problems IT companies in Russia face. Discussing the fashionable topic of Green IT (energy-saving IT), the Russian representative complained about the shortage of electricity, which is preventing the construction of new data centers. What is Green IT, what are you talking about? Yes, we get every extra kilowatt in battles with RAO UES!

An hour later, on the sidelines, the head of an Australian IT company boasted that he had achieved a 70% increase in energy efficiency through energy saving. There are many similar examples not only in Australia. Everyone and everyone is reporting about their “green” developments in the global IT industry, even the Chinese who are poisoning the Amur River with benzene.

IBM and Google are brothers forever

The highlight of the BPLC program were speeches by IBM CEO Sam Palmesano and Google CEO Eric Schmidt. “I’m going to chat here more than we planned, otherwise Eric is stuck in traffic. “Don’t be angry,” Mr. Palmesano began. Looking like characters from a Woody Allen movie, the IBM executive reported on the company's successes and described the future of technology and IBM's role in its development. Globalization and innovation, the development of the Internet and the corresponding change in interpersonal communications, increased labor efficiency, assistance in the development of technologically backward regions of the earth - all these delights of IT industrialization, certainly worthy of mention, were mentioned by Mr. Palmesano. His speech called on IBM employees to work successfully and, in general, was reminiscent of the director’s speech at an extended meeting of the workforce (which, in fact, BPLC is).

While listening to Sam Palmesano, the audience was waiting for Eric Schmidt. Interest was fueled by the fact that during the days of BPLC the events around the Mircosoft-Yahoo deal reached their climax. Formally, Google had nothing to do with these events, but actively commented on what was happening. And Microsoft itself honestly informed the public that it needed the purchase of Yahoo to fight Google. Looking ahead, let's say that Mr. Schmidt flatly refused to comment on someone else's deal.

Eric Schmidt finally arrived and, trying to remain unnoticed, walked into the hall. Failed to save incognito. “The world is improved by the right modern innovative companies - like Google,” Sam Palmesano immediately proclaimed and waved to his friend Eric. Tom had no choice but to answer the greeting. Soon Sam Palmesano wound up his speech and turned the floor over to Mr. Schmidt. He promised to talk about “the future, which will soon become a reality.” Moreover, it will be created by “modern progressive companies - such as IBM and Google, which are in close partnership.”

It turned out that, according to Schmidt, the world is on the threshold of the next era, in which people will be even more closely entangled in digital networks. He spoke enthusiastically about the concept of “cloud computing.” According to Schmidt, the IT industry should not strive to create one universal device. It is much more important to connect all available data in one server, which can be accessed by a variety of devices: “The main thing is that the center is single and indivisible. This will allow us to analyze data at a new level and give the user unprecedented opportunities today.”

Server and System

Those present did not receive statements like “such a center should be Google data centers equipped with computers made by IBM,” but they undoubtedly understood Mr. Schmidt’s speech correctly. Eric Schmidt's performance was impressive, but also slightly puzzling. It is difficult to surrender to the all-consuming power of IT if you even think for a moment about what this might entail. Both IBM and Google insist that the right to privacy is sacred to them, and that their projects are made at the highest level of information security. At the same time, Google's email service has long and successfully analyzed the contents of files that users send to each other. And it doesn’t just analyze, but immediately gives the results of the analysis to the side - to advertisers, who determine (albeit not themselves, but through the mediation of a machine) whether their product corresponds to the contents of the files attached to the letters.

Frank Gens, senior vice president of the research company IDC, responding to our question, said that he is not afraid of the omniscient Google. He is confident that a single server cannot be owned by one company, even one like Google: “This doesn’t happen in a market economy. Most likely, this huge single array of data will be divided between several dominant IT companies, and they can be named now. So the market will not allow a monopoly. And Google, to be honest, isn’t that scary.”

Jeff Jonas, a leading IBM engineer and IT security specialist (he invented and implemented electronic systems for detecting cheaters in Las Vegas casinos, as depicted in the popular movie “21”), believes that in 2050 it will literally be impossible to take a step without so that the System doesn’t find out about it (reminds me of Schmidt’s Server, doesn’t it?) and doesn’t report it where needed. For example, to the medical service - if you fell and injured your knee. Or, alternatively, your employer.

Remaining undetected, according to Mr. Jonas, will be virtually impossible in 2050. Not because the human population will double, but because the System will have data about everyone and everything at its disposal. Compatriots who are accustomed to understanding the term “System” as a human organization need, obviously, to explain that the “System” in the understanding of Jeff Joans is not an organization. These are computers working for our benefit. The personal information stored in them is either managed by the individuals themselves or is under public control. It cannot be used for state or anyone else's interests.

Pavel VLASOV-MRDULYASH, iToday.ru, - specially for Vremya Novostei, Los Angeles - Moscow