02
Sat, Nov
2 New Articles

As Technology Accelerates, Will We Be Leading or Following?

Analysis of News Events
Typography
  • Smaller Small Medium Big Bigger
  • Default Helvetica Segoe Georgia Times

Keeping ahead of the economic power curve will require that businesses aggressively pursue new technology initiatives managed by skilled and knowledgeable CIOs.

 

With the growth in the economies of India, China, and, lately, Russia, Americans in 2008 may soon be looking in the mirror and wondering what happened to the technological advantage we have come to take for granted.

 

The world is getting flatter by the minute for those who accept the role of technology as the agent for change. And granted, it's probably easier for a country that has primitive systems to install next-generation technology than it is for a country with working systems to upgrade to something that is only moderately better.

 

With a mature, or possibly aging, infrastructure, the risk for Americans and Europeans is to sit back and resist technological change with a passive mindset. Asian countries are pursuing technology aggressively. The developed countries can either do the same or accept a backseat when it comes to world decision-making and the distribution of economic gains.

 

Who is responsible for moving a company forward in the areas of efficiency and innovation? The primary agent for change in companies today appears to be shifting from the CEO to the CIO. In today's world, if you don't have the technology, you don't have the edge. Military planners have been aware of this for decades, thus explaining in part the enormous amount of money the U.S. has spent on defense since World War II.

 

CIOs today are assuming an increased level of responsibility for the direction and success of business and enjoying a commensurate rise in stature as a result. As Mark Hennessey, vice president and chief information officer at IBM says, "CIOs are at the nexus of the new business landscape."

 

CIOs are change agents for enabling innovation, says Hennessey. "Leadership from the CIO—both as a business executive and IT expert—is actively shaping the destiny of global enterprises."

 

Hennessey notes that companies most successful in driving innovation use information technology to foster change. As technology has become increasingly pervasive in business, the role of the CIO has gradually risen in significance.

 

The combination of IT expertise and business insight is shaping up as the magic formula for competing in a global market. Of course, not all businesses are global in nature, and not everyone needs the sophisticated systems envisioned by today's brilliant CIOs. But when one looks at the number of mergers and acquisitions occurring today, one can't help but notice the concentration of resources occurring in the business community. Companies are, in effect, gearing up to compete globally for two reasons. One, it's possible, and two, it's necessary.

 

As these larger companies acquire smaller ones with various specialties, it's expected that there will be a transfer of knowledge in both directions and that the whole will be greater than the sum of its parts. Some people have noted that the System i often loses ground during and after these acquisitions, when it's replaced with what some perceive as "newer" technology. Let's face it: The System i—and the machines that preceded it—were originally designed as standalone computers for small-to-medium-sized businesses that didn't have the IT staff or the desire to tinker with complicated computers requiring constant maintenance. They sat there and ran day in and day out and never needed much attention. The need for that type of reliability still exists today, but the problem is that technology is changing so fast that in order for a company to remain competitive, it must constantly keep introducing new applications or risk falling behind its competitors.

 

Let's take a look at some of the technologies that leading-edge CIOs are considering implementing into their enterprises today. These solutions are ones that IBM recently presented to an audience of CIOs after testing on their own workforce. One writer described it as IBM "drinking its own Kool-Aid." The negative connotation of that simile is probably unwarranted, but technologists are still required to demonstrate the economic benefits of any proposed adoption before they can commit to a major technology investment. And some of these technologies have made a name for themselves in the world of gaming and online dating, so the business applications remain somewhat obscure. Remember, however, that the underlying principle is one of collaboration leading to innovation, and innovation is the engine of efficiency.

 

The first project that IBM is working on is an evolution of the intranet it is calling the On-Demand Workplace Next. The vision of this project is to continually enhance and upgrade IBM's enterprise portal. The On Demand Workplace is IBM's single point of entry for employee intranet access and serves as the door to the company's transformation activities. It provides a personalized work environment for nearly 350,000 employees in more than 100 countries. The vision of On Demand Workplace Next is to couple a live innovation platform—or as IBM calls it, a "perpetual beta"—with the production environment to obtain continuous feedback from employees around the world. The benefit, of course, is that you don't tank your production environment in the process.

 

The next project is actually several ones that employ Web 2.0 technologies in concert to encourage innovation from all employees and help sterling ideas become reality. The company uses things like wikis, blogs, tagging, mashups (otherwise known as situational application environments), and podcasting to enable collaboration across a globally distributed company. The goal, as IBM puts it, is "to drive business value." Tools like Jams, ThinkPlace, and The Technology Adoption Program encourage innovation, says IBM.

 

Third on the list of new technologies are virtual worlds. Gamers and social networking fans may have started to use these for fun and social interaction, but researchers believe they have significant business value as well. Leveraging virtual worlds for corporate value "holds great commercial promise," according to IBM. Yet there are concerns about virtual worlds, and IBM is trying to nail down what problems they may pose and how they can be applied to a business environment. To help explore the challenges and benefits, IBM built what is called Metaverse, where employees can meet, learn, and collaborate with colleagues across the globe. IBM describes it as a "secure, virtual environment."

 

Bluepedia is the fourth technology that CIOs were exposed to at the special presentation. It is an encyclopedia of everything IBM. Think Wikipedia with nothing but information about the company and its people. Bluepedia is a vast collection of general knowledge, a repository of expertise and know-how from more than a quarter million employees. It's simple, it's searchable, and it's easily expanded. It's written by IBMers for IBMers and contains a common worldwide vocabulary and database of subject matter experts in addition to a wealth of related information.

 

We have written about search technology before and the role it can play in innovation. IBM has taken search technology to the next level with W3 Search. Search engine technology has evolved from text and metadata to "social search." This is where the information is categorized by the IBM community and what the company calls "socialized." The content goes beyond what one would expect to find and becomes a repository of "social metadata." The types of things you might find here are who is working with whom on what types of projects and how people interact.

 

IBM is still developing Symphony, the office suite that it started giving away for free late last year. While it may have its roots in Lotus 1-2-3 and SmartSuite, IBM has plans for Symphony. The appeal is to develop cross-platform solutions using a collaborative, Lotus Notes type of development environment. Lotus engineers and IBM are working closely together to develop cross-platform solutions that support the Linux client platform. Lotus has developed, and IBM has deployed, an integrated Lotus Notes environment including email, group calendaring, team rooms, and database work flow with Sametime messaging and Symphony offices tools all running on Linux. IBM is betting that Symphony capabilities can spawn a world of innovation around open standards–based document creation.

 

Whether IBM's vision of the future will come to pass using its tools or whether it will be preempted by the likes of Google, Yahoo, Sun, Microsoft, or others yet to be identified remains to be seen. However, most of the large development houses seem to agree on one thing: Collaboration is the key to a new technological order where skills from around the world can be brought into play at the same time on the same problem to develop a super solution that no one person, company, or even country could do on its own in the same amount of time. Fasten your seat belts, because things are about to accelerate.

Chris Smith

Chris Smith was the Senior News Editor at MC Press Online from 2007 to 2012 and was responsible for the news content on the company's Web site. Chris has been writing about the IBM midrange industry since 1992 when he signed on with Duke Communications as West Coast Editor of News 3X/400. With a bachelor's from the University of California at Berkeley, where he majored in English and minored in Journalism, and a master's in Journalism from the University of Colorado, Boulder, Chris later studied computer programming and AS/400 operations at Long Beach City College. An award-winning writer with two Maggie Awards, four business books, and a collection of poetry to his credit, Chris began his newspaper career as a reporter in northern California, later worked as night city editor for the Rocky Mountain News in Denver, and went on to edit a national cable television trade magazine. He was Communications Manager for McDonnell Douglas Corp. in Long Beach, Calif., before it merged with Boeing, and oversaw implementation of the company's first IBM desktop publishing system there. An editor for MC Press Online since 2007, Chris has authored some 300 articles on a broad range of topics surrounding the IBM midrange platform that have appeared in the company's eight industry-leading newsletters. He can be reached at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

BLOG COMMENTS POWERED BY DISQUS

LATEST COMMENTS

Support MC Press Online

$

Book Reviews

Resource Center

  • SB Profound WC 5536 Have you been wondering about Node.js? Our free Node.js Webinar Series takes you from total beginner to creating a fully-functional IBM i Node.js business application. You can find Part 1 here. In Part 2 of our free Node.js Webinar Series, Brian May teaches you the different tooling options available for writing code, debugging, and using Git for version control. Brian will briefly discuss the different tools available, and demonstrate his preferred setup for Node development on IBM i or any platform. Attend this webinar to learn:

  • SB Profound WP 5539More than ever, there is a demand for IT to deliver innovation. Your IBM i has been an essential part of your business operations for years. However, your organization may struggle to maintain the current system and implement new projects. The thousands of customers we've worked with and surveyed state that expectations regarding the digital footprint and vision of the company are not aligned with the current IT environment.

  • SB HelpSystems ROBOT Generic IBM announced the E1080 servers using the latest Power10 processor in September 2021. The most powerful processor from IBM to date, Power10 is designed to handle the demands of doing business in today’s high-tech atmosphere, including running cloud applications, supporting big data, and managing AI workloads. But what does Power10 mean for your data center? In this recorded webinar, IBMers Dan Sundt and Dylan Boday join IBM Power Champion Tom Huntington for a discussion on why Power10 technology is the right strategic investment if you run IBM i, AIX, or Linux. In this action-packed hour, Tom will share trends from the IBM i and AIX user communities while Dan and Dylan dive into the tech specs for key hardware, including:

  • Magic MarkTRY the one package that solves all your document design and printing challenges on all your platforms. Produce bar code labels, electronic forms, ad hoc reports, and RFID tags – without programming! MarkMagic is the only document design and print solution that combines report writing, WYSIWYG label and forms design, and conditional printing in one integrated product. Make sure your data survives when catastrophe hits. Request your trial now!  Request Now.

  • SB HelpSystems ROBOT GenericForms of ransomware has been around for over 30 years, and with more and more organizations suffering attacks each year, it continues to endure. What has made ransomware such a durable threat and what is the best way to combat it? In order to prevent ransomware, organizations must first understand how it works.

  • SB HelpSystems ROBOT GenericIT security is a top priority for businesses around the world, but most IBM i pros don’t know where to begin—and most cybersecurity experts don’t know IBM i. In this session, Robin Tatam explores the business impact of lax IBM i security, the top vulnerabilities putting IBM i at risk, and the steps you can take to protect your organization. If you’re looking to avoid unexpected downtime or corrupted data, you don’t want to miss this session.

  • SB HelpSystems ROBOT GenericCan you trust all of your users all of the time? A typical end user receives 16 malicious emails each month, but only 17 percent of these phishing campaigns are reported to IT. Once an attack is underway, most organizations won’t discover the breach until six months later. A staggering amount of damage can occur in that time. Despite these risks, 93 percent of organizations are leaving their IBM i systems vulnerable to cybercrime. In this on-demand webinar, IBM i security experts Robin Tatam and Sandi Moore will reveal:

  • FORTRA Disaster protection is vital to every business. Yet, it often consists of patched together procedures that are prone to error. From automatic backups to data encryption to media management, Robot automates the routine (yet often complex) tasks of iSeries backup and recovery, saving you time and money and making the process safer and more reliable. Automate your backups with the Robot Backup and Recovery Solution. Key features include:

  • FORTRAManaging messages on your IBM i can be more than a full-time job if you have to do it manually. Messages need a response and resources must be monitored—often over multiple systems and across platforms. How can you be sure you won’t miss important system events? Automate your message center with the Robot Message Management Solution. Key features include:

  • FORTRAThe thought of printing, distributing, and storing iSeries reports manually may reduce you to tears. Paper and labor costs associated with report generation can spiral out of control. Mountains of paper threaten to swamp your files. Robot automates report bursting, distribution, bundling, and archiving, and offers secure, selective online report viewing. Manage your reports with the Robot Report Management Solution. Key features include:

  • FORTRAFor over 30 years, Robot has been a leader in systems management for IBM i. With batch job creation and scheduling at its core, the Robot Job Scheduling Solution reduces the opportunity for human error and helps you maintain service levels, automating even the biggest, most complex runbooks. Manage your job schedule with the Robot Job Scheduling Solution. Key features include:

  • LANSA Business users want new applications now. Market and regulatory pressures require faster application updates and delivery into production. Your IBM i developers may be approaching retirement, and you see no sure way to fill their positions with experienced developers. In addition, you may be caught between maintaining your existing applications and the uncertainty of moving to something new.

  • LANSAWhen it comes to creating your business applications, there are hundreds of coding platforms and programming languages to choose from. These options range from very complex traditional programming languages to Low-Code platforms where sometimes no traditional coding experience is needed. Download our whitepaper, The Power of Writing Code in a Low-Code Solution, and:

  • LANSASupply Chain is becoming increasingly complex and unpredictable. From raw materials for manufacturing to food supply chains, the journey from source to production to delivery to consumers is marred with inefficiencies, manual processes, shortages, recalls, counterfeits, and scandals. In this webinar, we discuss how:

  • The MC Resource Centers bring you the widest selection of white papers, trial software, and on-demand webcasts for you to choose from. >> Review the list of White Papers, Trial Software or On-Demand Webcast at the MC Press Resource Center. >> Add the items to yru Cart and complet he checkout process and submit

  • Profound Logic Have you been wondering about Node.js? Our free Node.js Webinar Series takes you from total beginner to creating a fully-functional IBM i Node.js business application.

  • SB Profound WC 5536Join us for this hour-long webcast that will explore:

  • Fortra IT managers hoping to find new IBM i talent are discovering that the pool of experienced RPG programmers and operators or administrators with intimate knowledge of the operating system and the applications that run on it is small. This begs the question: How will you manage the platform that supports such a big part of your business? This guide offers strategies and software suggestions to help you plan IT staffing and resources and smooth the transition after your AS/400 talent retires. Read on to learn: