IBM put the finishing touches on a reorganization of the Systems and Technology Group last week as the company continues to move away from a focus on technology and toward a goal of concentrating more on what business customers need in order to solve their particular industry challenges.

In an internal memo to employees, Bill Zeitler, IBM senior vice president and group executive, outlined the final phase of the reorganization that started last summer and ended this month with a plan that will take a large number of IBM employees out of their offices and put them in the field directly in front of clients.

While there will still be four technology platforms, the company's business will be aligned around four client sets: Enterprise Systems, Business Systems, Industry Systems, and Microelectronics. The heads of these units will feed Zeitler the needs that each of the business units develop along the way in the realm of advanced systems and technology.

Supplying these technology needs will be four business units arranged around today's existing platforms: Mainframe, Power Systems (System p, System i, and Linux on Power), Modular Systems (System x and IBM BladeCenter), and Storage.

The plan is to introduce a large volume of new products targeted specifically at client sets and needs that will be promoted with very tailored sales efforts, according to Zeitler.

The point of the restructuring is to make IBM a more lean, mean, power machine that can respond much quicker than in the past with the right mix of products and technologies to meet the needs of the four client sets.

While not yet announced, MC Press Online has learned that plans for the System i include offering a simplified yet versatile integrated machine for SMB clients who will get to consider a version that relies heavily on the Linux operating system.

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..