Why IBM Had a Big Year

By most accounts, IBM had a banner year in both business and product innovation in a number of different markets. From cloud computing to supercomputing, from servers to storage and from mainframes to security management, Big Blue again loomed large in the IT world, as it does most every year. Not to be taken for granted, however, is the constant pressure for such a huge technology icon to perform at its highest level at all times. There have been years when the company has slipped. However, Ginni Rometty, now in her eighth year as CEO of the tech industry’s oldest and most venerable corporate institution, has made it her mission in life to keep IBM vibrant and innovative, and she has done exactly that. What follows is a listing of IBM news and product highlights from 2019 as reported by eWEEK.

The IBM I server platform (the second “i” stands for integrated) is a converged packaged software platform that evolved out of that legendary AS400, and it is even more amazing. What makes IBM I so amazing is that it is very similar in concept to hyper-converged hardware but in software. This is a fully tested and integrated platform that is designed to function as a packaged whole. You don’t have the level of choice that you might have on a typical Windows Server or Linux system but, in exchange, you get something that is far more robust and vastly more resistant to outside or inside attack. This article ran Feb. 13, 2019.

Over the past quarter-century, IBM and its strategic partners have been at the forefront of supercomputing systems and achievements. The company has enjoyed an inordinate amount of time at the peak of the Top500.org list. Like every other supercomputing vendor, IBM has seen its industry-leading solutions pursued and eventually overtaken by newer systems. But rather than retire from the field, the company responded to those setbacks with fresh innovations that put it back on top. This article ran Aug. 15, 2019.

In a significant eWEEK product comparison article, IBM’s SIEM toolset, QRadar, was paired against Splunk in a head-to-head battle of market leaders. QRadar, designed for large organizations, consists of a solid platform used to build a corporate-wide threat detection and response system. It also contains extensive blueprints and templates for simpler use cases. QRadar has a large deployment base and an extensive set of service providers that can help organizations procure, run, tune and monitor their deployments. This article ran June 24, 2019.

By making access to Z mainframes more flexible and cloud-like, IBM is making it less likely that customers will consider shifting Z workloads to other systems and environments. As cloud providers become increasingly able to support mission-critical applications, that’s a big deal. The new pricing models should also help companies derive greater value from their IT organizations. That’s great financially, but it is also a critical point considering the shortages in and demand for workers with enterprise IT skills. This article ran May 20, 2019.

The 2019 IBM X-Force Threat Intelligence Index was released on Feb. 26, providing insight into the attack landscape over the course 2018. The report, based on data observed by IBM from monitoring over 70 billion security events a day around the world for customers, found a few things that IBM researchers didn’t expect to find. This article ran Feb. 26, 2019.

IBM’s decision to operate Red Hat as a distinct business unit managed by the company’s current executive team is a wise move that should assure clients and partners that IBM’s and Red Hat’s dedication to customers’ freedom, choice and flexibility remains intact. This article ran July 18, 2019.

The IT industry is rife with sometimes intriguing commercial products that have little, if any practical application. These “solutions in search of a problem” are often designed in obverse fashion, betraying developers’ lack of insight into customers’ actual needs and requirements. In sharp contrast, with Cloud Pak for Security IBM has devised and designed a solution to address numerous specific problems that plague enterprise customers, as well as critical issues impinging the adoption and benefits of hybrid multi-cloud computing. This article ran Dec. 13, 2019.

The future of commercial supercomputing may finally be near. Despite years of rosy predictions, significant CAPEX investments and painful energy-related OPEX costs have limited businesses’ interest in these solutions. With Pangea III, IBM has proved that it can successfully deliver topline performance with bottom-line benefits. This article ran June 21, 2019.

At CES, Big Blue officials unveil the IBM Q System One, a modular system with highly integrated components housed in a nine-foot enclosure. This article ran Jan. 9, 2019.

IBM’s new Storwize V5000 solutions show what can happen when enterprise-specific technologies dependably evolve into affordable, innovative midmarket solutions. At the same time, the functional enhancements to the Storwize portfolio and Spectrum Virtualize demonstrate how a vendor can grow the value it offers by studying how customers and partners operate their businesses and then addressing those specific requirements. This article ran April 17, 2019.