InterConnect 2015 Las Vegas is the combination of a few IBM conferences. Past conferences carried quite a bit of overlap in content. As the conversations blurred, it made sense to combine the conferences. The challenge is the conference is spread across two hotels in Las Vegas that are not connected. A whopping 21,000 people are in attendance with another 15,000 joining via their online portal InterConnectGO.
Logistics aside, the first day kicked off with a bang. The opening sessions includes all the glitz and glamor one might expect from a Vegas show. The content covered a wide spectrum of IBM’s portfolio from cloud to data analytics.
In my opinion, IBM’s SoftLayer and Watson stories are gems among a varied portfolio. In addition, the social engine is in full swing here at InterConnect. Analytics play a great role in defining different social metrics and IBM is not missing the opportunity. But more about that in a minute.
All about cloud
The cloud story is starting to gel for IBM, but still needs a bit of sharpening. They covered all the buzzwords in cloud, but it left me wanting to hear more than buzzword bingo. Much of the story hinges on the success of SoftLayer. Taking a deeper look at SoftLayer, it addresses a number of the core enterprise requirements for the broader market. It is not everything for everyone, but doesn’t need to be. This is where the ecosystem comes in. Ecosystems are everything today.
During the opening session, IBM announced ‘OpenStack as a Service’. It is not clear how this fits into the overall strategy as it was glossed over. This is an area to watch closely from two perspectives: 1) What exactly is the offering and what market is it intended to address? 2) How will this affect and/or divert SoftLayer’s existing VMware offerings. Will it cause SoftLayer to abandon VMware in favor of OpenStack as others have done? Each of these questions could govern the future success of SoftLayer both short and long-term.
Coursing through the data analytics
Many references are made to the growing accumulation of data. Terms like ‘data lake’ and ‘data ocean’ are used to describe the growing mass of untapped data. During the opening session, IBM outlined several use cases where companies have leveraged their technology to gain insights to the data problem.
Many of the examples continue with the financial services and healthcare use cases. Healthcare is one, if not the largest industry ripe for disruption from data analytics. Citi joined on stage to talk about their approach to innovation. Their mantra: Unleash, develop, disrupt. In the case of Citi, “Nobody needs banks, but everybody needs banking.” Great analogy. For healthcare, May Clinic mentioned that only 5% of cancer patients are engaged in a trial. Meaning there is a huge disconnect (read: opportunity) in connecting patients to potential treatment courses.
Getting social
Cloud and data analytics aren’t the only topics here at InterConnect. IBM is heavily leveraging their analytics platform to demonstrate the value of social here. And the social media elite are in full force. There are a couple of mis-steps by use of the longer hashtags (#IBMInterConnect and #NewWayToWork), but otherwise, the twitter stream is flowing pretty heavily. The longer hashtags are definitely leading to a myriad of typos, which defeat the purpose of the hashtag. One change would be greater engagement in the conversations happening on Twitter. Like some conferences, the twitter feed is mostly one-way with little two-way engagement.
Aside from the downsides, it is impressive the flow of tweets coming from an IBM conference. Considering the perception of IBM, it appears they’re moving in the right direction socially.
On tap for Day 2 and beyond…
It’s all about the cloud. Looking forward to the cloud discussions today along with the Executive Session and Shark Tank presentations.
Overall, it’s apparent that IBM is turning the corner on the conversations. IBM does have it’s flaws as any company that is 400,000 employees strong. That aside, IBM needs to continue on their quest to drive toward cloud and data analytics dominance. SoftLayer and Watson are two shining gems in the IBM portfolio that will need to blossom as they mature.