International Business Machines is an organization that has seen the troughs and the crests of the computing industry right from its inception. The firm itself has undergone revival and has painfully learnt its lessons. One of those lessons has imbibed in it the spirit of always being ahead of the industry curve. In pursuit of such endeavors, it has come to define the next curve itself.

Through the past decade, purport of the IT firms has moved from just selling machines and programs to selling “solutions” that address the customers’ pain points. IBM’s Smarter Planet marketing initiative is on the same lines. The crux of the issue is that IBM is moving closer to solving the real problem and not just a part of the problem. The target list includes improving health care, environmental protection, energy consumption, and education.

To understand this let us look at how the offerings of the computing industry have evolved.

Digitization was the first step for the world. Machines loaded with number crunching code took over most of the work that humans undertook. Automation was the selling point for the computer industry. Softwares evolved to refine the efficiency of the processes.

The next wave was the distributed computing wave. In essence, it ushered in the wave of remote computing and with the impending Internet boom, software industry moved into a new phase. Outsourcing and consequently offshoring disrupted the world.

The client has all the machines it can possibly have, it has all the software it possibly can get, it has all the networks it possibly can set up.

Still, there are core issues left unaddressed. A few of them are :-

• In distributed computing environments, up to 85% of computing capacity may sit idle.
• On average, for every 100 units of energy piped into a data center, only three units are used for actual computing.
• 40% – 70% of electrical energy is lost due to inefficiencies in the grid.

These are the problems that IBM aims to address. It plans to introduce new computing capabilities that can literally “reinvent” existing IT properties, making them leaner, flexible, resilient and smarter. The idea is not to reinvent the wheel, just to use it in a smarter way.

As an IBM white paper states – The world first became smaller. Then it became flatter. Now it is time to make it smarter.

A smarter way essentially is a new way that uses the same tools to cuts costs and improves margins. Whatever cuts costs actually reduces wastage and thus saves resources. Resources saved are resources conserved. Thus, IBM is looking at a smarter way to save the earth. Improve the IQ of IT to make the earth greener.

The marketing campaign – The Smart initiative with the Green effect- is sure gathering steam.  What remains to be seen is whether the campaign resonates with the clients.

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