Think 2019 — Part 5

In previous parts of my Think 2019 report, I wrote about AI, Cloud, Infrastructure, Blockchain and Applications. Here is the conclusion of the event and some other, not less important notes, like IBM Garage program external partnerships, education programs, signed deals and IBM investments.

Other Domains

Not less important, but simply I was not able to follow everything. I’ve hear about interesting IOT use cases at KONE elevator company and L’Oreal, and synergies with machine learning algorithms to streamline the manufacturing and operations, Security with QRadar products, Networking around Cisco and VMWare NSX-T

I have listed here below what words were the most used at Think 2019, This is my personal perception, maybe some other participants will disagree with it.

1. AI (including Watson and Data)
2. Kubernetes
3. Hybrid
4. Quantum
5. Microservices (including DevOps)
6. Multicloud
7. Blockchain
8. Security
9. Power
10. Apps

Partners

A lot of exhibitors, and companies that work together with IBM.

The most prominent was of course Red Hat. No new information about pending merger, Red Hat executives were talking about hybrid cloud, Linux, OpenShift, Kubernetes, and other technical topics.

VMWare was talking about hybrid cloud as definitely the way how the compnting will work in the future, due to laws of physics (latency), laws of economics (where it is cheaper) and laws of countries (where you need to keep your data). I mentioned about IC4V and other interesting technologies for the hybrid cloud.

ServiceNow had an interesting presentation on how to deal with complexity of IT Management tasks. Most of organizations have multiple tools for infra and app management. Why not have something like Tools-as-a-Service , a cloud with these tools where the onboarding of new systems will be simplified. Based of course on ServiceNow. Interesting idea, hopefully this will translate into more concrete solutions.

ScienceLogic has a very important role in the world of multicloud, and partner with IBM for the monitoring and event management solutions. They have created toolset for AIOps based on data lake, and they support containers.

Cisco is specialist for multicloud. There was a presentation on security where IBM QRadar imports threat related data from Cisco devices

Chinese company Inspur (large technology provider, I wrote about them back in 2014) presented servers based on OpenPower architecture, jointly developed with IBM.

I didn’t see Lenovo, which is strange for me. I don’t know why they were not more visible.

Business Partner Program

This was an important topic. IBM has deployed a new platform for the business partners based on Watson to match the partners with clients, and other partners, and with IBM offerings. This should streamline go-to-market approach.

We’ve heard that IBM needs industry-specific, and domain-specific software providers to run their applications on ICP4Data and collaborate with IBM.

Support Organization and Education

It was interesting to speak with people involved in these teams and learn about how IBM wants to help clients modernize and adapt to this new, cloud and AI-driven world

Garages

IBM Cloud Garage : this geographically distributed team organizes design thinking workshops, architecture workshops, solution build-ups and helps the clients from discovery, design, to development and deployment. These guys and girls accompany the businesses throughout the whole cloud journey. They use IBM Cloud Garage Method — agile approach to build applications and solutions with cloud in mind.

There are IBM Cloud Garages in multiple locations: San Francisco, New York, Toronto, Melbourne, London, Madrid, Nice, Copenhagen, Münich, Sao Paolo, Singapore and Tokyo. Interesting concept also of pop-up garage where the team can come to physically closer or customer location for some limited time.

IBM Garage : it has larger scope. It is based on collaboration between different teams within IBM and can include AI, Quantum, Blockchain and other solution lines. But the underlying method is the same.

IBM Studio exists also in many locations (one of them is Zürich in Switzerland). The only difference is that it normally doesn’t cover the development phase of the digital transformation.

Education

IBM announced IBM AI Certification and Learning program. This education program focuses on training and certifying professionals of our customers, not only in technical expertise, but how to evaluate business potential of an idea, design a solution based on microservices and AI, and implemented it using open-source and other IBM frameworks.

I spoke also with people from IBM Global University Program, partnership between IBM and some well-known universities. The idea is to alleviate the problem of shortage of skilled professionals through blended on-line and classroom programs in different domains like data and AI, Blockchain and others. Check here for more information.

Certification was also organized during the conference. Pearson Vue gave a discount to those who wanted to test their knowledge in one of IBM technologies. I prepared and passed the exam Watson Certified Application Developer. I’ve seen quite a lot of people in the room concentrated in front of computer screens. Please check this page to prepare for your own exam: https://www.ibm.com/certify/

Deals

Few deals and investments worth mentioning:

• 5-year contract with Santander worth $700M for the busienss and digital transformation of this Spanish bank towards hybrid cloud, AI for customer experience, big data for productivity and security,
• Deal with ICBC Argentina worth $63M to transform customer services using AI and Cloud. This is Argentinian subsidiary of the biggest bank in the world, Chinese ICBC
• I would highlight here also an announcement from the week before Think, the investment of $2B in a new AI research lab in New York for the computer-chip R&D

Conclusion

Tech event of the year, Think 2019. I was able to meet very interesting people, learn a lot , share my knowledge, get certified, and above all, get inspired. I saw good organization and good atmosphere (despite the rain). Now I understand better where this world of technology is heading, and where IBM and our customers are going. There are quite a lot of challenges on that road, and people are those who will resolve them. And people who are inspired and who Think are a very powerful force.

Think (about) 2019 !

Sasha Lazarevic, Switzerland

Also published in my personal blog: https://LZRVC.com