The Hindu Business Line : Big Blue’s brew

Dr Ponani Gopalakrishnan, Vice-President and Head of IBM ISL (India Software Labs), who overseas technology development activities, tells eWorld how these labs, with over 20,000 people spread across the globe, seek to make a difference to the consum er. With 20-plus patents, he takes eWorld through a product tour. Over to Dr Gopalakrishnan:

What areas are your researchers in India working on?

IBM India Software Lab is the largest software development centre for IBM outside the US. It develops products for IBM Software Group across the application infrastructure, software development tools, data/information management, collaboration and productivity tools. It also develops products for IBM Systems Group across operating systems, storage, hardware and devices.

In the emerging technologies space, the Lab is involved in projects such as eXtensible Markup Language (XML), RFID (radio frequency identification), SoA (Service Oriented Architecture), Web Services, MDM (Master Data Management), Virtualisation, Autonomic Computing and Grid Computing.

The Lab Services team provides consulting, education and support for IBM middleware and systems to clients, business partners and sales teams. This covers the first business to business (B2B) engagement with IBM WebSphere Business Integration Connect solution in the ASEAN/SA region, from that for a Malaysian shipping company to improving loan processing at a leading bank in India.

Of late, IBM has involved partners and customers in the research initiative. How does this work?

Being the “Innovator’s Innovator” requires IBM to take a new approach to R&D. In this new model, R&D no longer experiments with new concepts in a vacuum.

Early interaction with clients and partners in the Labs enables co-innovation that invites real-time market-like feedback from technology buyers. This ensures that clients/partners get exactly what they need for competitive differentiation, which, in turn, means a likely purchase.

In effect, R&D is compressed, with both phases potentially occurring simultaneously. The key is getting a real partner — someone willing to share in the risk and reward of changing IT economics with technology.

In most organisations, chief engineers and inventors remain isolated in labs, far from the view of customers. Increasingly, the seeds of innovation are being planted by IBM Labs in concert with others around the world. Discovery and decision-making is not the province of one particular location, true innovation can be sparked off anywhere in the world with insight added from anywhere else.

“Collaborative innovation” also enables IBM to extend its R&D experts to work on client sites in “living labs” through visits onsite or by welcoming them to IBM’s labs and design centres.

Additionally, we use our 3,00,000-plus employees as a “living lab” to test and further develop many of the emerging technologies that are ‘Made in IBM Labs.’ This makes it easier for clients to tap into IBM’s technical talent and accelerate the innovation curve.

IBM is deploying its “big brain” technology experts in place of the business suited salesman – and it is paying off for both the client and for the company.

IBM has shifted hundreds of key technical teams around the world from the labs into customer accounts.

IBM’s Lab personnel are helping to provide higher value at higher profit margins. IBM has a laboratory population of more than 28,000 researchers and developers, with more than 20 per cent working directly with clients.

Industry Solutions

Faster innovation to market is today’s business imperative. Take our Industry Solutions, an example of which is the Store Integration Framework implemented for Hudson’s Bay Company in Canada. This is to integrate data from its 500 stores in near real-time, resulting in savings of Canadian $10 million in four months.

The ISL team has designed solutions for several verticals, including retail and telecommunications.

Working with the likes of Bharti Airtel, Idea, Vodafone, the team has brought about innovations that are set to go global.

The ISL Retail and Distribution team has deployed solutions for more than 250 customers across 15 countries.

Instances include implementation of an RFID solution in supply chains and Store Integration solutions for retailers in the US, France, Germany, Japan, New Zealand and Singapore.

Clients in the region can avail of customised solutions — kiosk-based Guided Sell Solution, Web Commerce Solution for low bandwidth in Hindi, etc.

A banking application for a global retail bank; e-governance project in India to maintain online records of 6,00,000 companies; and 1.4 million users on a single portal platform in major Indian languages are some of the other examples.

What are HiPods?

ISL is home to one of IBM’s most specialised teams called HiPODS, (High Performance on Demand Solutions).

HiPODS has expertise in integrating technologies from products across IBM’s five brands (Tivoli, Lotus, Rational, AIM, and WebSphere) and non-IBM products, such as Oracle and EMC, to deliver solutions that are replicable at multiple client engagements.

The HiPODS labs show how a global team of experts can be assembled in minutes to solve an urgent client problem or collaborate with virtual resources for a long-term project.

The HiPODS helped the successful completion of a pilot test on traffic prediction in Singapore’s Central Business District. With their experience with clients such as eBay, Charles Schwab and NYSE, they are helping the Singapore Land Transport Authority (LTA) build the right architecture.

vrishi@thehindu.co.in

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