Wednesday, November 15, 2006

IBM sticks its head in the oven

On Monday I commented about how we have such an awful time with our heads stuck in the virtual world of our computer screens. Well IBM has already given it a lot of thought.
CEO Sam Palmisano announced a $100 million spending plan in front of more than 7,000 employees at a Town Hall meeting held on the popular virtual world Second Life. Palmisano unveiled 10 new business opportunities the company intends to pursue.
Each of those ideas will receive approximately $10 million in funding to be spent over the next 12 months. One of the ideas Palmisano will announce is that IBM is forming a new business unit to help clients use lessons learned from virtual worlds to real-world business problems.

Chief technology officer, Irving Wladawsky-Berger, is on record saying (on his blog) "using such virtual, highly visual capabilities to help us design, simulate, optimize, operate and manage business activities of all sorts is going to be one of the most important breakthroughs in the IT industry over the next decade."

"I am convinced that dealing with such business applications in a kind of SimBusiness fashion -- that is, the application feels like a realistic simulation of the business and its operations -- will not only transform IT but business itself."

I have no doubt.

No comments:

Post a Comment