The real IBM Cloud

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Many of you have surely noticed that IBM has introduced a fundamental name change in its product portfolio. IBM Cloud, to which I am referring, includes more or less all the products and services we have used in recent years to profile ourselves as a transformative organization. These include Bluemix, SoftLayer IaaS, Watson cognitive computing, built-in APIs, etc.

IBM Cloud represents a simplification of our message, the product offering and the manner in which you use these products. For example, developers can create applications and test them in an environment that corresponds to the production environment. Any extra processing capacity, storage or specific service needed can be utilized from the same portal. Moreover, it is possible to manage other environments from IBM Cloud, as well. In other words, we offer optimal ease of use.

In spite of the new name, a combination of advanced and distinctive technologies still runs under the hood. Like many of our competitors, we have had a tendency to emphasize specific parts of the portfolio, regardless ow whether this focus was on software, platform or infrastructure. Perhaps this is logical for a company for which innovation is an integral part of our genetic makeup. I would even dare say that in many individual aspects, we are the best in the world. However, the integration of all these components adds yet another very significant aspect to the whole.

I will mention four distinctive points:

1. Enterprise readiness – With IBM Cloud we are truly ready to incorporate large companies in the cloud. Make no mistake: many enterprises and governments are only now internally ready for this step. The security, compliance and performance that these parties desire fit in seamlessly with our core competencies. We know the enterprise world better than any other company, including the desires and requirements within the most diverse industries and sectors.
2. Data management – We once proclaimed that data would be the new currency. That vision has now proven itself to be true. As IBM, we join various capabilities around effective, efficient, secure data management. From unique object storage across multiple clouds and systems to advanced analytics. We know our customers’ data and know how we must handle this data.
3. Infused with cognitive – Our cognitive Watson technology is an integrated part of our platform. Users of the IBM Cloud have direct access to this, allowing them to do an infinite number of interesting things with this data. But it also offers the processing of natural language for analysis, pattern recognition, analysis of visual content and machine learning.
4. Secure in the core – Integrated security and compliance within the IBM Cloud goes further than anyone else’s. One example is a very advanced encryption technology, which – using geo-fencing – ensures that customers have complete control over their data. In the framework of the GDPR, customers know exactly where their data is and where it remains.

Again: we are the only party that can offer all this in an integrated manner from the cloud. Another unique capability that we add to this is it possibility to run items based on a non-virtualized bare-metal infrastructure, which guarantees much faster response times for specific types of workloads, such as in the gaming industry or for financial service providers.

The IBM Cloud platform is standardized and is now mature. The fact that we are now offering all this under the name IBM Cloud is our ‘signature’ beneath a well-integrated set of products. One final point: in the past our message to customers and users has sometimes been experienced as rather confusing, due to a multiplicity of products and Anglo-Saxon names and terms. IBM Cloud represents a definitive end to all this.

The enterprise cloud era has officially begun!
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