IBM Corporation

Armonk, New York

Major Moves in 2000

Releases DB2 Version 7.x Reorganizes related tools into Content Manager solution Reintroduces Websphere as the hub of application development, management, and middleware Introduces ground-breaking semiconductor technology

www.ibm.com

What is IBM's vision of the future? Within three years, the world will be buzzing with 2.6 billion cell phones, PDAs, and other network access devices. These will generate a 1,000-fold increase in data-intensive, highly integrated transactions. E-businesses will face unpredictable spikes in network traffic, compute-intensive security administration, and increasing demand for realtime customer behavior analysis of massive data quantities.

In short, the company that most effectively marketed "e-business" expects a global transformation that might make us a little nostalgic for the quaint world depicted in IBM's advertising campaigns. And IBM is giving no quarter in any of the markets it views as crucial to this transformation. Thus, the database wars are not over, not by a long shot; leadership in application servers, middleware, and development software is very much up for grabs; and lest we forget, the world is going to need advanced hardware - even a new generation of chip technology.

Heading into the 21st century, IBM is on the move. IBM is sinking billions into advanced chip manufacturing. At its Poughkeepsie, N.Y. facility, the company tested ASCI White, an RS/6000 SP system that can crunch 12.3 trillion operations per second: a head-spinning notion today, but necessary to support future transaction levels.

Data in the Driver's Seat

The currency of the digital world is data, in all flavors, which must be transformed rapidly into the raw material for intelligence. IBM envisions DB2 UDB 7 as the integration point of e-business, business intelligence, and content management. But, price wars aside, where will the company find the competitive edge to catapult itself past Oracle and Microsoft? Through deepening support for Linux? XML standards leadership?

IBM could zoom ahead by integrating data mining with the DB2 engine. And not just for Intelligent Miner, its data mining tool: IBM is a major backer of the Predictive Model Markup Language, an XML-based standard for the interchange of predictive models. In the data-driven future, businesses of all sizes will depend on the ability to do realtime analysis of customer, market, and financial behavior. Deeper integration will enable analysts to take full advantage of all that an enterprise database provides. And through its evolving content management solutions, IBM will turn the full range of data, including text and images, into a field of dreams for analysis.

Websphere, MQ Series, and IBM's Java tools give IBM a full arsenal of tools to solve problems and keep competitors guessing. IBM is a proponent of modular, layered technologies as opposed to Microsoft's highly integrated approach. However, in 2000 the company showed its determination to integrate its application software with Lotus Domino to help customers prepare for the mammoth mixed applications of the future.