IBM 2015 Annual Report Download - page 26

24 Management Discussion
International Business Machines Corporation and Subsidiary Companies
IBM’s Cloud platform includes:
• IBM Cloud’s Infrastructure-as-a-Service, which offers bare
metal, private cloud and virtual server instances, enabling it
to cover many different workloads with unprecedented per-
formance. IBM’s platform also has tremendous geographic
reach—with 46 cloud centers around the globe.
• Bluemix is IBM’s Platform-as-a-Service, built on the open
standards foundation of Cloud Foundry and powered by IBM
Cloud’s infrastructure. Bluemix offers cloud-based services,
APIs and leading third-party services to developers in an
integrated platform. With $1 billion of investment, Bluemix
is now the largest Cloud Foundry development, has a signifi-
cant number of services and is onboarding thousands of
developers per week.
• IBM Cloud Marketplace brings together the company’s
extensive portfolio of cloud capabilities, providing a self-
service, digital experience for developers, IT and business
leaders. IBM has a significant number of Software-as-a-Ser-
vice offerings and visitors to the Marketplace have access
to an extensive and growing portfolio of cloud capabilities
from IBM and qualified third-party vendors.
• In 2015, IBM acquired: Blue Box Group, Inc. (private cloud),
Compose (database-as-a-service), StrongLoop, Inc. (devel-
oper technology), Cleversafe, Inc. (object-based storage),
Gravitant, Inc. (cloud brokerage) and Clearleap, Inc. (cloud-
based video).
• The Weather Company acquisition in January 2016, whose
dynamic cloud data platform powers the fourth most-used
daily mobile app in the United States and handles 26 billion
inquiries to its cloud-based services each day. This high-
volume cloud platform processes, analyzes and distributes
enormous data sets at scale in real time. It adds an important
dimension to the company’s cloud platform.
• IBM has entered into strategic partnerships all focused
on bringing innovative data and analytics solutions to the
market. The IBM Cloud is the most powerful platform for
enterprise-grade environments, bringing clients unparalleled
levels of security, performance and scalability.
Industry Focus
IBM’s solutions and platforms are most relevant in the context of
each client’s industry. General-purpose tools have their place, but
the company can unlock much greater value in building solutions
for the specific needs of an industry. In this context, Industries
are the focus.
Watson Health is an example of how the company is defining
solutions around industry needs. In addition to Watson Health, in
2015, 20 new industry-specific analytics solutions were launched
with pre-built predictive analytics capabilities. These include solu-
tions that allow clients to mine customer data for hidden insights
for action, spot fraud or risk and predict vulnerabilities to preempt
before they occur. These solutions, which are tailored specifically
for retail, banking, telecommunications, insurance and others, will
make it easier and faster for organizations to uncover and act on
critical business insights. In addition, IBM has announced over
100apps through its alliance with Apple that bring value in the
context of individual industries.
Complementing the power of the company’s technology solu-
tions is the industry expertise of IBM’s Global Business Services
consulting business. It is the combination of IBM’s technology and
services, which enable clients to achieve their business outcomes.
Summary
Each successive transformation of IBM has brought something
new and innovative to the world. More than 50 years ago, IBM
brought forward a revolutionary transactional computer called the
mainframe. In the decades that followed, IBM commercialized the
personal computer, created an industry around IT services and a
software market around middleware. Each of these innovations is
with the world today; they were built to last.
The company’s next chapter is ushering in an entirely new era
of human-organization-computer interaction—embodied in Cog-
nitive Solutions and the Cloud Platform.
Business Model
The company’s business model is built to support two principal
goals: helping enterprise clients to become more innovative, effi-
cient and competitive through the application of business insight
and IT solutions; and providing long-term value to shareholders.
The business model has been developed over time through strate-
gic investments in capabilities and technologies that have superior
long-term growth and profitability prospects based on the value
they deliver to clients.
The company’s global capabilities include services, software,
systems, fundamental research and related financing. The broad
mix of businesses and capabilities are combined to provide inte-
grated solutions and platforms to the company’s clients.