IBM Reloads Enterprise Branding

I nearly jumped out of my seat when the IBM executive I was interviewing said "yes." (I hadn't expected such a succinct response on the important subject of IBM's enterprise branding; bear with me for the complete explanation.)

Global CIO's Bob Evans and I were talking with Rod Adkins, the senior vice president who runs IBM's Systems and Technology Group. That operation is Big Blue's Big Kahuna, accounting for $19 billion in annual revenues and including IBM's chip, server, storage and systems software businesses. Did I mention that Adkins is also responsible for IBM's global manufacturing, procurement and customer fulfillment operations?

All of this is by way of saying that, when Adkins speaks, one should listen. Except I wasn't paying complete attention, trying as I was to jot down notes while Adkins was answering Bob's and my questions. Adkins was walking us through the introduction of IBM's new x86-based eX5 server family. He mentioned that the servers were going to be positioned as part of the "Smarter systems for a smarter planet" solutions.

If that marketing phrase sounds vaguely familiar, it's probably because you've seen those blue-bordered commercials now playing in heavy rotation on cable television. Those are the ones which, when they come on, you can't immediately tell what company they're supposed to be associated with, though you quickly get the vague sense it's a technology firm. Then the kicker comes when a knowledge-worker type (so identified because he or she is dressed casually in a non-casual sort of way) delivers the tag line: "I'm an IBMer. Let's build a smarter planet."

When Adkins mentioned "Smarter systems" I inquired about the ongoing use of "dynamic infrastructure," which is the current positioning terminology for IBM's virtualization-enabled, agilely architected data center solutions. Not so much going forward, was basically Adkins' reply. "Dynamic Infrastructure is a single dimension in terms of the things that we are doing in these platforms," he said. "It's just one of many attributes. Green computing in terms of energy optimization is an attribute. The dynamic capabilities, which you get through our Systems Director tool is an attribute. You're going to see less emphasis on that term "dynamic infrastructure" and more emphasis on 'Systems for a smarter planet.'" That's when we got to yes.Network Computing: Is this because dynamic infrastructure is no longer a good way to differentiate your offerings when many of your competitors are using terms which are so similar, whereas 'Smarter systems for a Smarter Planet' is a good catch phrase, it gives you 'green' positioning, and it puts some distance between you and your competitors?

Rod Adkins: Yes. I would say yes, and here's the reason why. What we're talking about in terms of "Smarter systems for a Smarter Planet" allows us to present a point of view that no one else in the industry can. It gets into this notion of intelligent performance, and the fact that innovation is required at all levels in the system stack. It's about the need for optimization, and that we also have to build in the analytics. You're going to see me, as the new leader of the IBM Systems and Technology Group, put less emphasis on dynamic infrastructure because it's one of several attributes in terms of the systems and the infrastructures that we're delivering.

Let me be clear, I'm not trying to bury Adkins but rather to praise him. Historically, succinct responses are not the traditional stock in trade of Big Blue executives, at least insofar as their interactions with the press.

I recall an interview, in 1993, when I traveled up to White Plains, N.Y., with the editor-in-chief of EE Times, the publication for which I was writing at the time, to interview a high-level IBM Microelectronics manager. The setting was a canonical scene out of the pre-Lou Gerstner playbook. (This was shortly before Gerstner took the helm and revived the company.) I can't remember the name of the guy, but he was a master of the art of the non-answer. He'd take a question, talk around it six ways from Sunday, then figuratively toss it up in air and talk sideways some more while it wafted airily back down to his desk. I could've taken my car for an oil change, and upon my return he still wouldn't have broken verbal stride.

When I got home, I replayed the tape twice, and then the next day I went into my editor-in-chief's office and just shook my head. He understood. In fairness, the IBM exec, who was clearly near retirement age, had nothing to gain from taking the chance of being misquoted in a trade magazine, and so was speaking --or not--to his own personal best interests.The paradox here -- one that Gerstner presumably used to his advantage -- is that if you look at IBM's roster of top managers at the time, they were all heavy duty people. You had people like Steve Mills (still there) and Nick Donofrio attempting to sprout green shoots of innovation amid vast forests of dead wood. It took Gerstner to come along with a virtual machete and clean out some of that overgrowth, to led sunlight in and burn away that ossified culture.

This is where Adkins' directness, and that evinced by his colleagues lately, is so refreshing. Appearances aside, more importantly it's an indication of IBM's commitment to a clear and focused message--and engagement with its competitors--going forward. Heck, if you look at Bob Evans's piece about our joint Adkins interview, you see that Adkins hauls off at Dell, Cisco, and HP. None of them is spared, which is as it should be, since those guys don't hesitate to hammer IBM.

So what I see now is that IBM is putting forth not just smarter systems, but smarter executives for a smarter planet, too. Reining in the hyperbole a bit, this leads us to the next salient question: How does IBM's new slogan work, on a broader basis? Sure, "smarter systems" is a savvy consumer rallying cry, but does it speak to the techno-savvy crowd or the folks who make data-center purchasing decisions?

First, let's look at the strengths embedded in the "smarter" wording. I noted earlier that "Smarter systems for a Smarter Planet" is a green play, but that's really using a bit of shorthand. Sure, there's green on the power and cooling front, as in fielding systems which use less energy. On a broader basis, though, the "smarter" verbiage speaks as much to efficiency as regards the infrastructure management tools, virtualization, memory scalability, etc., offered by IBM.

I haven't even mentioned the semiconductor design expertise, which Adkins persistently offered up as a key point of differentiation between IBM and its server competitors. In the new IBM eX5 servers, this plays out in the core-logic ASIC, which IBM designed as a way of optimizing communication between the processors and memory. The upshot is that IBM appears more passionate than ever about its engineering heritage, and the differentiated message that supports. As Adkins put it: "Hopefully my passion is coming through. This industry deserves more than saying, 'We're going to give you commodity parts with a supply chain.'"To sum up, it's my belief that the battle to win data-center requisitions will be won not by slogans, but by buyers' ROI calculations. In this regard, whether you're talking IBM, HP, Dell, or Oracle/Sun, everyone has the same challenge: to articulate a story which, on the one hand, provides sufficient detail about one's processing-side differentiation. At the same time, a vendor wants to also spotlight the storage, networking, virtualization and management components of the solution, and do it in a simple and understandable way. Simplifying stuff down to the PowerPoint level is probably viable when you're doing presentations for the CEO, but it doesn't cut it when the buyer is analyzing architectures.

The whole thing is such a challenge, I believe nobody has yet come up with an easy answer. Indeed, I believe the inherent complexity of data center solutions works against marketers' ability to ever encapsulate things under a simple umbrella. Cisco has perhaps come closest, with its "Unified Computing System" label, but even there the simplicity is being exploded by customers who increasingly want to dive into the details of what's under the hood.

Slogans--subject to change, anyway, at the next executive-level shuffle or ad agency review--aren't going to matter as much as technology, a front on which Adkins is going to market with a strong message.

Finally, I want to mention the challenge faced by IBM, as well as by HP and Sun/Oracle: that of managing the fielding of both x86 and RISC systems. (Dell and Cisco sell only x86 servers, and HP is moving in that direction, though it still offers high-end Itanium servers.) Back in the day, when x86 processors were underpowered compared to their RISC or Itanium uncles, there was a clear distinction. Today, not so much, and the market has verified this lessening disparity via the increased sales of x86 servers.

These days, RISC and Itanium are used mainly in high-end transaction processing applications, though there's some nipping at the heels on the lower range of this space by x86 clusters. There's a lot more detail I could get into on the distinctions, which space doesn't allow. Suffice to say that IBM is well positioned on both fronts, with its x86 boxes and its higher-end Power7 offerings.