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The Big Blue

Yes, you have guessed it right - the subject of this post is not "The Big Blue" (Le Grand Bleu) a 1988 English-language film by French director Luc Besson (though it would be an interesting topic in and by itself), it is the corporation - International Business Machines (better known as simply IBM). Established in 1896 under the name of Tabulating Machine Company it adopted its current name in 1924 under the leadership of Thomas J. Watson.

In my opinion, IBM holds a special place in the history of computing as over the years the company has made tremendous contributions to the science and the industry through its continued research and innovation. Metaphorically speaking, it is one of computing founding fathers. So, it should not come as a surprise that IBM is also one of the Cloud Computing pioneers. The company’s research into large scale computing, its long history and a wealth of experience with building and running complex systems and large datacenters, coupled with an impressive portfolio of hardware and software products and a world-wide professional services organization, provides a perfect foundation for the Cloud Computing platform of the future. And for IBM this is a natural progression of things, to quote one of the IBM sites dedicated to cloud computing – “workstations used to be tied to a mainframe, now they're conversing with a cloud.”

That said, it often seems that IBM does not get enough exposure and recognition. While Google Apps and Microsoft’s BPOS/Office 365 get a lot of press, similar offering from IBM – LotusLive Collaboration Suite goes almost unnoticed. Similarly, both Google’s and Microsoft’s strides towards FISMA certified cloud services were well publicized and covered by many industry periodicals. Meanwhile, IBM has readied its own cloud offerings for Federal and Municipal Governments, see the following article.

So, it may not be hip and trendy, but the amazing longevity IBM has demonstrated in this fast paced and even faster changing industry demands attention to what it has to offer. I suggest you take a closer look and decide for yourself what is the value - http://www.ibm.com/ibm/cloud/. Also, check out the the following quick video:

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