A development that was only hinted at almost six months ago by IBM, in which the company touted the next era of computing, was officially unveiled this week.

 

IBM announced its new category of expert integrated systems, PureSystems, which it explained is aimed at simplifying enterprise computing.

 

“The pressures on enterprise IT, in light of broader business demands and growing consumerisation of IT, leaves a significant gap between process computing and info-centric computing,” began Oliver Fortuin, country general manager for IBM South Africa.

 

He pointed out that problematically, some 70% of IT business expenditure and a considerable amount of time is swallowed up by the unsustainable focus on maintenance, which leaves little time and less budget for innovation.

 

 

Oliver Fortuin, country general manager for IBM South Africa. 

 

To this end, the company debuted its new PureSystems family, which integrates both physical and virtual IT elements, in essence, a hardware tower which includes server, storage and networking components in one, or an “all-in-one’ for enterprises.

 

The company explained that the new systems family offers users an alternative to the current enterprise computing model, where multiple and disparate systems require significant resources to set up and maintain.

 

Additionally, PureSystems boasts three advances that IBM explained provide the foundation for its envisioned new era of computing. These include:

 

IBM delineated the differences between its new era of computing, or smarter computing,whereby products such as its new PureSystems family comes imbedded with built-in expertise, and traditional computing, which is wracked by delays with regards to procurement, deployment, configuration and maintenance.

 

This could typically amount to several months before a new project can be implemented. Ravi Bhat, the IBM’s software group director, added that PureSystems could help and be applicable to a variety of industries, including banking, insurance, retail, healthcare, government, and is particularly applicable to mid-sized organisations that don’t have large IT departments.     

 

 

The PureSystems development has been a long time in the making, and is the culmination of $2 billion (R16 billion) in research and development, and acquisitions, over a four year period.

 

The first two models of the PureSystems family – PureFlex System and PureApplication System – start shipping to customers this quarter.

 

While it is squarely aimed at enterprise customers, IBM’s emphasis on the need to work smarter and free up resources to concentrate on innovation seemed applicable to small, medium and large businesses alike. Indeed, we suspect that innovation will become the new normal, if it hasn’t already, for those businesses that want to not just stay ahead, but also keep up with the pace of technological change.