I
M P A C T
Emerging Work from CTPID
Impact
Fall 2002: Industry Leaders Lectures
IBM
| Lockheed Martin
IBM
Chairman Predicts Computing Will Become a Service
By Nancy Duvergne Smith
In the future, customers will
acquire computing power as they do water - just turn on the tap, IBM
Chairman Louis Gerstner told a MIT audience Oct 10. He predicted that
the Internet and information industry leaders will transform hardware
and software makers into providers of high speed, always on, and nearly
limitless computing power.
Gerstner, who delivered the
Industry Leaders in Technology and Management lecture to an overflowing
crowd in Wong Auditorium, said that three factors are forcing a change
in the information technology industry. Computing has become ubiquitous,
thus pushing more and more data, faster and faster. Threats to data security
are escalating. Finally, the accelerating complexity of computing tasks
is challenging current infrastructures.
Keeping much of the complexity
under the hood is Gerstner's idea. Today 40 percent of IT spending is
devoted to integrating technologies. "Nearly half the expense is
not adding value," he said.
Gerstner, who held leadership
rolls at RJR Nabisco, American Express, and McKinsey & Co before coming
into the information industry, still finds the human interface of computing
astonishingly poor. Would it be acceptable in the auto industry, he asked,
to have to turn a car on and off in the middle of traffic to make it work?
What other industry requires customers to press the start key to turn
off their products? Computers are not user friendly - even to the head
of IBM.
Changes in interface and new
infrastructures are required to meet the future needs of customers. New
systems should be able to response to the human autonomous nervous system,
defend themselves against viruses, repair their own problems, and reconfigure
themselves to tap vital components.
Grid computing is the new vision,
he said. "Now the Internet provides a way for stand alone computers
to share data. In the future, computers will work together to combine
processing power and storage capacities."
This new era will need self-managed
systems, secure large-scale computing grids, and a massive restructuring
of the IT industry and how it delivers product to the market. "Enterprises
will get computing the same way they water and electricity now, as a service
available on demand," said Gerstner.
Adopting this Internet-delivered
system will allow businesses to convert fixed cost into variable costs,
provide virtually unlimited computing power, and shed the management headaches
of chasing technology cycles.
IBM did not arrive at this
new vision easily, nor is it easy for a company to change. Gerstner said
his primary challenge when assuming IBM leadership in 1993 was neither
technical, financial, nor strategic.
"Fifteen years ago, I
would have said if you want to bring about change you need to understand
corporate culture along with the company's products, financials, and human
resources. Now, if you want to change an institution, I would say it's
all about corporate culture."
IBM, as an early success in
computer hardware, had codified the path of its initial success, he said.
When the information technology industry shifted, IBM was stuck with rules
that created a rigid organization resistant to change.
"You cannot force a culture
to change," he said. "You can invite your colleagues to enter
a new world and work differently and make different commitments. If they
come, you've made it."
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IT
Fuels Total Awareness in Battle, Homeland Security
By
Nancy DuVergne Smith
In Afghanistan recently, a
U.S. Marine on horseback rode to the top of a dusty ridge with pursuers
not far behind. He signaled his GPS position via communications satellite
to the command center in Florida and called for a strike on his own position
- in 10 minutes. Then he galloped away. Ten minutes later a nearby fighter
aircraft struck that position and took out his pursuers.
That combination of technology-savvy
soldier and technology-connected military resources is creating a new
era of battlefield awareness, Lockheed Martin Chairman and CEO Vance
D. Coffman told a MIT audience April 2. "Today, there is restored
view of technology as the key to defense superiority," he said in
his talk, "Total Awareness: the Real Revolution in Military Affairs."
And the Bush administration is backing up that commitment with a call
for $60 billion a year in defense and civilian information technology
investment by 2007.
Coffman's Industry Leaders
in Technology and Management lecture pointed to a new information technology
tool - the Joint Strike Fighter (JSF), the next-generation aircraft that
will be used by the Air Force, Navy, Marines, and U.S allies. Unlike current
aircraft that rely on a few hundred thousand lines of code, the JSF's
expanded capacities for observation and communication require more than
five million lines of code. Lockheed Martin, which annually spends $1billion
on R&D, recently won the $200 billion, 30-year JSF contract.
Enduring Freedom, the current
U.S. conflict in Afghanistan, has focused developing technologies on dissipating
the historic fog of war - the inability to see action in real time, he
said. In WWII, one of 400 bombs hit their targets; ten years ago, one
in ten hit. In Enduring Freedom, nine of 10 munitions hit their mark.
Next generation technologies
will advance those capacities, he predicted. Miniature Uninhabited Air
Vehicles, no more visible than a bird, will scout targets and detect biological
or nuclear threats. Space-base radar and heightened intra- and inter-flight
data will beam real time information to commanders in the field. Soldiers
will wear lightweight nanotechnology clothing that protects them from
munition fire and biological agents. Performance-enhancing exoskeletons
will allow them to leap over buildings. Surface ships and ground combat
systems will be cloaked in stealth technology.
Homeland Security chef Tom
Ridge will be applying many of these technologies to the goals of gathering
intelligence, protecting critical infrastructure like water and communications
lines, and effective border control. This U.S.-based effort already includes
the installation of automated postal sorting equipment that removes humans
from potential contamination. A protoype, based in Florida, detects, vacuums
out, and contains biological dangers like anthrax spores.
At least two proposals, national
ID cards with fingerprints and common databasing, raise questions of personal
freedom, Coffman acknowledged. Common databasing would have alerted the
airline ticket agent on September 11 that Mohamed Atta had several aliases
known by the FBI and had bought half the seats on the early morning flight.
That alert could have averted disaster. Common databasing that tracks
banking, purchases, and law enforcement records would also abolish current
privacy rights.
"Certainly we have constraints
in this country to protect our freedoms," he said. "There will
be a debate about how much freedom to give up and that debate will be
going on soon."
Coffman concluded in his talk,
co-sponsored by the Industrial Liaison Program and the Center for Technology,
Policy, and Industrial Development, that many citizens will be willing
to trade some loss of freedom for increase security. Increasing information
gathering and transparency to U.S. officials is the key to winning and
preventing future conflicts, he believes.
"If your enemy understands
what you can do with information - that is get the right information to
the right people displayed in the right way at the right time - you may
not have to fight," said Coffman. "That's how potent information
is becoming."
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