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By now you’ve no doubt seen any number of advertisements or promotional materials related to IBM’s Smarter Planet campaign. Blue Blue launched the campaign a little more than a year ago, based on its vision of a more richly interconnected network of cities, transportation networks, businesses and institutions.
As one New York Times blogger noted this week, when launched the big think campaign seemed to be a little out of touch with the economic calamity surrounding it. But with the economy now poised to make a recovery, IBM may have firmly established itself as the thought leader in smart systems.
This week Forrester Research released a forecast which predicted the economic recession is over, and the technology sector could be poised for a long-term period of growth. “We are entering a new six-to-seven year cycle of IT growth and innovation that Forrester calls Smart Computing,” said Andrew Bartels, a Forrester vice president and principal analyst. “New technologies of awareness married to advanced business intelligence analytics make computing smart.”
In a speech delivered to business and civic leaders at London, England’s Chatham House this week, IBM Chief Executive Sam Palmisano elaborated on the company’s vision.
In a speech titled, Welcome to the Decade of Smart, Palmisano highlighted the company’s vision on how society could leverage smarter systems to achieve economic growth, near-term efficiency, sustainable development and societal progress.
“By a smarter planet, we mean that intelligence is being infused into the systems and processes that enable services to be delivered; physical goods to be developed, manufactured, bought and sold; everything from people and money to oil, water, and electrons to move; and billions of people to work and live,” Palmisano told the think tank.
He pointed to a number of developments leading to the smarter planet, including:
• Enormous computational power that can now be delivered in forms so small, abundant and inexpensive that it is being put into things no one would recognize. He cited cars, appliances, roadways, rail lines, power grids, and clothes as examples.
• All of these “smart” devices – soon to number in the trillions – are being connected through the Internet.
• All of the data being produced by these devices, can now be turned into intelligence through rapid advances in processing power and analytics.
The text of Palmisano’s speech, which can be found here, is worth reading. Yes, to a large extent the speech and IBM’s Smarter Planet campaign are marketing tools. But businesses and civic leaders are paying attention to what IBM has to say on this front and are making plans towards achieving smarter systems.
Palmisano also acknowledges that many of the things being envisioned are controversial – be they changes to healthcare, government or electronic surveillance. But that is why they need to be discussed and thought about now.
“Yes, debates will continue to rage on many contentious issues in our society,” he concludes. “But no matter which viewpoint one shares – or which ultimately prevails in any given society or industry – the system that results will need to be smarter, more transparent, more efficient, more equitable, more resilient.
“And that’s one reason for hope: making our planet smarter is in everyone’s interest.”
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