More Productized Services from IBM
IBM is really pushing the packaged services. Here is information from CXOtoday.com:
Information Lifecycle Management (ILM) Service Product: It is designed to classify data according to age and relevance to a company’s business. It applies best practices conforming to regulatory guidelines. It enables clients strategically adopt storage optimization, virtualization and archiving practices in a cost-effective and policy based manner.
Implementation Services for Storage Service Product: will provide skills to clients for disk, tape, network attached storage and storage software products that can improve data backup and recovery capabilities, reduce risk of adopting new technology and decrease time to deploy.
Migration Services for Data Service Product- For assisting customers plan and execute data migration by leveraging tools and disciplines to help speed migration time and enhance quality.
Commenting on the newly announced service products, Paul Fried, vice-president, IBM Storage and Data Services said, “IBM is deploying deep infrastructure experience and industry-leading best practices, methods and tools to help clients win now in the battle against information overload. These new service products help businesses reduce risk, get information to users faster and maximize the value of their existing servers, software and applications.”
Note the comment from the IBM vice president: “These new service products reduce risk…”. It’s clear to me that IBM is responding to customer dissatisfaction with open-ended consulting contracts. As I have said before, if you are a services vendor, get on this train. Your long-term success depends on it.