IBM-Google hug in the cloud
IBM CEO Sam Palmisano and Google CEO Eric Schmidt joined forces to talk up cloud computing, but their broader message was that consumer and enterprise technologies will merge.
The fact that Palmisano and Schmidt pushed partnership on cloud computing wasn't all that surprising, but it is notable that both IBM and Google see the cloud as an avenue to merge consumer and enterprise technologies.
Schmidt said that over time there won't be much differentiation between consumer and enterprise architectures. The major difference is that enterprise customers will pay for software and services, with required security and other features, and consumers won't.
And.
IBM wants to provide the infrastructure and support services to the planet, and Google wants to provide the world's information, and some applications, on its platform. "The two companies are great and have lots of innovation in their gene pool," Palmisano said. "There isn't a lot of overlap in the strategies." Both are committed to open standards and an open Internet, and they are both going in the same direction, he added.
The big lesson: Tech giants such as IBM, Microsoft and Google will increasingly have similar technical architectures and possibly business models.