IBM CEO’s Take On Google’s World Domination: “No.”

Dec 26, 2009 at 7:27pm ET by Chris Sherman

Sam Palmissano has transformed IBM over the past decade or so that he’s been in top positions in the company. IBM isn’t just a mainframe hardware company any more—it’s involved in a wide range of businesses, throughout the world, and unlike many tech companies is still growing—and some of the best SEOs in the world have worked for/with IBM.

Today’s Barron’s has a profile of IBM, with some interesting quotes from Palmissano on a number of topics. Inevitably, with Google’s push into enterprise and cloud computing, the “is Google unstoppable” question arose. His spot-on and refreshingly objective response:

“Is Google going to become the computing platform for the enterprise? Is a bank going to run itself on Google? Is an airline going to run itself on Google? Is IBM going to run its supply chain on Google? Is Bharti Wireless going to run themselves on Google? Is the banking system of China that we’ve built going to be on Google? Is the Russian Central Bank [network] that we’re building going to be on Google? No.”

Chris Sherman is Executive Editor of SearchEngineLand.com and President of Searchwise LLC, a Boulder Colorado based Web consulting firm. He also programs and co-chairs the Search Marketing Expo - SMX conference series.

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5 COMMENTS ON IBM CEO’s Take On Google’s World Domination: “No.”

vcook1956, December 27th, 2009 at 11:22 am ET:

That was some good insights into Google. I am glad Google is not in a position to rule the world especially the way Google handles its marketers…

Garry, December 28th, 2009 at 7:15 am ET:

The best answer would be, wait and watch ! :)

Pterobyte, December 28th, 2009 at 9:14 am ET:

No? What kind of answer is that. This title of the article primed me for an answer.

I understand the question was answered by implicitly listing major industries, airlines banks governments etc.. but that is like asking if the internet would challenge our paradigms, how we get our news, how we bank, how we buy books and implying the an answer anything other then no would be stupid.

This is the typical egocentric head in the sand response you might expect from IBM; 20 years ago.

To think that cloud computing or Google can’t come of age and meet the needs of global enterprise is just naive.

George Michie, December 28th, 2009 at 10:32 am ET:
Premium member since 01/2009

The reality is: cloud computing doesn’t make sense for every company; its value is primarily for crunching huge amounts of data that would take ordinary machines too long to do.

Cloud computing isn’t free. What you save in buying machines you pay in bandwidth access. If your number crunching needs are limited, but data access needs are large, cloud computing makes no sense at all. There are also issues of control. Gmail goes down sometimes, not often, but sometimes and being able to control one’s own system and prioritize repair is fairly important to the industries he lists.

If on the other hand you’re trying to do gene sequencing or something like it where the amount of processing is gigantic but the data flow is small, cloud computing is a great solution.

bob222, January 3rd, 2010 at 2:45 am ET:

happy New Year guys

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