IBM Offers Services For Grid Computing

As part of a companywide push to sell customers its research expertise, IBM on Friday started selling consulting services aimed at installing grid computing environments and self-managing computers.

IBM's IT services business, which accounted for nearly 45% of the company's $81.2 billion in revenue last year, is selling five packages of consulting services to help businesses determine the costs and financial benefits of grid computing; design and install grids; and plan, design, and run IBM "autonomic computing" technologies. Grids, which can run computing jobs on remote, underused computers, and autonomic computing tools for keeping systems running efficiently, can help make companies' IT staff more efficient, says VP Alan Ganek, a former software engineer who runs autonomic computing for IBM. "The biggest single check anyone writes for their information technology services is the check for their people," he says. "Ten years ago, that wasn't true."

IBM is making its researchers available to customers as part of the new contracts, billing for their time. The company is trying to use expertise from its research labs to expand its consulting business, similar to the way it has used labs technology to improve its hardware and software products.