IBM announces Deep Computing Services, joins crowded market

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IBM is sure sending mixed signals. It seems that every other day I get an email or IM asking if I know about the staff cuts IBM is making in its HPC business, but then the company continues to make HPC-oriented announcements. Like this one, out Friday, about a new services line

IBM logoIBM today announced new Deep Computing Services that offer clients access to highly specialized Supercomputing skills and expertise from the IBM Research and Product Development teams. Drawing from IBM’s extensive high performance computing experience and leadership, these new services–which range from systems planning and design, application engineering and deep computing visualization — can help ensure clients’ supercomputing projects are implemented successfully while reducing risk.

…[The] Offering Portfolio covers a full range of customizable services to help clients design, develop, integrate, optimize, validate and deploy comprehensive solutions to address their High Performance Computing challenges.

This is yet another move by an HPC company to try to capitalize on its design and engineering experience, and follows news of Cray’s custom engineering business from a few months ago. And then there are the many, many other companies who do this either as a significant part of their business (like NAG), or as all of their business, like IBM’s partner in the UK, OCF.

More information on the company’s DCS homepage: www.ibm.com/systems/deepcomputing/dcservices.

Comments

  1. Hi John,

    I’m not sure if this will help ‘un-mix’ the signals for you, but in the UK, Julian Fielden from OCF expects that IBM’s new HPC services will strengthen OCF’s partnership with IBM and extend the “coopetition”. Julian certainly doesn’t view it as a challenge to the established channel.

    In the UK at least, OCF will continue to support the vast majority of current and potential HPC customers with its own services. It will continue to provide the “close-to-the-customer experience and high levels of expertise”. OCF will also draw on IBM’s new HPC services if it needs to – enhancing its own services and filling the narrow gap in services that OCF doesn’t currently offer. IBM will also continue to support the small number of much larger HPC customers who tend to demand direct Vendor engagement itself – and to do that, it will need its own services line.

  2. John West says

    Gavin – thanks for that perspective. I hope everything is going well there in the UK…it’s hot as blue blazes here in the American south.