IBM Offers Services For Grid Computing

IBM's IT services business, which accounted for nearly 45 percent 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.

This story courtesy of InformationWeek.