‘Pervasive’ IBM plan targets mobile users

June 21, 1999 — IBM Corp. will lay out its long-term pervasive computing strategy this week, which aims to extend electronic business beyond the PC to the emerging class of intelligent devices. In addition, IBM will detail how it will use Java as the lingua franca to create applications capable of running across these platforms.

IBM, through its Pervasive Computing initiative, this week will detail much of its long-term strategy for tying together a wide variety of mobile computing and embedded devices through a series of Java-flavored technologies.

In a slap at Microsoft, part of IBM’s message will emphasize that its strategy does not revolve around any one dominant operating system and that its approach will be to make dozens of different operating environments work together throughout the network.

IBM’s plan could result in significant cost savings for its largest IT engagements by helping them more efficiently deploy and centrally manage emerging intelligent devices and their applications, which are becoming integral pieces of enterprise infrastructures.

Central to IBM’s plans is its “client stack” — part specification, part product suite — which is still being developed. The “client stack,” described as an operating shell by one IBM insider, currently consists of the Java virtual machine, a database such as DB2, a personal information manager (PIM), and a number of built-in communications and connectivity functions.

IBM is eyeing a significant portion of what company officials estimate will be a 00 billion to 20 billion market by 2003. By focusing on systems and software infrastructure and components for mobile and embedded devices, the company is looking to be a key provider of foundation technologies. IBM has also targeted specific application types, including automotive, smart cards, mobile e-business, and home/consumer, for partnerships aimed at end-to-end data exchange and management.

Facilitating the exchange of data among back-end systems and mobile and embedded devices, IBM’s so-called transcoding translation and formatting software promises to eliminate the need to rewrite content for each platform. IBM later this year will add the capability to such products as its On-Demand Server and WebSphere.

The company’s DB2 Everywhere slimmed-down relational database, along with MQLite messaging and MQSeries Integrator message routing software, help form the middleware layer uniting the scheme.

“Do people know what sort of operating environment runs their phones? No, because they don’t need to. It is going to be the same way in the pervasive world,” according to one IBM insider.

The development of a standards-based infrastructure to accommodate the pervasive computing world will generally parallel that of the telephone system, according to the IBM view.

Eventually, users will be able to transparently access the network and exchange data with all the complexity of doing so now at the client level being taken care of through the network.

“In computing across the Internet today you have to load the operating system, dial the ISP, open a browser. But in the pervasive world, all of that gets sucked up into the network making the [client] much easier to use,” one source said.

IBM’s efforts to piece together its overall strategy will revolve around OEM products, including its micro drives, ASICs and voice technologies; its middleware products such as Websphere, MQSeries, DB2, and Visual Age programming products; and partnerships with companies across may different industries.

“A branded Pervasive Computing solution will typically include two to five partners such as a content provider, a device manufacturer, and a service provider like us,” one source said.

IBM’s strategy will rely heavily on users’ infrastructure, such as their network. However, that infrastructure’s capabilities aren’t robust enough to handle the sort of communication that IBM envisions.

However, that infrastructure can support early pilots now such as one being conducted by Saber, Nokia, and IBM. They are piloting a program in which Nokia cellular phone users can access Saber’s travel System using Extensible Markup Language and Java applets.