IBM in drive for 3G expansion

date: 12th December 2000, source: www.scmp.com

IBM, seeking a place in telecoms companies' computer centres, grabbed the opportunity last week at ITU Telecom Asia 2000 to sell its growing capacity to provide everything a telecoms company could need to launch next-generation services.

"IBM has been a huge IT provider to the telecoms sector," said Rich Stomp, the firm's vice-president of solutions for the global telecommunications industry.

"It is an exciting time for IBM, and it is our fastest-growing industry initiative on a global basis."

Under a new initiative for telecoms service providers, IBM is reorganising its hardware, software and services, as well as relationships with key technology players, into products which would include servers and storage, middleware, Tivoli service-management tools and consulting, systems integration and operations services.

Other computer companies, including Sun Microsystems and Hewlett-Packard, also are trying to be as well-positioned as possible before the looming overhaul of mobile-phone technology.

Third-generation (3G) models will replace mobile phones in the next couple of years, enabling them to handle much richer content.

Sun, for example, has announced strategic partnerships for its Java mobile-phone group with Sony and Motorola.

These companies will be developing wireless phones running on Sun's "write once, run anywhere", Java software.

HP has developed a software, hardware and services bundle, named the Mobile E-services platform, as well as Mobile E-Services Bazaars - conceived as regional international trading communities for wireless technology providers. The company also plans to host business operations for wireless service providers.

By pushing the development of Internet services through mobile phones and other wireless devices, HP and Sun hope that companies will buy their heavy-duty servers to run them.

The convergence of computer and telephone networks is driving these companies' efforts.

The higher data-transfer speeds of 3G systems, combined with the increasing computing capacity of mobile phones, hand-held computers and pagers, will bring the computing powers of mobile phones closer to the capabilities of desktops.

"Telecoms service providers are now replacing their traditional legacy systems, and IBM wants to help these service providers offer new services on top of the old ones that may be suffering downward price pressures," said Craig Herbert, IBM's director of marketing and solutions for the communications sector in Asia-Pacific.

IBM also unveiled WebSphere Everyplace, a version of its e-commerce server software that can connect wireless gadgets to back-end servers. With the software, servers can handle encryption, translate Web pages for tiny screens or send messages.

IBM also showed off its new Unix server in Hong Kong. The pSeries p640 is its first Nebs (network equipment building systems) compliant server.

Nebs servers are designed to withstand earthquakes, high humidity, smoke and dust. During power failures, they can run on a direct current from giant battery systems instead of the usual alternating-current power supplies.

The server was targeted for the telecoms and Web hosting markets, IBM said.

"In Asia, there is a lot of immediate opportunity in the Web hosting business," said Mr Herbert.

"People are really clamouring for very highly reliable scalable Web hosting, and there is a connected opportunity for storage hosting.

"Within that, there is a major business opportunity for telecoms service providers because they provide the bandwidth to enterprises directly. So we will work with them to design and build the Internet data centres to connect to that bandwidth."

IBM also said it was updating its data centres to allow it to host customers' wireless services later this year. IBM has 175 data centres and 15 e-business hosting centres, and plans to add another 68 through arrangements with global telecoms and hosting companies such as AT&T, KPNQwest and Telecom Italia.

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