IBM Global Technology Outlook

Ton Engbersen, IBM Research Laboratory, Zurich

Abstract: Every year, IBM Research develops the Global Technology Outlook or "GTO". The GTO is a study that has been done by IBM Research for more than a quarter of a century. It is IBM Research's vision of the future for information technology, synthesizing enormous insight from academia, IBM's partners and, of course, IBM's clients around the world. The GTO helps drive IBM’s $6B investment in R&D each year. The 2010 GTO has six chapters: Enabling Technologies for Healthcare Transformation, Orchestrating the Smarter Planet, Software Technology Trends, Future of Legacy, Convergence of IT and Wireless Infrastructure, and Workload Optimized Systems.

In this seminar we will briefly present the Healthcare, Smarter Planet and Convergence of IT and Wireless topic, and devote the majority of the time to the Trends in Software, Future of Legacy and Workload Optimized systems. The Trends in software will, amongst others, address the upcoming changes caused by limitations in technology speed scaling. Future of Legacy addresses a key topic for ensuring long-term innovation in IT and Workload Optimized Systems argues for a different approach in IT deployment, promising significant growth in time to value and performance.

About the speaker: Dr. Ton Engbersen received his PhD from the ETH-Zurich in 1983, while also working part-time for the Image Processing group at IBM in Ruschlikon. He was instrumental in bringing VLSI design skills to the laboratory in the mid-80s, and in the early 90s developed the PRIZMA switch architecture. PRIZMA has become a family of communication switch offerings that IBM is marketing through its IBM Microelectronics Division. In 1996/97 he spent two years at the IBM T.J. Watson Research Center in Yorktown Heights, where he led the initial development of MPLS. Since 1997, he has been managing the Network Technology Research Group at the Zurich Research Laboratory. He has over 30 years experience in Silicon Technology, Computer & Communications Architecture and Design and has recently been responsible for Innovation with many IBM clients in Europe.

Currently, Dr. Engbersen is a Senior Research Staff Member of the IBM Zurich Research Laboratory and Vice President Europe for the IBM Academy of Technology.