I had the pleasure of interviewing Michael Karasick, a vice president of technical and business strategy at IBM, at the recent Esri International User Conference. IBM had a big presence on the show floor at the event, and a team of more than 40 brightly dressed booth personnel that were promoting IBM’s Smarter Planet initiative at the show for the first time. The company has had a booth at the event for years, but this was the first time that their messaging took on the Smarter Planet topics of transportation, water, energy and smarter cities, with the focus on building better systems for more efficient operations.
When I asked Karasick about the company’s use of GIS for a smarter planet, and the value of their partnership with Esri, he said:
“Esri has developed more physical simulation than we’ll ever know, unless it’s about semiconductors. We’ve been doing physical simulation for forty years at IBM, but for very tiny things. When we talk about the city, the notion of GIS-based analysis and simulation is what they deal with. So, our value is in the linking into the IT infrastructure, to build, operate and manage IT and physical systems. The partnership provides a very nice juxtaposition of capabilities.
We’re pushing down the ability to ask about the physical world into the fabric of government. That’s what Smarter Planet is about, understanding that IT has a lot to do with interacting with the physical world, and using it to make this a better place to live.”
Read the full interview online here.
