Steve Mills, IBM | IBM Flash 2013
Channel: SiliconANGLE theCUBE
Date: 2013-04-19

Steve Mills, the SVP and group executive of software and systems for IBM, discussed his company's plan to invest$1 billion in flash storage with Wikibon's Dave Vellante at a media event held this week in New York.

Vellante starts the interview by pointing out that this is not the first time Big Blue decided to throw a billion at a major trend. A decade ago the company pumped $1 billion into Linux, and a few years after that it pledged to invest the same amount in analytics.

Mills believes that flash is just as transformative as open-source and Big Data. The reason, he says, is that solid-state storage addresses CIOs' top concerns: it takes up less space and requires considerably less power and man-hours  to operate than spinning disk. The technology also adds more business agility to the mix because it provides faster access to data while eliminating the need for complex workarounds to the mechanical limitation of disk-based systems.

According to Mills, the Big Data explosion is driving the pursuit for faster response times.  As a result, flash is gaining traction in the enterprise and storage is moving closer to the processor.

"Bringing all the data close to the computer means I bring it close to where I do the calculation[s], the analysis, the understanding [and] the prediction. it's gonna change the entire landscape.  And what today has been articulated as "I have my memory space, my tier 1, my tier 2,  my tier 3..." that mission-critical tier 1 and even much of that tier 2 we believe is actually gonna move to solid-state devices."

Mills says that IBM will invest a sizable portion of the $1 billion it set aside for the initiative  in R&D to  accelerate this shift.  The remainder will go to customer and partner enablement initiatives.

Steve Mills at IBM Flash 2013 with Dave Vellante


#theCUBE #IBM #SiliconANGLE @IBM #Flash