1 00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:04,400 Over the years, IBM has spun off so many businesses that you might wonder what they 2 00:00:04,400 --> 00:00:09,840 even do anymore. I mean, they literally invented the personal computer, but they sold their entire 3 00:00:09,840 --> 00:00:15,600 PC division to Lenovo back in 2004. They stopped making consumer printers in 91, 4 00:00:15,600 --> 00:00:21,200 computer chips in 2014, and Lotus Notes in 2018. So despite the fact you probably haven't 5 00:00:21,200 --> 00:00:28,000 bought an IBM product in years, how the heck are they still pulling in over 70 billion dollars 6 00:00:28,000 --> 00:00:32,720 in annual revenue instead of going the way of the passenger pigeon? Well, like many companies, 7 00:00:32,720 --> 00:00:39,280 IBM still has its fingers in what made it successful in the first place, IT. But it has shifted its 8 00:00:39,280 --> 00:00:43,440 focus to areas it thinks will be more profitable in the modern age. And it makes sense when you 9 00:00:43,440 --> 00:00:48,240 think about it. Although PCs were big blues bread and butter for a long time, they became 10 00:00:48,240 --> 00:00:54,080 commodity goods over the years with relatively low profit margins. But these days, IBM is focusing 11 00:00:54,080 --> 00:00:59,920 on services rather than selling physical products. One huge area where IBM is trying to become an 12 00:00:59,920 --> 00:01:05,360 industry leader is hybrid cloud. You're probably familiar with cloud computing in general. You 13 00:01:05,360 --> 00:01:09,680 use it every time you rely on Google servers to give you information about a local restaurant, 14 00:01:09,680 --> 00:01:14,160 or you ask your favorite virtual assistant what the weather is like outside. Hybrid cloud is a 15 00:01:14,160 --> 00:01:19,600 system that leverages public cloud systems that run public facing services like the example I just 16 00:01:19,600 --> 00:01:25,280 gave you in combination with an organization's own private cloud. A good example of a business 17 00:01:25,280 --> 00:01:32,160 that could use hybrid cloud is an online retailer like lttstore.com. Sensitive financial information 18 00:01:32,160 --> 00:01:36,960 could be kept on the retailer's premises with robust security measures to foil attackers. 19 00:01:36,960 --> 00:01:42,480 Meanwhile, much of the store's data and transaction processing could be handled by a public cloud 20 00:01:42,480 --> 00:01:48,240 system so that consumers aren't waiting forever for a page to load or for a payment to go through. 21 00:01:48,240 --> 00:01:52,320 And the retailer could even buy more processing time and storage on the public cloud during 22 00:01:52,320 --> 00:01:58,480 heavy shopping periods such as the holiday season, making it a flexible solution that is more scalable. 23 00:01:58,480 --> 00:02:02,800 Because it's usually much cheaper for organizations to just buy the cloud computing 24 00:02:02,800 --> 00:02:07,600 muscle they need rather than hosting everything on site, IBM saw a huge opportunity to profit by 25 00:02:07,600 --> 00:02:13,360 offering their own infrastructure as a service. In fact, IAAS is a common initialism for products 26 00:02:13,360 --> 00:02:18,160 that offer cloud infrastructure as needed. Although IBM has a long way to catch up in 27 00:02:18,160 --> 00:02:22,720 this space compared to Amazon's AWS and Microsoft's Azure in terms of market share, 28 00:02:22,720 --> 00:02:27,600 the explosive growth in cloud computing, fueled by higher data speeds and consumer demand, 29 00:02:27,600 --> 00:02:33,360 makes it easy to understand why IBM is focusing on it rather than slinging PCs at Radio Shack. 30 00:02:36,880 --> 00:02:41,600 The other area IBM is really focusing on is artificial intelligence. You've probably seen 31 00:02:41,600 --> 00:02:48,160 those commercials for something called IBM Watson while watching TV. Watson is a natural language 32 00:02:48,160 --> 00:02:52,960 AI that, believe it or not, was first designed to answer questions on Jeopardy. But since then, 33 00:02:52,960 --> 00:02:57,360 it's expanded to support everyone from medical providers who want to ask it about the likelihood 34 00:02:57,360 --> 00:03:01,920 of a certain diagnosis, to large customer service departments who want to use Watson to 35 00:03:01,920 --> 00:03:06,640 replace their human workers in call centers. Unsurprisingly, this all means that IBM is 36 00:03:06,640 --> 00:03:11,520 courting business from large corporations like Citigroup and Verizon who want to automate their 37 00:03:11,600 --> 00:03:16,480 operations as much as possible rather than relying on human analysts. And Big Blue is also hoping 38 00:03:16,480 --> 00:03:21,920 that Watson's focus on natural language processing will give it a leg up in a quickly crowding 39 00:03:21,920 --> 00:03:28,640 AI field. IBM has actually been working on AI for a long time. In fact, it demonstrated an AI 40 00:03:28,640 --> 00:03:34,800 that could play checkers all the way back in 1956. And since IBM has been focused on doing its own 41 00:03:34,800 --> 00:03:40,640 research for decades, they feel confident that AI and cloud are their ways forward. In fact, 42 00:03:40,640 --> 00:03:45,520 IBM is actually spinning off a large part of its more traditional IT business, which includes 43 00:03:45,520 --> 00:03:49,760 hosting network services and taking care of infrastructure for large organizations as a 44 00:03:49,760 --> 00:03:56,480 separate company called Kindrel later on in 2021. So it's clear that IBM has big ambitions. I just 45 00:03:56,480 --> 00:04:02,960 hope Watson doesn't replace the Techquickie staff one day. Or maybe they do. So thanks for 46 00:04:02,960 --> 00:04:07,840 watching guys. If you liked this video, hit like, hit subscribe and hit us up in the comment section 47 00:04:07,840 --> 00:04:11,040 with your suggestions for topics that we should cover in the future.