I.B.M. to Take Big Step Into Mobile

For I.B.M., mobile computing has come of age. At least, smartphones and tablets may be popular enough to make I.B.M. several billion dollars.

The company is announcing a major initiative into mobile, involving software, services and partnerships with other large vendors. I.B.M. plans to deploy consultants to give companies mobile shopping strategies, write mobile apps, crunch mobile data, and manage a company’s own mobile assets securely.

Thousands of employees have been trained in mobile technologies, I.B.M. says, and corporate millions will be spent on research and acquisitions in coming years. I.B.M. also announced a deal with AT&T to offer software developers access to mobile applications from AT&T’s cloud.

“Mobile is the next big growth play that I.B.M. is going after,” said Michael J. Riegel, the head of mobile strategy. He said his company has made 10 mobile-related acquisitions already, and will have a global research and development team of 160 people dedicated to mobie technology. In 2012 alone, he said, I.B.M. won 125 patents related to mobile.

Despite its roots in computer hardware, I.B.M. long ago moved from the business of selling things like personal computers. Much of its business now comes from higher-value work like software creation. Even its big mainframe computers, like the Jeopardy-winning Watson, are usually sold in conjunction with services and software deals.

The push into mobility comes after forays into Web commerce, data analytics and security. In each case, I.B.M. has taken an approach of signing big contracts for large-scale engagements.

By contrast, newer competitors like Google Analytics and Amazon Web Services aim for smaller sales of technologies like analytics or cloud computing, but on a mass level. I.B.M.’s entry into mobile will test whether companies want a large, pervasive approach for this kind of technology.

I.B.M.’s announcement also ! marks a realization among many companies that employees and customers are accessing corporate data and services via mobile from lots of places, any time of day. This, along with mobile access to cloud computing, is challenging many social and business assumptions.

“Our customers are leaving billions of dollars on the table,” Mr. Riegel said. “They are not getting the productivity gains they could. They need to rethink their customer relations to allow people to access them at any time.”

The move into mobile is one of the first major initiatives by Virginia M. Rometty since she became chief executive in January 2012.

Ms. Rometty previously ran I.B.M.’s Global Services division, and worked on a push into bringing I.B.M. into the developing world. Mobile technologies, which are usually cheaper than conventional computers, are expected to be the way billions of people in poorer nations will come online in the next few years.

On Thursday, Ms. Rometty will also be speaking to invstment analysts at a gathering at the I.B.M. Almaden Research Center in San Jose. There, she will be emphasizing the growth opportunity the company sees in what it calls “cognitive computing,” made possible by an explosion of data and artificial intelligence tools like machine learning. I.B.M.’s Watson, question-answering computer that triumphed over human Jeopardy champions, represents the “tip of the iceberg,” said Michael Karasick, director of the Almaden Lab.

That technology, Mr. Karasick said, is being tailored for many commercial applications including medical diagnosis, drug discovery, marketing, and predictive maintenance of industrial equipment. Watson-style software is even devising computer-suggested cooking recipes â€" new taste creations based on the data analysis of chemistry, taste and a person’s individual preferences.

I.B.M., Mr. Karasick said, will be talking about some of the applications of its cognitive computing technology for the first time.

I.B.M! . executi! ves compare the Almaden meeting of investment analysts to one in 2006, when Samuel J. Palmisano, Ms. Rometty’s predecessor, summoned Wall Street investors to India to show and explain the opportunity the company saw in emerging growth markets like India. That I.B.M. prediction proved accurate indeed, as the emerging markets increasingly became an engine of growth for the company.