In the Fortune Tech article “How IBM is Using Water to Learn the Cloud” on CNNMoney.com, Shelley DuBois discusses IBM’s new plans to reduce and improve the efficiency of water usage in Dubuque, Iowa. In connection with the company Neptune, IBM has installed smart meters that will output data on the amount of water used every 15 minutes in each of the 300 plus participating houses.[1] From this data, IBM will then use its emerging cloud computing technology to make sense of the information, and provide consumers, towns and industries with a user-friendly report to help reduce costs.
One thing that was interesting from this article is that IBM is not actually engineering the meters to measure water usage. Instead, IBM is simply collecting the information provided from Neptune’s smart meters and “accessing that data, integrating it and making sense of it” with the use of their IBM Smarter City Sustainability Model[2]. Without IBM’s cloud computing technology, the output from the smart meters in Dubuque’s homes would purely be data with no attached purpose. From reading this article, I learned that IBM has multiple motives for its role in the monitoring of Dubuque’s water usage. As the article states, IBM is known as “mainly a data-processing company.”1 With this reputation, consumers don’t see IBM as an integral part of their life, letting them quickly disappear from the market’s mind. As a consumer myself, I related to this since I have only ever thought of IBM as a computer company with nothing new in technology industry. Now however, IBM will have a concrete connection to the people of Dubuque, Iowa and an extension to their company resume. As a result, IBM can use top-line strategy to increase their customer base and increase their profits. In addition to increasing their notability, IBM will also prove the abilities of their new technology. In the GCN article “Dubuque Uses Smart Meters to Get a Handle on Water Consumption,” IBM program director Milind Naphade was quoted as saying that “the idea is to validate cloud computing as a mechanism for collecting and managing data and to lower the barrier for entry for cities.”3 Although cloud-computing has been around almost as long as the Internet itself, its full potential is only being realized as of yet. As such, IBM will have tested and confirmed the potential and accuracy of their cloud-computing system by the time the technology becomes integral to operations. No matter what IBM’s motives, this experiment will secure the placement of cloud computing in the world of technological advancement and give companies a new way to use technology for their competitive advantage. Besides very interesting, I found the information in this article to be vital. For anyone with running water, the success of this project and IBM’s explanation of the data would mean the ability to “identify waste and view potential corrective measures to save both water and energy.”4 On a larger scale, this could also increase the sustainability of cities as they choose how to designate their resources.3 Overall, individuals as well as larger organizations and companies could reduce water usage and have an incredibly positive effect on the overall environment.
Sources:
[1] http://tech.fortune.cnn.com/2010/10/07/how-ibm-is-using-water-to-learn-the-cloud/
[2] http://www-03.ibm.com/press/us/en/pressrelease/32612.wss
3 http://gcn.com/Articles/2010/10/06/Dubuque-IBM-smarter-cities.aspx?Page=1
4 http://www.smartmeters.com/the-news/1248-ibm-teams-with-dubuque-in-smart-meter-pilot.html
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