Differentiating Products

http://www.ibm.com/software/rational/innovate/

Scott Hebner, marketing lead for Rational Software, discusses the challenge of IBM customers to differentiate their products in an environment where buyer demand is so dynamic and quick-changing that they have to update their products almost in real-time. To face this challenge, manufacturers must make products that can adapt to the customer's need--more intelligent products that can interconnect with other products and other applications, and are instrumented so they can respond and sense whats going on around them.

[Scott Hebner, IBM]
Im Scott Hebner and I lead marketing for Rational Software.

For those customers that manufacture products, the number one challenge they have is differentiating their products in an environment where buyer demand is so dynamic and so quick-changing, that they almost have to update their products almost in realtime.

In order for manufacturers to differentiate their products, they have to make the products so that they can uniquely adapt to what the customers need. And what that means is they have to become more intelligent, they have to interconnect with other products and other applications, and they have to be instrumented so they can respond and sense whats going on around them. What they really need to do is build brains into the products and thats where software comes in.

Well, when it comes to helping the world transition to this world of smarter products, I think IBMs uniquely positioned. So, if you think about it, the smarter products are going to be manufactured and produced. They need to be consumed and integrated by customers. And then they have to be managed in an operational environment. If you look at what IBM can offer, we span the complete spectrum of those capabilities, from building them to helping customers integrate and install them, to managing them as an asset in operational environment. We have the services. We have the hardware and we have the software that brings it all together for our customers.

Category:

Science & Technology

Tags:

• Rational software
• smarter planet
• software integration
• Insight
• IBM
• Scott Hebner