Blog: Shawn Rogers: IBM Information on Demand

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IBM Information on Demand - Keynote

IBM likes to get the most out of the day and started early this morning with an 8:00 AM keynote. I managed to get down to the conference in time for a quick breakfast but failed to find the coffee. Under normal circumstances that would be a bad, bad, bad thing. But that was before Wayne Brady walked out on stage. I have to admit he did one of the best hosting jobs I've seen in a real long time. He and his 7 piece band really rocked the house with high energy music and Wayne's trademark impromptu comedy. In between bits that included rapping to technical business terms and singing Prince's Purple Rain to the lyrics selected by the audience. We got to see some impressive real world case studies, got insight into the technology and culture of Harley Davidson from Jim Haney VP and CIO and heard from IBM executives.

The biggest announcement of the day is the roll-out of the IBM Information Server. The platform delivers an architecture designed to access information from disparate data sources, cleanse data to provide quality, and to transform data so it can leveraged by most any SOA enabled application.

The new platform is ideally designed for business intelligence applications and is a key part of the ongoing strategy outlined by Karen Parrish head of IBM's business intelligence practice.