Software development is also important because it is pervasive. As IBM vice president and blogger Dibbe Edwards [points out“Software has emerged as a key differentiator in many products — from cars to washing machines to thermostats — with a growing Internet of Things connecting them.”
A few examples:
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[Soul Machines (link resides outside of ibm. com uses software to create artificial online advisors that improve customer service and efficiency. The advisors have human faces, expressions and voices that react intelligently, empathetically and efficiently to customer questions and needs. They can answer over 40 percent of customer inquiries without human intervention — and they learn from their interactions to improve over time. Using IBM Watson Assistant to incorporate artificial intelligence (AI) capabilities into the development process, Soul Machines can create and [roll out an artificial advisor in about 8 to 12 weeks
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“This is a race,” says Erik Bak-Mikkelsen. “We have to keep up with what’s happening in the market.” Bak-Mikkelsen is head of cloud operations at He understands that delivering new features and functions to car2go’s ride-sharing apps and vehicles is key to getting and staying ahead. To do so, car2go [moved its development operations to a managed-services cloud and adopted a DevOps development model. The result is accelerated development cycles, faster time to market and the capability to scale for future growth.
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Working with electrical power lines can be deadly. To stay safe engineers set electrical “lockouts” using physical tags and padlocks to divert power from work locations. Tags and locks detect each time they are removed from an engineer’s van and communicate the time and geo-location. As the engineer attaches the locks, their location is recorded on a digital map. All stakeholders share a view of the map to ensure safety, reduce downtime and facilitate repairs. The IBM Cloud Garage collaborative development approach enabled Enedis to develop field-ready prototypes in three months.