IBM tech guru Wladawsky-Berger to retire

By: Martin LaMonica
Topics: IBM ,; Enterprise software

Irving Wladawsky-Berger, IBM's head of technical strategy and innovation, said he intends to retire from his employer of 37 years this June.

In his blog on Monday, Wladawsky-Berger said he will work with IBM on a part-time emeritus basis after he officially retires.

Wladawsky-Berger was involved in setting IBM's direction in many emerging technologies, including the Internet, Linux, autonomic computing, and grid computing.

Most recently, he has become an advocate of the role that virtual presences can play in business. Last month, he (and his avatar) did an interview with CNET News.com in Virtual Life.

Among the media, he became a well regarded representative of IBM during a time, under CEO Lou Gerstner, that the company turned around its fortunes and demonstrated it could capitalize on new technologies.

At a recent MIT conference on technology and education, Wladawsky-Berger sought to dispel this reporter's skepticism of virtual presences like Second Life, particularly in business.

He passionately described examples where advanced visualizations could in fact make a big difference, such as designing or testing new car designs.

"Clearly, that is not bull...," he said. "Just think of it like the early days of the Web."

Who could doubt it then? It was Irving talking.

Martin LaMonica is a senior writer covering green tech and cutting-edge technologies. He joined CNET in 2002 to cover enterprise IT and Web development and was previously executive editor of IT publication InfoWorld.
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by edgy44 January 30, 2010 1:20 AM EST: I work in an avionics software lab, and we are daily fighting contractors who will not follow the rules. We've found wireless devices snuck in, and computers without passwords, but we get even more resistance from execs trying to enforce the rules they signed-off on. They want to keep the contractors happy, and not lose money. To me, the biggest threat to our high value software is stupidity.; Reply to this comment


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