Over 70 business and technology leaders attended a morning seminar on ‘smarter computing’ run by Philip Toledo Ltd at Palazzo de Piro in Mdina. Chief information officers, chief technology officers and other senior IT staff heard overseas speakers from global leaders IBM and VMware discuss how firms can make their existing IT infrastructures work harder and smarter.
Tony Muscat, manager for corporate solutions at Philip Toledo, started the event explaining how pressures on business are accelerating. Businesses faced not only the challenge of staying ahead of competition and being in tune with market forces, but also of seeing their profits increasingly under pressure as they strived to gain business foresight.
Against this background, firms’ IT expenditures were tending to remain flat with their biggest outlay going to simply maintain existing systems. In addition, customers had significantly different buying habits today, he said. Social media and other internet-based information sources were allowing them make their purchasing decisions based on consumer experiences rather than being swayed by company advertising, explained Mr Muscat.
Tikiri Wanduragala, a senior consultant at IBM, said it was important to think differently when looking at how to make IT work smarter. Business heads could gain considerable insight from how other firms and industries operate and then using commodity IT components to provide IT platforms in a manner which offered flexibility and, most importantly, reduced the cost of purchase and operation. He made particular mention of energy consumption, resilience and the holistic management of technology.
Izzet Arditi, senior partner systems engineer from VMware gave an overview of the various levels of virtualisation from the traditional server up to software virtualisation. He explained how VMware has a number of solutions for cloud-enabled businesses, showcasing a new tool from VMware which provides a detailed, highly graphical view on virtualised servers.
At the close of the presentations, the audience had the opportunity to continue discussions on smarter, more efficient IT informally over lunch at Palazzo De Piro.
Philip Toledo is an IBM premier partner, the top level partnership status of the international technology company. VMware is a global leader in virtualisation, and provides a vast range of cloud computing solutions for small- and medium-sized businesses.