Section Title
Big Blue Bets Green
By Ben Worthen, Wall Street Journal
September 5, 2007, 8:06 AM EDT
IBM’s venture-capital group is different from a traditional VC firm. Instead of giving promising startups seed money in exchange for an equity stake, IBM gives startups software and hardware and consulting services, and introduces promising companies to IBM’s customers. IBM uses the new products as a way to sell its consulting services. The venture group is part of a $1 billion a year partnership effort by IBM, Drew Clark, a director with the group, tells the Business Technology Blog.
One of the biggest looming issues for businesses is green technology, Clark tells us. It’s a much bigger issue than just being a good corporate citizen; companies spend millions a year on energy that they don’t need. IBM works with companies like Sensicore that make Internet-connected sensors that can measure anything from water quality to how hot a piece of equipment is. This information can help companies make strategic energy-consumption decisions, such as when to turn on the air conditioning or to cool only selected parts of a datacenter.
It’s not enough just to have this data, however. Companies will need to make sense of the information these sensors pick up. That’s why IBM is looking at companies like Synapsense that make software that can help companies manage the data from these sensors.
While companies have been slow to adopt so-called green technology, IBM thinks that will change. “We’re well beyond convinced,” says Clark. “We’re betting a lot of money on it.” IBM will presumably make a lot of that money back helping companies integrate their new sensor software with existing systems.