IMS joined the mainframe platform officially in 1969. Like the mainframe, IMS has continued to thrive, enjoying its most successful sales year ever in 2003. IMS has successfully reinvented itself many times over those years and its list of state-of-the-art technological innovations is far too lengthy to reproduce here. However, given that there are few, if any, software products still around after all these years, a fair question might be, "Is IMS still strategic?" The word strategic means different things to different people. For addressing customer needs, the word strategic can be defined by answering the following question:
For addressing IBM's needs, the word strategic can be defined by answering the following questions:
The following sections consider each of these questions. IMS is Strategic for Addressing Customer NeedsCustomer acceptance of new IMS versions is the best measure of its strategic value. In 2003, the IMS workload, as measured in the millions of instructions per second (MIPS) capacity of IMS systems, increased 67.9% on our latest versions. At the end of 2003, there was almost three times more work being done on our latest versions, Version 7 and Version 8, than on older versions, Versions 5 and 6, worldwide. Overall, in 2003, MIPS of IMS systems grew almost 20%. By midyear, IMS Version 7 surpassed IMS Version 6 as the most popular version, measured by number of licenses. Overall, the growth of net new IMS licenses remained positive, fueled largely by expansions required because of mergers and acquisitions among existing customers (in the Americas and Europe) and the selection of IMS for new zSeries® footprints (predominantly by emerging opportunities in Asia). It is noteworthy that customers showed continued confidence in the future of IMS during the years 20012003, when much of the rest of the IT industry was showing a downturn and retrenchment. Who Uses IMSOver 90% of the top world wide companies in the following industries use IMS to run their daily operations:
The following quote is an example of how one analyst[1] views IMS:
IMS is still a viable, even unmatched, platform to implement very large online transaction processing (OLTP) systems and, in combination with Web Application Server technology, it is the foundation for a new generation of Web-based, high-workload applications. Here are some interesting facts about how IMS is used. IMS manages a large percentage of the world's corporate data.
IMS processes over 50 billion transactions per day.
Related Reading: To learn more about the industries and customers that use IMS, visit the IMS Web site at www.ibm.com/ims, and click "Featured Customer," "IMS Newsletter," or "Overview." IMS is Strategic for Addressing IBM NeedsIMS's strategic value to IBM can be measured in three areas:
IMS is Strategic in the On Demand InfrastructureIBM defines an on demand enterprise as one whose business processes are integrated end-to-end across the company and with key partners, suppliers, and customers. An on demand enterprise can respond with flexibility and speed to any customer demand, any market opportunity, and any external threat. This need to respond with urgency must be addressed by an on demand infrastructure. This infrastructure is:
IMS is Strategic Regarding Continued InvestmentThe ability of the IMS team to deliver revenue growth to the IBM company is a measure of our success as business managers. Success in this area supports continued investment by IBM in the development of future versions and the growth of resources devoted to that effort. In 2003, IMS enjoyed another record breaking year, surpassing 2002 as the largest revenue producing year in its 35-plus year history. In the first two quarters of 2004, IMS's revenue grew 9% (year to year). IMS has shown consistent revenue growth each year since adopting the current IMS business model in 2000. IMS is Strategic for the FutureThe focus for IMS in 2004, and beyond, is striving to remain the strategic choice for:
Success in that area and support of the open, integrated, self-managing, on demand operating environment, suggest that IMS will continue as a major factor in the growth strategy of the IBM Corporation, as it has been for the past 36 years. |