In this Cloud Wars Minute, Bob Evans offers highlights from his full-length interview with the General Manager of IBM’s Ecosystem, Kate Woolley.
Highlights
00:48 — After speaking with Woolley, Bob feels that “the overall belief IBM is feeling is the more that [IBM] can encourage a highly successful, innovative, and customer-focused ecosystem, the better off customers are going to be.” He suggests that this was the general philosophy expressed by Kate Woolley.
01:40 — Woolley joined IBM about three and a half years ago as Chief of Staff for current CEO Arvind Krishna and held that role for two years. As the company realized it needed to do more within the ecosystem space, Woolley took over as general manager of IBM’s ecosystem.
02:08 — Earlier this year, IBM rolled out a new program called Partner Plus. “It is a full customer lifecycle experience and Partner Plus does a good job of covering that,” says Bob. Woolley also spoke in depth about the interest and demand around artificial intelligence (AI) and how partners can “play very capably because IBM has such a long and powerful history around artificial intelligence and great expertise there.”
03:20 — Finally, Woolley explained to Bob that IBM has a full partners ecosystem, consisting of system integrators, developers, ISPs, and other major technology vendors. “It’s interesting that IBM is able to do that in a successful way, while also having a very large IBM Consulting business,” says Bob.
04:13 — In closing, Bob suggests that “IBM is off to a great start here and this Partner Plus program is going to also be something that they can build on into the future.”
