Ack! IBM Developer Works! Where IBM'ers write pro-IBM articles and get paid for it! :)

When I worked at IBM, we often went to all-hands meetings touting the future of "grid" and "virtualization". Personally, I do not think the grid-advocates know what "grid" means -- it's a buzzword. Same deal with "Eliza = self healing computing" a few years before. Web Services is sort of ok, but essentially, it's nothing more than using port 80 and a few halfway well defined protocols (the great thing about standards is there are so many to chose from). Grid? I don't see much coming from it.

It's the rebranded selling of distributed computing....what IBM is in it for is, essentially, to sell by the megaflop rather than by the server. They get paid more that way, really! Think in terms of outsourced support, outsourced services, off-site hardware, and they can sell the same box to more than one customer. The business opportunity is much more interesting than the tech.