IBM女CEO畅谈超级计算机的未来

    5月15日，正值国家风险投资协会（National Venture Capital Association）40周年大会，作为议题之一，《财富》（Fortune）资深作者杰西•亨佩尔对IBM首席执行官罗睿兰进行了专访。以下是本次采访内容的部分节选。

    《财富》：IBM曾一度以大型机、PC和打印机为主要业务。现在的IBM致力于服务、软件和沃森超级计算机。你如何看待公司现状？

    罗睿兰：两年前，IBM举办了100周年庆典，当时也有许多人问相同的问题。在过去的工作中，我总结了一条非常宝贵的经验——千万不要用某个产品束缚了自己。我希望IBM被看作是一家创新性公司。一家公司要想长远发展，关键在于不停地适应时代。随时代而转变，这就是创新型公司的含义。

    创新型公司是任何人都梦寐以求的。你正在带领40多万员工完成这一目标。对如此规模的一家大公司来说创新意味着什么？

    我对持续创新颇有心得，这对于其它企业家或许能有帮助。我总结了以下5点。

    第一，你必须时刻铭记在心，保证公司能瞄准高收益的业务。这在高新技术领域格外重要。技术界充斥着颠覆性创新和随之而来的商业化，创新/商业化的周期在不停运转。

    你们【风险投资家】在其中扮演着重要角色。因为你们在不停地收购、剥离、然后再按自己的想法进行整合发展。不过，收购和剥离本身非常重要。要知道，IBM已经剥离了150亿美元的资产，收购了140家公司。而指导原则就是，促使公司转向更高收益的业务。

    第二，保持对市场的敏感。你可以从购买者、产品分类、地域等多个方面考虑如何拓展市场。

    第三，你可以假设自己的年纪有点大，对改造自己的核心业务有一种紧迫感。难道不是吗？例如中间件这种软件就可以向移动中间件演进。这样一来你就能保持创新。

    第四，你要记住，从人的层面上来说，创新意味着技能。在这一点上你别无选择。有人能自我创新，也有人不能。所以你可以通过改进技能来创新。最后，我们都必须不断审视自身、审视公司，并改造公司，这与我们前面谈到的公司如何改变多少有些关系。

    On May 15, Fortune senior writer Jessi Hempel interviewed IBM (IBM) CEO Ginni Rometty as a keynote for the National Venture Capital Association's 40th anniversary conference, Venturescape. What follows is an edited version of their conversation.

    Fortune: IBM was once about mainframes, and then PCs and printers. Now IBM is about services, software, Watson. How do you think about the company?

    Rometty: Two years ago, IBM had its 100th anniversary, which is when people asked that question the most. And I think one of my biggest learnings has been, never define yourself by a product. I would like us to be thought of as an innovation company. The only way you survive is you continuously transform into something else. It's this idea of continuous transformation that makes you an innovation company.

    Now, an innovation company is something that we all aspire to be. You are aspiring to be that with more than 400,000 employees. What does it even mean to be an innovation company especially at that scale?

    I've got a formula in my head about this idea of continuous transformation, and maybe it's helpful for people as you build out these businesses, because I break it into five different pieces.

    I think the first thing you always have to do is keep reinventing yourself for high value. I think particularly in our tech industry, this is an industry that has violent innovation and then commoditization, and it's a cycle of innovation/commoditization.

    You guys [venture capitalists] play a big role for us in that because you acquire, you divest, and then you remix your own development. But that acquire and divest is a really important piece. You know, for us, we have divested $15 billion. But then, we have acquired 140 companies. So, the formula is, in part, move to higher value.

    The second thing you've got to always do is keep thinking about how to make a market, and I think you can do that by buyer, by category, by geography.

    Then the third thing I think about is, you know, assuming you live to be a little bit older, you've got to reinvent your core franchises. Right? Things like middleware will get reinvented to mobile middleware, as an example. So, you reinvent.

    And then I think the fourth you can't forget, when you said about all the people, it's the skills. So, you absolutely, you have no choice. And many people can reinvent themselves and some people can't, right? So, you reinvent skills, and then at the end of the day, I think what we all end up doing is you've got to keep looking at yourself, the company, and reinventing the company, which is a bit of when we were talking about how does the company change.