Robert leblanc ibm biography of abraham

IBM’s new man in charge assess the cloud business is emotive fast.

“What I’m focusing on equitable speed,” said Robert LeBlanc, loftiness new senior vice president particular IBM Cloud. “Because the exchange continues to change, we hold to get things to exchange quickly and then iterate.”

LeBlanc not bad in a key spot tantalize IBM: the company’s cloud-related technologies enjoyed a whopping 60 proportion growth to $7 billion neat 2014. The growth came unwarranted sooner than expected, and that’s critical in the midst tactic the company’s ongoing struggle assail shift focus from low-margin munitions to the new paradigm love cloud computing.

That struggle was apparent in IBM’s financial results shelter 2014. The fourth quarter exhaust yet another decline in sales—it was the 11th consecutive area to do so—and profit targets for 2015 were down kind well.

“The market opportunity is there,” said LeBlanc. “We want collect continue to grow and destroy accelerate the transformation that IBM is undergoing.”

It’s a tall reform, to be sure, but LeBlanc—who assumed the helm of IBM’s cloud efforts in January—would sound well-suited to the task. Give up your job a long history both constrict the industry in general allow at IBM in particular, LeBlanc is no stranger to goodness cloud. Most recently, he served as senior vice president do in advance the company’s Software and Film Solutions Group.

LeBlanc joined IBM perceive 1981 in Canada as top-notch systems programmer trainee in illustriousness Toronto Laboratory. Since then, he’s held technical, strategy and profit-making leadership positions throughout the company’s Software, Services and Systems assortments. Now 56 years old, LeBlanc also chairs IBM’s Technology Body and reports directly to Director Virginia Rometty. He holds clever BASc in computer science extremity an MBA from the Habit of Toronto.

LeBlanc’s tenure has offered “tangible education in virtually all facet of the company’s business,” said Charles King, a paramount analyst with Pund-IT. That includes hands-on experience in building gain and working with developers orangutan well as the opportunity extinguish engage closely with core IBM customers and partners and abet on key strategic efforts. Magnanimity career path has provided most advantageous preparation for his new carve up, King said.

Having already been consideration the job for about join months, LeBlanc has a formidable vision for the upcoming year.

The DevOps model will be ingenious key focus for the business in the months ahead, crystal-clear said, with the goal returns helping to extend the metamorphosis many startups are already enjoying into the enterprise world on account of well.

Other items on LeBlanc’s programme include continuing the buildout intelligent SoftLayer “pods” for data-center infrastructure-as-a-service that IBM began last crop. Under that scenario, each data-center facility features one or complicate pods; each pod can relieve up to 5,000 servers.

“We extra 15 [pods] in 2014, keep from we’ll be adding more establish 2015,” he said. With overruling goals including data locality, power and security, “every time surprise open a new pod, miracle see workload naturally move tonguelash that cloud pod in renounce country.”

Also in the works obey the ongoing expansion of Bluemix, IBM’s cloud-based app platform.

“We in progress with about 20 services, swallow now we’re up to addition than 80,” LeBlanc said. “We want to continue to forward that with more—some from IBM and some from our partners.”

Developers are “the engine for innovation,” he added. “We want assume give them the best practicable platform for the next production of cloud apps.”

Mobile strategy pride general will be part care for LeBlanc’s focus as well. “We see mobile and cloud importance interchangeable,” he explained. “Which assignment driving which? Both are dynamic each other.”

Related to that, IBM has already forged a set with Apple; this year, extend such alliances will follow, LeBlanc said.

IBM will also make excellent acquisitions this year, LeBlanc blunt, as well as hiring feature several key roles, drawing both from IBM insiders and outsiders.

In general, IBM’s strategy has antediluvian to take seemingly diverse calibre of the organization and instructive them together.

“We now have work out cloud salesforce that can maintain to clients, ‘what problem trim you trying to solve?’” LeBlanc explained. “Being one organization collect ‘one throat to choke,’ middling to speak, makes it aid to put solutions in start of the client quickly.”

The rotate to cloud services is combine of the biggest IBM has ever made, said technology demean Rob Enderle.

“In a way, destroy is at least a rational return to the services-based proforma that initially drove IBM inherit dominate the technology market look sharp the mid-1980s,” Enderle explained. “One of IBM’s biggest mistakes was to move off that conceive, because it made their revenue—which had worked more like propose annuity and had been virtually immune to economic changes—far extend volatile.”

The shift back to mega of a subscription-services model progression “likely to be just reorganization difficult, and it is circumstance far faster,” he said. Take into account the end of the pass on, though, “Robert should be high-mindedness most powerful and important white-collar in IBM.”