Montana’s Economy and University System will benefit by passage of HB830 to bring Deep Computing "Supercomputer" to the State.

The Montana economy is being offered a wonderful opportunity through HB830 to step into the mainstream of advanced computing that will raise its success in research and development and business excellence for years to come.

Earl Dodd, Managing Director for Strategy & Business Development – Worldwide Deep Computing – IBM Corporation is leading this effort and recently sent this message to convey the value of approving this proposal which is included in HB 830: "Challenge Grant for Super Computer, UM-MT Tech" http://data.opi.mt.gov/bills/2007/billhtml/HB0830.htm

I urge you to support this legislation.

Thank you,

Russ Fletcher

Montana Associated Technology Roundtables http://www.matr.net

"The State with the Best Education Wins!"

Earl wrote:

As I’ve tried to convey, the capability to deliver results of complex simulations (calculations) that are practically impossible by normal means, while delivering results in less time to provide either a better confidence in an solution, and/or by reducing the time to insight, will be an economic driver for Montana. My proposal will create a key factor of production in today’s knowledge-based economy by investing in and deploying what IBM calls Deep Computing (i.e., supercomputing or high-performance computing or HPC).

I am confident that my proposal is reasonable, timely, and valuable to the State. My confidence is based on 26 years of Deep Computing and Visualization expertise with similar government successes by my team in Wales and Ireland. Furthermore, I am personally engaged with the Provinces of Alberta, PEI, and Ontario to accomplish an identical economic result.

The foundation capability of Deep Computing is to support changing global business needs for all scientific and technical computing domains. For example, in the domain of Life Sciences (including proteomics, genomics, medical informatics, etc.), this proposed capability not only supports drug discover and drug interaction modelling by major pharmas (to name just a few), at the same time can empowers researchers, technicians, and government planners the ability to model and predict agriculture impact of Mad Cow Disease from a State neighbor, or the migration of Bird Flu across the State, or the impact of urban planning in ecological/geotechnical unstable areas, or the management of hydrocarbon resource extraction that help fill State coffers, or the environmental (plus economic) impact of a wildfire-prone year… The list of applications suitable for Deep Computing is virtually endless, as are the benefits associated with them.

What is being proposed is a balanced, complete, scalable, investment-protected, commodity-based solution. This is not a one-off, drop-the-hardware-and-run offer. This is a collaboration with IBM in the truest sense. This is how I can help bring great value to you and the State — value that far exceeds the numeric value stated by the challenge grant. You may think that such a collaboration may not yield immediate and obvious benefits; even so, the indirect benefits of our collaboration will exceed the gains of traditional IT and infrastructure investments.

To back up my experience and this bold claim what our proposal and ensuing collaboration will generate, I will call your attention to a recent study (June 2006) titled "Meetings Around the World: The Impact of Collaboration on Business Performance." (This was a survey that took in 950 information technology and business decision-makers in companies in the US, Europe and Asia-Pacific with more than $6.5M each in annual revenue.) The survey found collaboration in these companies (and indirectly with governments) accounted for 36% of their overall business performance. Collaboration had over twice as much impact as the nearest other factor (how aggressively the company pursued its markets). Furthermore, profitability, profit growth, and sales growth were the performance indices most strongly impacted by such a collaboration. This survey takes the wraps off collaboration as a source of business advantage and is available to Montana today. It is IBM and our global reach that will help bring "suitors" to Montana to make use of such a Deep Computing capability. IBM wants this venture to excel just as much as Montanans do.

Thus, a collaboration with IBM will reduce the risk of this venture while helping Montana businesses grow — i.e., I am full circle to my statement that this proposal represents a key factor of production for today’s knowledge-based economy. This is important to you and others that have not experienced the benefits of IBM, its Deep Computing leadership and prowess, and the economic benefits that ensue (and yes, some benefits realized over time). My intent is to get Montanan research and business communities empowered with "supercomputing" capabilities that will drive new, innovative business opportunities and to secure The Treasure State as a "regional power broker" with a scalable, performance, reliable solution, all at a great price point.

As international competition grows, Montana risks becoming irrelevant in the global economy if we do not provide the technology infrastructure to support academic institutions and private businesses. For this reason, it is imperative that you and fellow legislators support the business communities in Montana by voting in favor of HB5 (and other key legislation) as an important economic development measure.

The net net is that my proposed solution (complete with compute, storage, visualization, hardware, software, networking, staffing, and services) is central to Montana’s ability to compete in a globally integrated, fast-moving, dynamic world.

I am personally engaged at IBM to help oversee this proposal (and its implementation) what will guarantee our success, mitigate any risks, and drive business value.

Thank you again for your time, support, and patronage. I am happy to clarify and add detail with regards to this working budget.

Earl J. Dodd

Strategy & Business Development
Worldwide Deep Computing

IBM Corporation

Two Riverway

Houston, TX 77056 USA

713 940 1494 Office

713 446 4963 Mobile

713 940 1494 Fax

713 940 1833

Admin: Janice Gallagher; [email protected]

[email protected]

http://www.ibm.com/servers/deepcomputing/visualization