IBM sets its eyes on the cloud.

• Position: CLOUD COMPUTING - International Business Machines Corp

IBM is in the midst of a massive structural reorganization to make it a serious player in the cloud. It has shifted its focus onto software, letting hardware take the back seat.

In December IBM announced it was partnering with Apple to launch 10 IBM Mobile First for iOS apps. The apps range in capabilities to benefit governments as well as businesses in the banking, retail, insurance, financial services, telecom, and airline industries.

In mid-January, it unveiled the z13 mainframe, which it calls the most powerful and secure system ever built. The new system's scalability and reliability make it "the ideal private or hybrid cloud architecture," IBM stated. In fact, it can run up to 8,000 virtual servers. IBM further estimated that a cloud system on the z13 could lower the total cost of ownership between 32% and 60% over three years.

The z13 is being heralded as the first system that can process 2.5 billion transactions a day, the "equivalent of 100 Cyber Mondays every day of the year." It's also the first system to make practical real-time encryption of all mobile transactions at any scale. Plus, it's the first mainframe system with embedded analytics.

At the same time it announced the new mainframe, IBM previewed its new z/OS software, which is supposed to help...