Gerstner's techie named Pervasive Computing GM

Electronic News, March 9, 1998 by Gale Morrison

Research-minded exec to oversee "Tier Zero"gadget army

Somers, N.Y.--One of IBM Corp.'s highest research-minded business executives, Mark F. Bregman has taken a new, more esoteric title at the computer giant. IBM has appointed Dr. Bregman corporate GM for "pervasive computing," overseeing what IBM internally calls "tier zero" of the computer industry: the coming army of gadgets and appliances that will manipulate information gleaned from large computers to their users' preference, or so the theory goes. An official announcement is expected soon.

Not much is known about the fledgling endeavor as "pervasive computing" is still in its formative stages. The effort is IBM's attempt to leverage its hardware expertise and software expertise in storage, chip and Java development to take advantage of the growing market for embedded and handheld technologies.

"We know how to make systems talk to one another, this is just making it happen on different scales," said an IBM representative working closely with Dr. Bregman. Dr. Bregman was traveling and unavailable for comment.

Industry analysts, though unfamiliar with details regarding the new effort, suggested it is closely linked with IBM's multi-million Java development push. Dr. Bregman recently sat in on the IBM/Sun Microsystems conference call detailing IBM's JavaChip ..... (see story, p. 16).

"It could involve Java," an IBM spokesperson agreed.

Dr. Bregman comes off two years as GM of IBM's RISC System/6000 division, where he oversaw worldwide development, manufacturing, and marketing of the RS/6000 computer and the IBM flavor of Unix, AIX, that runs on the large, supercomputer-capable machines.

Throughout 1995, Dr. Bregman was technical assistant to Big Blue's chairman Louis Gerstner. He "focused on technical issues related to IBM's businesses" as Mr. Gerstner was getting knee-deep in his turnaround of IBM. He came to the boardroom from IBM Research in Yorktown Heights, N.Y., where he was since February 1994 VP, systems, technology and science.

Nearly all of his positions at the Yorktown Heights T.J. Watson Research Center from 1984, when he started, until 1994, were managing the corporation's research goals and how they were met. From 1989 to 1993, he was on assignment in Japan as advanced technology development manager in Yasu, Japan. He began in 1984 after receiving his Ph.D. from Columbia University, the Watson center's decades-old academic breeding ground.

IBM is held up as an shining example of how corporations in the 1990s ended the cosseting of their researchers and so brought about always market-minded R&D. The new role for Dr. Bregman, industry observers noted, could be further evidence of that process, or the extension of it where high tech companies must move their very brightest minds closer to their businesses to avoid finding themselves marketing obsolete products.

--Chad Fasca contributed to this report