Enter the Heavyweights

Volume 16 | Issue 13 | 44 | Jun. 24, 2002 Previous | Next Enter the Heavyweights The world's largest computer companies climb into the bioinformatics ring | By Sam Jaffe Photo: Courtesy of Hormone Sekine BLUE GENE: Japanese artist Hormone Sekine chose blue for his primordial gene composition because, to him, it represents freedom. Will the big blue gene super- computer bring scientists more freedom? When Sun Microsystems and IBM announced plans to target bioinformatics as a key strategic market, they sent shivers through the small club of bioinformaticians. So far, no one company dominates the market, which consists of dozens of small biotechs with competing products and platforms. Would the arrival of the great whites mean the end of the guppies? The answer to that question has so far been a resounding no. Instead, the big computer companies might make it easier to work in bioinformatics, rather than dominating the market with deep pockets and massive sales forces. Bioinformatics started out as the domain of a few computer nerds within pharmaceutical companies and university campuses. Today, it is an industry that employs thousands and creates billions of dollars of revenue. Five years from now, according to the technology consultancy, International Data Corporation (IDC), it should be a $38 billion (US) industry. That kind of growth has attracted attention in these times of economic sluggishness. SmartMoney magazine recently listed bioinformatician as one of the five best jobs for recent graduates. Several universities are now offering bioinformatics degree programs. Fears that diversity and competition will end with the emergence of Sun, IBM, and Hewlett-Packard, the world's three largest computer companies, have proven to be unfounded. Indeed, thanks to changes in the computer industry, most of the heavyweights (with Microsoft being the main exception) stress open standards and, in some areas, open-sourced software. As a result, the giants' arrival could increase market transparency and uniformity. That uniformity in turn will make the process of becoming a bioinformatician easier (obviating the need to learn about competing technology platforms in order to master the basics) and potentially more rewarding. "These guys are the plumbers of this industry," says Debra Goldfarb, an analyst with IDC. "Once all the plumbing starts to work together, everyone else's job will become much more important." SOFTWARE SNARL Currently, bioinformatics covers a jumble of competing technology platforms that cannot communicate with each other. The market is awash with dozens of bioinformatics startups, and each hopes to become the industry standard despite the absence of the financial weight required to dominate. Enter the big three. Of the three, IBM has probably invested more in the sector and grown more quickly than its competitors. Jeff Augen, the worldwide director of business strategy for IBM's life sciences department, says his unit employs more than 500 people, and hundreds more throughout the company are indirectly supported by its sales. "And we're hiring as fast as we can," he says. Most of the jobs available are on the science side, as the information technology and sales jobs can be filled mainly internally. "We want to hire the best in the field," Augen says. Although the company makes most of its sales from software, hardware, and services, it has also embarked on an ambitious project to do original bioinformatics research. Its Computational Biology Center in Yorktown Heights, NY, employs more than 80 people, many of them with PhDs in life science. The center will soon have sole use of the world's largest and fastest computer, dubbed Blue Gene by IBM. Sun Microsystems is not out to match IBM's flashy research center, but its life sciences division employs almost as many employees. Sun's biggest focus is providing hardware, and sales rose between 30% and 40% last year, according to Sia Zadeh, group manager for Sun's life sciences. "We're heading towards a multibillion dollar revenue base in the next couple of years," Zadeh says. The third company heavily invested in life sciences is Hewlett-Packard, thanks mainly to its recent acquisition of Compaq, which had made life sciences a priority. No one at Hewlett-Packard could comment for this article. OPEN DATA Though these companies have a vested interest in selling proprietary systems, they support common standards in the life-sciences community. Sun, for instance, is a primary mover behind the newly formed Interoperable Informatics Infrastructure Consortium (I3C), whose goal is to establish common protocols and interoperable technologies for data exchange and knowledge management for the life-sciences community. IBM, which also belongs to I3C, has focused on Linux, the open-source operating system software that allows programmers to see the source code and make changes to it as well. The source code to Microsoft's Windows operating system, by comparison, is encrypted, and any attempt to change it could land one in jail. "We sell more Linux systems than anything else," says Augen, despite IBM's own closed-source operating system called AIX that it can sell, whereas Linux is free. "That's what everyone wants." Still, not everyone is pleased with the big companies' efforts in open-source software. "Sun and IBM people can be found at standards meetings and interoperability efforts, but I don't see many of them actively contributing to biospecific open-source efforts," says Craig Dagdigian, an independent consultant and open-source programmer. Nevertheless, even though he often competes with the big companies, he admits they have been more beneficial than harmful for the industry. I3C standards and operating systems like Linux will have tremendous significance as the industry matures. "Right now, nobody can talk to anyone else," says J.W. Bizzarro, the founder of Bioinformatics.org, a nonprofit group that hosts several open-source projects. "We're at a point where the big guys like Sun and IBM can have a hugely positive impact by laying the pavement so that we're all traveling on the same road." Sam Jaffe (sam.jaffe@verizon.net) is a freelance writer in Philadelphia. ©2002, The Scientist Inc. Comment E-mail article

Enter the Heavyweights

Enter the Heavyweights

The world's largest computer companies climb into the bioinformatics ring | By Sam Jaffe

Interested in reading more?

Become a Member of