IBM putting all the Olympic Games action on the small screen

Last week, while tennis balls were flying back and forth at the 2000 US Open, it was IBM that was keeping score. In its ninth year of partnership with the United States Tennis Association, IBM had an Internet group and a scoring room beneath the Arthur Ashe and Louis Armstrong stadiums in Flushing, New York.

It aimed to replicate the real-time scoring systems that it provided to local audiences at the Australian Open, French Open and Wimbledon by handling all the US Tennis Association's technical needs on-site but this time, it took the technology worldwide.

No doubt it was good preparation for IBM's role as worldwide information technology partner at the Olympic Games in Sydney. IBM has just received the patent on what it calls a Digital Video Wall and it will use this in Sydney to provide eight video windows of the sports action on a single Web page.

The US Open ran from August 26th to September 10th and, for its duration, IBM designed and implemented the United States Tennis Association's website, produced match-in-progress reports and provided statistical information, such as scores, to the media.

"We extended the reach of the tournament to a global audience," said Mr Pierce O'Neil, chief marketing officer of the United States Tennis Association.

For the first time, there was a global wireless option. Fans in North America, Europe and Asia-Pacific could sign up for the service via a link on the US Open website at www.usopen.org. This allowed anyone in the world with an Internet-enabled hand-held device to check the scores and schedules of tennis matches, see player profiles, and find statistics online - such as stroke-by-stroke coverage and ball speed - with a two to seven second delay.

About 10,000 people checked into the wireless site after the first week of the tournament, an IBM spokesman said. Also this year, US Open Daily, a live program streamed exclusively on the website, captured the atmosphere of the event. The half-hour, magazine-style show originated from various locations around the grounds of the United States Tennis Association's National Tennis Center and gave website visitors a taste of what it was like to actually be there, with video features, interviews with players, and a behind-the-scenes look at the US Open.

Fans had a chance to send e-mail to the show for questions and comments each day. They could also register on the site to receive a daily update via e-mail and, by controlling four robotic cameras from their PCs, they could pan, zoom and take a snapshot.

Another new feature on the site was GroundsCam, which allowed users to view a 180 degree panorama of the action at the National Tennis Center. The image was updated several times daily.

IBM also hooked up a voice system so the public could call a phone number to get scores or schedules of events. The players, too, could phone to check what time they were due to play on court.

When Mr Louis Gertsner, chairman and chief executive officer of IBM, talked about using the Internet for business at Comdex in 1995, "it was a very lonely place back then", said Mr John Patrick, vice-president of Internet technology at IBM.

A lot has changed in just five years. Now, the idea of pervasive computing is one that IBM estimates will become a $230 billion market in the next few years and IBM hopes to capture one-third of it.

"The Internet is about the transfer of power from institutions to people," Mr Patrick said. Some companies, he added, "are in denial about this". Yet, they "need to produce content for multiple audiences". The next generation of the Internet is still under construction, he said, but eventually the Web will be everywhere.

Today, Mr Patrick said, about 95 per cent of Web pages are wired through a personal computer and browser. "That percentage will drop to between 45 per cent and 50 per cent in a couple of years," he said, not because PCs will decline but because other devices will grow.

Mr Patrick said IBM's instant messaging service called Lotus SameTime was a big part of what IBM sees as the next generation of the Internet, particularly in business. IBM began instant messaging - similar to two-way paging - as an experiment two years ago and now it had 240,000 users.

By 2002, IBM reckons 80 per cent of Internet transactions will come from a non-PC. For example, at the end of May, more than half the people who accessed the Web in Japan used a mobile phone. "We'll see an explosion of devices and all connected to the Internet," Mr Patrick said. "Today the Internet is where your PC is; tomorrow, it's where you are."