Technologies and businesses will converge in an efficient fashion under the so-called on-demand strategy, according to an executive of International Business Machines (IBM). IBM vice president John Lutz, who is in charge of the U.S.-based firm's on-demand team, stressed the trend at a two-day IBM Forum, which ended March 23 at the Grand Intercontinental Hotel in Seoul. "The on-demand strategy is an approach to make companies very flexible and responsive to the market by linking the businesses and technologies tightly," Lutz said. The idea helps companies that are remodeling and integrating processes like computing capacity, financing, human resources and payroll by providing total IT solutions, according to Lutz. As an example of the possibilities this recent development, Lutz described a case of lending hardware, which allows corporations to adjust computing capacity on a real-time basis. Instead of purchasing all necessary equipment in preparation for a peak time usage, on-demand services enable customers to use hardware as a utility, only paying for the capacity they use. "Many companies maintain an overbuilt computing capacity of which aggregate utilization is very low, typically less than 15 percent. The on-demand strategy can address these in an infrastructure layer," he said. He touted the huge potential of the on-demand business-style, expecting the new approach will open up very big markets, which could be as big as traditional IT markets. The on-demand inclination has also been catching on here. IBM Korea inked a total of 16 deals with domestic companies based on the on-demand strategy last year alone. Included in the corporate customers are such industry leaders as Kookmin Bank, Korea's biggest lender, Korean Air, the nation's No.1 airline and top Internet firm, NHN. In particular, NHN, which retains the popular Naver Web portal and online-game site Hangame, agreed a 10-year contract last June with IBM Korea to manage its computer and network systems. To accelerate the on-demand business, IBM Korea looks to spend millions of dollars to set up a universal management infrastructure (UMI) center. The facility will be equipped with up-to-date software, which will realize automatic metering and billing, a must for many on-demand offerings like the pay-as-you-go services. Once completed, it will be the fourth UMI center of IBM in the Asia-Pacific region, following Japan, Australia and Singapore.