这篇讲稿是2008年5月1日Google现任CEO埃里克·施密特(Eric Schmidt)应邀在IBM的“业务合作伙伴领导人峰会”所作的主题发言。早在2007年10月份,Google和IBM就公布了一项云计算(Cloud Computing)合作项目。在这篇讲话中,施密特首先高度称赞了IBM在许多技术方面的开创性工作。接下来,施密特就双方的合作前景展开了阐述,指出最终所有设备都将连接到互联网上,搭建一个庞大的信息共享平台是大势所趋,IBM和Google有着共同的发展愿景,又能构成优势互补,可以说合作前景极其广阔。
I’m delighted to be here.
我很高兴来到这里。
I started my computing career on an IBM 360-91, (and) which is a great machine, water-cooled, everything you wanted in a computer in the 1960s. When the IBM PC came out, that’s what I had. Now, of course, we use lots of 1)ThinkPads. And along the way, I’ve always had tremendous respect for the underlying architecture and technology 2)folks at IBM.
我最早从事计算机业时用的是一台IBM360-91。那是一台很棒的机器,水冷式,二十世纪六十年代的计算机该有的功能它都有。IBM个人机算机面市的时候,我就用上了它。现在,当然都普遍用上了笔记本电脑。一路走来,我一直都非常敬重IBM的基本层架构和技术工作人员。
So one day 3)Sam calls me and says, “We’d like your thoughts about distributing computing.”
And I said, “Well, I think this, this, this…..”
He’s a very, very nice guy. He said, “Well, we’ve already done those.”
And all of a sudden I realized, these guys are ahead of me. They’ve actually thought through the 4)consequences of this new life that we’re building. And we immediately organized to partner with the technology, and the technologists and the vision from an extraordinarily well-led organization of IBM.
所以有一天,萨姆打电话给我说:“我们喜欢你分布式并行计算的想法。”
我说,“呃,我想这样,这样,这……”
他人真的非常非常好。他说:“嗯,我们已经开始那么干了。”
突然地,我就明白过来了,这些家伙已经走在我的前头了。实际上他们已经很清楚地预见到了我们现在正在构建的新生活的影响。我们旋即安排与管理十分完善的IBM进行技术合作,同它的技术专家联手,共筑美好愿景。
So the reason I am here is to talk a little bit about what that means. What it means to us, to the world, to you, to our joint customers and 5)so forth. And I wanted to start by talking about information. It is my personal belief that the role of information is 6)underappreciated in politics, business and in the world. The rate of 7)innovation in the Internet is increasing. It’s accelerating. We have huge new opportunities for all of us together in mobile, platforms, right, enterprise businesses, and in the role of information in businesses. There are all sorts of interesting examples. Rice is in short supply, which is a terrible world crisis right now. One of the reasons rice is in short supply is that the rice farmers are using mobile phones to discover the world price of rice and discovering that the middle men are denying them their just profits. Fishermen are on boats, trying to figure out which port to go into using, again, mobile data connections to say, can I get a price over here, or a better price over there.
我到这里来的目的就是想简单地谈一谈我们的合作意味着什么。对我们,对这个世界,对你们,对我们共同的客户等等都意味着什么。我想从信息谈起。个人窃以为,不论在政治上还是商业上乃至整个世界都低估了信息的作用。互联网的创新在加快,在提速。在移动业务,各种平台,对,还有企业事务以及商业中信息的作用等等方面,巨大的新机遇摆在我们在座所有人的面前。关于这有很多有趣的例子。稻米短缺,现在都成了可怕的世界性危机。稻米短缺其中的一个原因是稻农通过手机搜寻世界市场上稻米的价格,发现中间商并没有给出一个合理的价格。渔船上的渔民们同样也是通过移动数据连接工具,弄清到底去哪个港口停靠能卖个好价钱,抑或哪个港口出价更优厚?
This is a profound change in everyone’s lives, and not just in corporations in buildings, but with people and the way they think about markets and information, and so forth. And we’re on the edge of a truly great breakthrough. Now, I have been looking at breakthroughs and here’s a quote for you, “Great breakthroughs are closer to what happens in a flood plain.” It’s not one idea. A dozen separate 8)tributaries 9)converge and the rising waters lift the genius high enough so that he or she can see around the conceptual 10)obstructions of the age. So think of this as not a single idea, or a single company, but, rather, a set of rivers that are flowing in, which are getting stronger and stronger, and at some point it all 11)coalesces into a model that becomes so obvious.
这给每一个人的生活带来了深刻的变革,不仅仅是对于在高楼大厦的企业人员,它给大众以及人们看待市场和信息的方式带来了巨大的改变。我们现在正身处一个重大的突破的边缘。目前,我一直在关注这一突破,在此借用一句话送给大家:“重大的突破更像是洪泛平原的产生。”这不是一个孤立的概念。试想十几条支流汇聚起来,高涨的洪水把天才高高托起,于是他(她)发现了阻碍这个时代发展的观念。所以别把这当作是一个孤立的想法,或一个单独存在的公司,这更像是一组汇聚的河流,它们慢慢汇集壮大,最终在某个点上融合,豁然成形。
The key idea here is that computers are not alone. The computers act in networks. That if you can get the architecture right, this cloud-computing architecture, if you can get the development layers right, you can build these platforms. And that the platforms are more 12)robust than the one you did yourself, because you get the sharing. They’re architected in a way that provides tremendous customer value. And they literally change the world.
这里最关键的一点是电脑不是孤立的,而是在一个网络里运行的。如果你把架构设计好了,把云计算结构设计正确了,再加上你的开发层设计对了,你就可以构建这些平台。这些平台比你自个儿单独做的更来得有活力,因为你得到了共享。它们架构的方式产生了巨大的客户价值。它们实实在在地改变了世界。
And that’s what’s so exciting to be here, to do what I do, to do it with Sam and his team. And, frankly, to be here today. So with that, thank you very much.
这就是何以在这里我们会感到如此振奋人心的原因,我们跃跃欲试,并将与萨姆和他的团队一起共同努力。坦白地说,这就是此行的目的。非常感谢在座的各位,谢谢。 
翻译:杨劲松