Thread: IBM's labs are focusing their research on services.

The New York Times has an article on how IBM maintained its profitability by focusing on services, which is not surprising, because the economy for decades has been moving towards services, as opposed to goods.

But the article also says that Big Blue's labs also focused on services.

... I.B.M. also shifted the focus of its research labs to services. Applying science and software automation to services has increased productivity and let I.B.M. do more sophisticated work with higher profit margins.

What did those research labs do to focus on services? Can anyone give me any ideas?