This week theCUBE is broadcasting live from Las Vegas, from the IBM Impact event. Running today through Wednesday, SiliconANGLE’s premier show will feature top executives from IBM and its ecosystem, along with analysts and news coverage from the floor.

Watch the entire show here, and join the conversation at CrowdChat.

For attendees

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Aside from learning about new technologies, products and services for building an integrated enterprise in the Solution Expo, attendees also have a chance to collaborate and share experiences with a community of more than 9,000 IT professionals, business leaders, developers, and industry experts.

Attendees will to enjoy Unique Tracks offered at Impact 2014, drilling down on specific areas such as Business + Technology Strategy = The art of the possible, Mobile Enterprise, Smarter Process, Cloud, Application Infrastructure, and Integration.

Fans of House of Cards, one of Netflix’s original series, will be delighted to know that two-time Academy Award winner Kevin Spacey will be the keynote speaker for Day Three of the event.

Impact also offers two types of labs to help attendees explore IBM products and technologies supporting Mobile, Cloud, Integration, Application Infrastructure, Smarter Process, PureSystems and DevOps. Labs are scheduled within the Impact curriculum, with each session focusing on a single lab exercise, while Open Labs are self-paced exercises.

Those who have attended past Impact conferences already know about the big show to end the conference, ImpactRocks!, a social event on April 29, at 7:30 PM. Attendees can kick-back and unwind after a day of learning.  This year, ImpactRocks! features the award-winning alternative rock band Imagine Dragons.  Admittance is free for those who purchase a full conference pass, exhibitor pass, and day pass for April 29, 2014.  Food and drinks are included, and if you want to bring an additional guest with you, tickets will be sold on-site  during open-registration hours for $100.

What to expect

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IBM has hosted several events already this year, including IBM Edge and IBM Pulse, each with its own area of focus like Cloud or Mobile. This week’s IBM Impact event  is more of a mishmash conference for the enterprise, as IBM looks to rebrand its portfolio around cohesive services for modern data centers.

That being said, the key areas of focus for IBM Impact overlap a great deal, and comprise of  Big Data, Cloud & Mobile. For IBM, this week’s event is about moving itself and its customers from legacy to modern IT. IBM Impact is emphasizing Cloud, Mobile and the Internet of Things (IoT). theCUBE hosts John Furrier and Paul Gillin will be honing in on hot-button topics related to these areas, including security. Trends for the IoT have shaken up security with the rising number of device endpoints, and we look to hear more on IBM’s strategy for beating rivals in this area.

Expected products and news to watch for span the Cloud, advanced analytics, integration points for BlueMix and SoftLayer, as well as more use cases for Watson, IBM’s artificial intelligence platform currently being applied to enterprise Big Data projects. Watson made a name for itself as a worthy Jeopardy contestant, but has since gained employment within the healthcare and finance industries. At IBM Impact, Watson unveiled its newest industry solutions for the retail sector.

The big question is how IBM stacks up against competitors like Amazon Web Services, given the constant changes going on for the industry and its own company. IBM has made some tough calls in recent months, selling off its server business and restructuring its hardware business. IBM is also seeing slow returns on investments in emerging markets, with initiatives for building out South Africa’s infrastructure aren’t paying off as well as initiatives in China. IBM CEO Ginni Rometti and the company’s stock are under fire, as investors haven’t seen the returns they hoped for these past few quarters.

Nevertheless, this is “the way” for IBM, as Wikibon founder and chief analyst tells us. It takes time to turn this ship around, and IBM seems to be on the right path.  This week’s event will be about IBM’s many businesses working together, reflecting in its own organization the efficiencies it hopes to deliver its customers.

Follow the news

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Stay on top of the latest IBM Impact news through social media platforms such as Facebook, CrowdChat, Twitter (@IBMImpact, #ibmimpact), LinkedIn, YouTube, and the IBM Blog.

theCube will be at IBM Impact 2014, extracting the signal from the noise, and you can watch live interviews with IBM execs, partners and customers here at SiliconANGLE or at SiliconANGLE.tv, or watch in your own time from SiliconANGLE’s YouTube channel.

Image source: IBM