http://ibm.com/rational/announce/smartproducts/ IBM Fellow Grady Booch discusses how the trend towards developing “smarter products” is mandating a new approach to systems engineering. Manufactured products are converging with information technology to form revolutionary ecosystems that are permanently changing how we work, live and play. In what might be described as a “new era of client-server,” the client may be a car, airplane, cell phone, medical device, game system, or smart meter, where the software capabilities in the “client” are integrated with the product’s mechanical, electrical, and electronic engineering design.