NEW IBM CLOUD TECHNOLOGY PUTS ANALYTICS INTO THE HANDS OF MORE DECISION MAKERS ACROSS THE ORGANIZATION

-- New discovery and analytical capabilities help employees visualize, understand and act on insights to improve business outcomes --

ORLANDO -- 20 May 2014: IBM (NYSE: IBM) is introducing new cloud-based software that puts analytics into the hands of more business users and decision makers across the organization.

The new IBM analytics software brings together task personalized lists, dashboards, analysis, and reporting in the cloud, making it easier for employees to interact with data and understand it to do their work, collaborate with others, and make better business decisions – anywhere and anytime.

A sales manager, for example, can now use a PC, Smartphone or tablet to manage sales compensation-related activities while collaborating with peers, resulting in faster and more accurate payments to sales reps.

Gartner predicts that analytics will reach 50 percent of company employees by 2014. By 2020, that figure will be 75 percent*.This represents a tremendous opportunity for ROI and organic growth for organizations. A 10% increase in data accessibility, for instance, translates into an additional $65.7 million in net income for a typical Fortune 1000 company**.

Organizations today are challenged to capture and make sense of data in real time, while enabling better, faster decisions and actions by more users. Today's news helps take analytics out of the IT department and making it accessible to frontline staff through visualization tools and dashboards.

At Vision 2014, IBM’s global conference for finance, risk management, and sales compensation professionals in Orlando, Florida, IBM is previewing new analytic discovery software on cloud that lets everyday business users visually interact with and apply advanced analytics to big data without needing the specialized skills of a data scientist. As a result, line of business professionals in sales, marketing, finance and other areas can get and easily interpret predictive insights from data in minutes.

“Analytics can improve almost any business process -- what products to make, what risks to take, which customers to target and how to make them stay. But to maximize impact, analytics also needs to be available to all the people making decisions, wherever they are, “said Alistair Rennie, General Manager, Business Analytics, IBM. “By offering these new solutions in the cloud, IBM is helping organizations drive stronger employee engagement and gain real-time insight into how their business is performing.”

New Software Speeds Analytic Decision-Making in the Cloud

IBM Concert is now offering new cloud-based analytics software available on IBM Cloud Marketplace that can manage the increasing volume and complexity of processes and tasks, support an increasingly mobile workforce, and emphasize social collaboration as an integral part of decision making. By accessing this technology in the cloud, business users can now easily view, understand and interact with specific performance insights to more easily determine what actions to take and when. Remote employees can also contribute and update data immediately via mobile devices, improving accuracy and providing real time planning and forecasting.

For example, a sales manager looks at the Concert dashboard and sees that sales for one product line are running behind plan for the current quarter. The manager immediately recommends an additional sales incentive for the quarter, attaches a few comments, and asks for senior management approval as part of an established process. The CFO, who is out of the office, can use a Smartphone to access the expense alert, read all the comments, and review in-context metrics to approve the request.

IBM Previews Advanced Analytic Solutions
Project Catalyst Insight is a new analytic discovery solution that makes analytics more automated, approachable and accessible to business users. Catalyst Insight automatically builds predictive models and presents those results as interactive visuals with plain language descriptions. Using Catalyst Insight, a marketing manager could use advanced analytics to better understand the drivers of marketing campaign effectiveness without having to wait for a data scientist to prepare the information, develop predictive models and interpret the results.

IBM also announced plans to make its OpenPages enterprise governance risk and compliance family available as a managed service on IBM Softlayer. OpenPages allows businesses to develop a comprehensive compliance and risk management strategy across a variety of domains including operational risk, financial controls management, IT risk, compliance and internal audits. Using OpenPages on Cloud, for example, a compliance manager will be able to quickly identify and analyze the potential effects of a large-scale, serious incident and make recommendations for corrective action to management. This new deployment option will provide a flexible, reliable, enterprise-grade system that can grow as OpenPages expands across the enterprise.

Project Catalyst Insight and OpenPages on Cloud will join 100-plus IBM software-as-a-service offerings for line of business supported by SoftLayer. SoftLayer is fast becoming the foundation of IBM's cloud portfolio, adding more than 1,000 new clients since IBM acquired the company last year.

IBM Big Data & Analytics
IBM has established the world’s deepest portfolio of Big Data and Analytics technology that spans research and development, solutions and software. IBM has invested $24 billion to build its capabilities in Big Data and Analytics, through R&D and more than 30 acquisitions. IBM has also built a strong ecosystem of partners and VCs in Big Data. Today, more than 10,000 analytics consultants, 6,000 industry solution business partners, and 4,000 IBM mathematicians and are helping clients use big data to transform their organizations.

For more information about IBM Big Data & Analytics, visit http://ibm.co/bigdataanalytics.

IBM Introduces ‘IBM ExperienceOne’ to Help Organizations Bring Together Marketing, Sales and Services Practices to Deepen Customer Engagement

Integrated portfolio of cloud and on premise offerings help clients coordinate and enrich engagement throughout the customer journey

PETALING JAYA – 16 May 2014:  At its Smarter Commerce Global Summit in Tampa, IBM (NYSE: IBM) today announced ‘IBM ExperienceOne,’ a new integrated portfolio of cloud-based and on premise offerings that help clients quickly deliver deeper, more valuable customer engagements by bringing together marketing, sales and service practices.

According to IBM’s recent survey of nearly 4,200 C-suite leaders, more than half are reinventing their organizations to drive greater customer collaboration. The study showed companies that outperform peers are focused on delivering customer value through each interaction, including those with downstream partners and suppliers. This deeper engagement is a universal ambition with 90 percent of CxOs expecting to increase customer collaboration.

Built on best practices working with more than 8,000 organizations worldwide, IBM ExperienceOne delivers a set of pre-defined engagement solutions delivered with IBM consulting services and powered by its leading WebSphere Commerce, Customer Digital Experience and Enterprise Marketing Management software. IBM ExperienceOne is now available at www.ibm.com/ExperienceOne.

“Smarter Commerce is about helping clients continuously reinvent themselves around the customer experience,” said Craig Hayman, General Manager, Industry Cloud Solutions, IBM. “IBM ExperienceOne provides a secure and simplified portfolio – including innovation from more than 1,200 partners – to help clients design and deliver more valuable customer engagements.  With cloud, on premise and hybrid options, IBM ExperienceOne quickly scales to engage every customer in the moment while protecting their privacy.”

IBM ExperienceOne draws on innovation from IBM research as well as more than $3 billion invested in organic development and acquisitions such as Sterling Commerce, Tealeaf, Coremetrics, Unica, DemandTec, Xtify and most recently Silverpop, a provider of cloud-based personalized marketing solutions. It is delivered with market-leading consulting, agency and system integration services from the IBM Interactive Experience practice, as well as the company’s $100 million investment to open 10 IBM Interactive Experience labs and add 1,000 employees to help clients deepen engagement through data-driven design.

As part of today’s news, IBM added new and enhanced software capabilities that support three of the new engagement solution sets:

•     -- Understand Your Customers:  At the heart of this solution set is IBM’s newly integrated Digital, Behavioral, Social Media and Predictive Customer analytics offering to help clients identify real-time trends based on internal and external customer data.  It features new mobile analytics that can replay individual user sessions on both Android and iOS device apps, enabling marketers and commerce professionals to pinpoint the exact moment when a customer decided to browse, buy or abandon a transaction. 
•     -- Maximize Sales, Profit and Loyalty:  This solution set helps clients quickly act on insights and maximize customer value using IBM's enhanced omni-channel merchandising capabilities.  It enables merchandising professionals to automate price optimization, maintain real-time transparency and competitive pricing across all physical and digital channels to deliver the right offer to the right customer at the right time.  
•     -- Deliver Empowering Digital Experiences:  As the gateway to each customer touch point, this solution set is supported by enhancements to IBM’s customer digital experience software.  Marketing, sales and service professionals now can more easily leverage dynamic customer, pricing and performance analytics by embedding real-time offers into their mobile, social and rich media experiences. The real-time offer engine automates personalization across the customer experience at scale, increasing engagement, satisfaction and sales.

IBM also introduced three new cloud business solutions to give clients more flexibility in how they buy and deploy IBM ExperienceOne. These solutions combine consulting services, IBM ExperienceOne software and cloud infrastructure powered by SoftLayer, an IBM company. They include:

•     -- Customer Data as a Service:  Enables clients to combine disparate customer data from internal and external sources to improve marketing performance and revenue growth.
•     -- Customer Analytics as a Service:  Helps organizations quickly identify new customer trends, anticipate future behavior and suggest next best actions to deepen engagement.
•     -- Digital Commerce as a Service:  Allows business leaders to deliver exceptional digital experiences and accelerate time to market for a range of customer engagement solutions from order capture through fulfillment.

Leading specialty retailer American Eagle Outfitters is one of many organizations using IBM's analytics capabilities to better understand their customers as unique individuals, helping to ensure that every interaction is an exceptional brand experience.

“American Eagle Outfitters is a deeply customer centric company, and we lean heavily on IBM’s customer experience management solution to clearly understand real customers’ experiences, and then work to identify, understand, and remove pain points,” said Joe Megibow, Senior Vice President and General Manager Omnichannel, American Eagle.  “With IBM’s solutions, we can deliver higher quality experiences for our customers, resulting in more relevant engagements and improved brand loyalty.”

Seven out of the top ten commercial banks, financial services companies and U.S. retailers today use IBM’s customer engagement solutions.

Get the latest Smarter Commerce Global Summit 2014 news by following #smartercommerce.

IBM Unveils Software Defined Storage Technology for Era of Big Data

Changes economics of the datacenter by reducing storage costs up to 90 percent

KUALA LUMPUR – 13  May 2014 – IBM (NYSE: IBM) today unveiled a portfolio of software defined storage products that deliver improved economics at the same time they enable organizations to access and process any type of data, on any type of storage device, anywhere in the world.

One technology in the portfolio, codenamed “Elastic Storage,” offers unprecedented performance, infinite scale, and is capable of reducing storage costs up to 90 percent by automatically moving data onto the most economical storage device.

Born in IBM Research Labs, this new breakthrough technology allows enterprises to exploit – not just manage – the exploding growth of data in a variety of forms generated by countless devices, sensors, business processes, and social networks. The new storage software is ideally suited for the most data-intensive applications, which require high-speed access to massive volumes of information – from seismic data processing, risk management and financial analysis, weather modeling, and scientific research, to determining the next best action in real-time retail situations.

“Digital information is growing at such a rapid rate and in such dramatic volumes that traditional storage systems used to house and manage it will eventually run out of runway,” said Tom Rosamilia, Senior Vice President, IBM Systems and Technology Group. “Our technology offers the advances in speed, scalability and cost savings that clients require to operate in a world where data is the basis of competitive advantage.”

Software-defined storage is a set of software capabilities that automatically manage data locally and globally, providing breakthrough speed in data access, easier administration and the ability to scale technology infrastructures quickly and more cost-effectively as data volumes expand. In addition, these advances can work with any company’s storage systems to provide automated and virtualized storage.

Game-Changing Technology

Elastic Storage was used for the Jeopardy! television match between IBM's Watson and two former Jeopardy! champions. For the show, IBM’s Watson had access to 200 million pages of structured and unstructured data, including the full text of Wikipedia. By using Elastic Storage, the five terabytes of Watson’s “knowledge” (or 200 million pages of data) were loaded in only minutes into the computer’s memory.

A key reason the software was chosen for the Watson system that competed on Jeopardy! was its scalability, the architectural limits for which stretch into the thousands of “yottabytes.” A yottabyte is one billion petabytes, or the equivalent of a data center the size of one million city blocks, which would fill the states of Delaware and Rhode Island combined.

IBM Research has demonstrated that Elastic Storage can successfully scan 10 billion files on a single system in just 43 minutes -- a technology demonstration that translates into unequalled performance for clients analyzing massive data repositories to extract business insights.

At its core, Elastic Storage builds on IBM’s global file system software to provide online storage management, scalable access, and integrated data governance tools capable of managing vast amounts of data and billions of files. For example, Elastic Storage also exploits server-side Flash for up to six times increase in performance than with standard SAS disks. This feature recognizes when a server has Flash storage and automatically uses that Flash as cache memory to improve performance.

Elastic Storage virtualizes the storage allowing multiple systems and applications to share common pools of storage. This enables transparent global access to data without the need to modify applications and without the need for additional and often disruptive storage management applications. Since Elastic Storage is not reliant on centralized management to determine file location and placement, customers can have continuous and highly-available access to data in the event of software or hardware failures.

For the National Center for Atmospheric Research’s Computational and Information Services Laboratory (CISL), growing data volumes are part of its DNA. The organization, which stores and manages more than 50 petabytes of information between its Wyoming and Colorado centers, relies on Elastic Storage to give researchers fast access to vast amounts of diverse data.

“We provide computational, educational, and research data services for geosciences to more than 1,000 users at more than 200 different sites,” said Pamela Gillman, manager, Data Analysis Services Group, CISL. “The IBM global file system software has enabled scalable, reliable and fast access to this information. That has dramatically improved the performance of the different functions, as well as the organization as a whole.”

A key component of Elastic Storage is its ability to automatically and intelligently move data to the most strategic and economic storage system available. Through policy-driven features and real-time analytics, for example, Elastic Storage can automatically move infrequently-used data to less expensive low-cost tape drives, while storing more frequently-accessed data on high-speed Flash systems for quicker access. Such policy-driven features can provide cost savings of up to 90 percent.

In addition, the software features native encryption and secure erase, which ensures that data is irretrievable to comply with regulations such as HIPAA and Sarbanes-Oxley.

Through its support of OpenStack cloud management software, Elastic Storage also enables customers to store, manage and access data across private, public and hybrid clouds for global data sharing and collaboration. In addition to supporting OpenStack Cinder and Swift access, Elastic Storage supports other open APIs such as POSIX and Hadoop.

While traditional storage systems must move data to separate designated systems for transaction processing and analytics, Elastic Storage can automatically balance resources to support both types of application workloads, including Hadoop based analytics. This dramatically speeds analysis and eliminates the costly and time-consuming process of producing duplicate copies of data.

Elastic Storage software will also be available as an IBM SoftLayer cloud service later this year.

MDeC Raises the Game for Malaysian Businesses with Big Data Week Kuala Lumpur 2014

Greater push for Big Data Analytics to increase productivity in public and private sector

KUALA LUMPUR, MAY 6, 2014 – The Multimedia Development Corporation (MDeC) launched the “Big Data Week Kuala Lumpur 2014” today, an initiative that aims to help Malaysia’s ICT industry build its capabilities in Big Data Analytics (BDA), and spur endless opportunities for BDA products and services. With the theme of “Harnessing Value from Your Data Variety”, the launch of the seven-day event which took place at the Connexion@Nexus, Bangsar South City, was officiated by Yang Berhormat Datuk Jailani Johari, Deputy Minister of Communications and Multimedia and witnessed by Datuk Badlisham Ghazali, Chief Executive Officer of MDeC.

As the only city in South East Asia to be given the honour in showcasing Big Data Week, Kuala Lumpur is at the centre of one of the most unique global platforms of interconnected community events that focuses on the social, political and technological impacts of data. The Big Data Week also brings together a global community of data scientists, data technologies, data visualisers and data businesseses from six major commercial, financial, social, and technological sectors.

Deputy Minister of Communications and Multimedia, Datuk Jailani Johari (R) and MDeC’s CEO, Datuk Badlisham Ghazali (L) during the press conference at the launch of Big Data Week 2014 in Kuala Lumpur.

Speaking at the launch, Yang Berhormat Datuk Jailani Johari, Deputy Minister of Communications and Multimedia, said “Malaysian business and technology landscape have grown to such an extent that we are now ready to embrace the new developments around BDA for businesses, the government, community organisation and much more. For local businesses, there is a need to embrace technologies such as BDA to raise their game so that they can be more competitive with large multinational companies. From the government perspective, BDA can play a huge role in increasing its efficiency and efficacy. With the implementation of the right big data analytics solutions, the government can gain much needed feedback and precious insights that can tremendously improve our decision making process.”

“Indeed, BDA is no longer a futuristic abstract concept but is something that is already happening today. According to Gartner, a total of 4.4 million IT jobs will be created globally to support BDA by 2015. As BDA will form an integral part of ICT Services, efforts to drive the development of the BDA industry in Malaysia will no doubt complement the Digital Malaysia initiative and be in tandem with the DM 354 roadmap. Thus, MDeC believes that Malaysia is ready to embrace the vast opportunities that Big Data Analytics has to offer as we sow the seeds to grow Malaysia into a developed country driven by the digital economy by 2020.” said Datuk Badlisham Ghazali, CEO, MDeC.

The launch was followed by MDeC’s one-day conference on Big Data themed “Big Data: Endless Possibilities” featuring speakers from Intel, Teradata, Dell, IBM, Amazon, MIMOS, HP Labs, and many more. Big Data Week Kuala Lumpur 2014 is organised with the support of the Ministry of Communications and Multimedia, and the Malaysian Administrative Modernisation and Management Planning Unit (MAMPU). Big Data Week in Kuala Lumpur will feature 18 related events – the highest number of activities in all 30 participating cities worldwide.

The 3rd edition of Big Data Week also debuted on the 5th of May as the largest crowd-sourced festival of events, meet-ups, workshops and hackathons focused on the social, political, technological and commercial impacts of data. It brings together an anticipated 30,000 data practitioners across more than 200 events.

For further information on the “Big Data Week 2014 @ Kuala Lumpur” or to participate, please visit (www.bigdataweek.com/kualalumpur)

Brocade Names Gabriel Breeman as OEM Director for Asia-Pacific

Industry veteran rejoins Brocade to lead regional OEM strategies and strategic partnerships under the newly-created role

KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia; April 22, 2014 –  Brocade (NASDAQ: BRCD) today announced the appointment of Gabriel Breeman to the newly created position of OEM director for Asia Pacific (APAC). In this role, Breeman will drive OEM strategies, strategic partnerships and alliance initiatives for the region to help position Brocade as the data centre networking partner of choice in the OEM partner business segment. Breeman will be based in Singapore and report directly to Brocade vice president for Asia Pacific (APAC), Adam Judd.

Breeman was most recently the senior director for Global OEM at Fusion-io, where he was responsible for leading worldwide revenue growth strategies through OEM partners. Prior to Fusion-io, Breeman spent six years at Brocade as a Global Sales Executive and Corporate Account Director. He has also held direct end-user, indirect channel and OEM leadership roles at Dot Hill Systems and Sun Microsystems during his 20-year career in the Information Technology sector.

“Strategic partnerships with the world’s leading vendors continue to be a vital go-to-market strategy for Brocade globally and regionally. These OEM partnerships are based upon the value of open standards-based computing, networking and storage platforms, which is paving the way for software-defined networking to deliver on its full promise,” said Adam Judd, vice president for APAC at Brocade. “Gabriel’s astute understanding of the OEM ecosystem will bring tremendous value in ensuring Brocade and our OEM partners in APAC share a common vision on open networking and how to disrupt the status quo in the networking industry. I am delighted to have him rejoin Brocade to lead our regional OEM partner business at this exciting time.”

Brocade’s worldwide OEM partners include EMC, Dell, Fujitsu, HP, Hitachi Data Systems, IBM and NetApp.

“Brocade has entrenched relationships with its OEM partners, and is uniquely poised to capitalize on the challenges and opportunities confronting the networking industry today by offering customers an alternative route to success,” said Gabriel Breeman. “I am looking forward to working closely with our OEM partners to help transform our customers’ networks and deliver a compelling value proposition for their businesses.”

Made in IBM Labs: Enabling Secure Notifications to Mobile Devices

Invention helps app developers secure data shared with third-party mobile networks

Armonk, N.Y. - 4  April 2014: IBM (NYSE: IBM) inventors have patented a cloud computing security technique that enables app developers to ensure that data notifications are securely and confidentially pushed to and from mobile devices.

Maintaining the privacy and confidentiality of data shared via mobile networks is a priority for developers, service providers and end-users, yet IBM security researchers found that insufficient security protocols in mobile applications can risk exposing details of data notifications pushed across mobile networks, potentially exposing personal or sensitive information to service providers.

This mobile security exposure is problematic and limiting to organizations that wish to use mobile notifications to communicate sensitive information with their customers, such as a credit card company wanting to notify a customer of suspicious charges or a bank may need to alert customers to suspicious account activity.

To address this mobile security challenge, a team of IBMers invented a cloud-based service that enables developers to create applications that can encrypt data notifications, assign them a unique message identifier (ID) in the cloud that is securely transmitted to a mobile device via a third-party service provider. Once the end-user’s device authorizes the message, the recipient can pull down and access the encrypted message content from the cloud.

"This patented invention will enable developers and service providers to design and build applications that ensure sensitive or personal information is not inadvertently exposed across mobile networks," said Benjamin Fletcher, inventor and software engineering researcher, IBM. "Regardless of the nature of data being pushed to or from a mobile device, it should never be exposed to third-parties since they cannot always guarantee the security and confidentiality to customers."

IBM received U.S. Patent #8,634,810, “Pushing secure notifications to mobile computing devices," for the invention.

IBM's security portfolio provides the security intelligence to help organizations holistically protect their people, data, applications and infrastructure. IBM monitors 15 billion security events per day in more than 130 countries and holds more than 3,000 security patents.

For 21 consecutive years, IBM has been the leading recipient of U.S. patents. IBM inventors have patented thousands of inventions that are expected enable significant innovations that will position IBM to compete and lead in strategic areas, such as IBM Watson, cloud computing, Big Data analytics – and advance the new era of cognitive systems where machines will learn, reason and interact with people in more natural ways.

Children’s Fashion Retailer Kids 21 Selects IBM Commerce on Cloud to Expand into 15 Markets Across Asia-Pacific

IBM Cloud and Digital Analytics Technologies Help Leading Retailer Accelerate Growth and Deliver Personalized Promotions

ARMONK, N.Y. – April 4, 2014: IBM (NYSE: IBM) today announced that Kids 21, a leading children’s fashion retailer operated by luxury fashion group Club 21, will use its cloud, e-commerce and analytics software to deliver personalized experience while expanding its online presence across Asia-Pacific. When it launches in the third quarter, the new online site will increase Kids 21’s reach from four to more than 15 countries in the region.

Delivered through the IBM SoftLayer cloud platform, the IBM WebSphere Commerce software will give Kids 21 a powerful customer interaction platform for omni-channel commerce.  In addition, Kids 21 will use IBM’s cloud-based Digital Analytics across its branded storefronts to understand real-time shopping trends and deliver personalized promotions based on the unique preferences of its customers.  The company’s online operations will also benefit from improved scalability, speed and security with faster provisioning of cloud computing resources through IBM SoftLayer’s dedicated servers.

Established by Club 21 in 1997, Kids 21 currently operates 16 retail outlets located in Singapore, Malaysia, China (Hong Kong) and Thailand. They carry more than 80 fashion apparel brands including a children’s range of adult lines such as Armani, Dolce & Gabbana, John Galliano, Marc Jacobs, Lanvin, Oscar de la Renta, Paul Smith and Stella McCartney.

Kids 21 needed speed and agility to expand its digital foothold and compete against other Web boutiques and e-commerce sites in the region’s booming online market.  According to Forrester Research, the total online retail revenue from just five markets – China, India, Japan, South Korea and Australia – is expected to grow from US$398 billion in 2013 to US$858 billion in 2018*.

“We are delighted to be working with IBM and their business partner Cnetric to launch our Kids21 online presence in Asia. Our ambition is to carry forward the exceptional customer experience and fashion curation we offer to our discerning and fashion conscious customers into the online world. We will also use this initiative to drive Kids21 into new markets across Asia Pacific,” said E-Len Fu, director of Kids 21.

“We selected Cnetric and IBM WebSphere Commerce due to their combined extensive experience in online retail and the rich capabilities in the software to help personalize the customer experience. We also chose the cloud-based offering to reduce overall cost and improve speed to market which is very important to our growth plans,” she added.

Kids 21 teamed up with IBM and IBM Business Partner Cnetric in a Commerce-as-a-Service deployment to further strengthen their position as both a fashion-forward retailer and future-ready enterprise. The combination of cloud, e-commerce and business analytics technologies will strengthen Kids 21’s customer service and brand loyalty.

According to a study done by the IBM Center for Applied Insights, the use of Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) not only helps save costs but also provides a significant competitive advantage by improving the customer experience.  Kids 21 can now provide a superior shopping experience, improve time to market and reduce costs without the large upfront investments required to build a new digital platform or physical storefront in each market.  

“By integrating its e-commerce roadmap with analytics and cloud, Kids 21 is well-prepared to take the lead in the retail industry of the future, deepen engagement with customers and secure greater brand loyalty and advocacy,” said Elsie Tan, country manager, Software Group, IBM Singapore. “With Smarter Commerce, retailers can transform their business processes to more quickly respond to shifting customer demands in the digitally-transformed marketplace.”

*Forrester Research’s Asia Pacific Online Retail Forecast, 2013 to 2018

IBM Chosen to Support BP’s Global Workforce

Integrating global business processes and launching new collaboration capabilities to support 60,000 of BP’s global employees

ARMONK, N.Y. – 25 March 2014 – IBM (NYSE: IBM) today announced that it has been selected by BP to integrate and manage the company’s business applications globally, as well as provide enhanced service desk support for 60,000 employees and 80,000 devices in the Americas and Europe. IBM was chosen to support BP in enhancing user interaction with the service desk and improving business IT processes across all key BP IT operations.

End user computing is the face of IT to employees in all corporations. BP wants to provide its employees with greater choice and flexibility in interacting with its service desk, in order to improve first-time problem resolution rates. The IBM solution is focused on providing a personal service that gives an individual choice on how and when to get help. Enhancements will include new services such as live online chat whereby employees can engage the help desk in real-time and in their local language through a live agent or through BP's self-help web portal. The self-help portal leverages IBM’s knowledge base, deep analytics of IT incidents and natural-language search capabilities to rapidly deliver the most relevant results and reduce the need for on-site support.

“BP’s business requirements are changing and the technologies that will enable us to meet our strategic objectives are evolving even faster,” said Mark Bouzek, Vice President, Global Operations and Infrastructure, BP. “As a complex global organization, BP needs to continuously improve our business processes and the speed of service we deliver to our employees and external customers.”

With operations around the world, BP selected IBM to provide the next generation of application management services for its global enterprise systems and additional connected applications. Central to these new generation services is the IBM Command Centre that monitors BP’s enterprise systems and applications in real time, utilizing predictive analytics to prevent system outages and data flow failures, thus maintaining a world-class level of application availability. IBM has developed its next generation Application Management solution for BP by harnessing the knowledge and insights gained from serving BP and from IBM’s extensive global client base.

“IBM has consistently met high standards for quality delivery as well as delivering innovation for BP. We have proven that we are the right partner to serve BP with our global presence, relentless focus on service and our drive for continuous improvement.” said David Marley, Managing Director, IBM. “Looking forward, we will continue to bring together IBM’s integrated services management, research capabilities and innovative technologies to provide BP the right mix of skills and capabilities they need to support their business and drive future growth.”

IBM is providing IT help desk services to BP from its delivery centers in Boulder, Colorado; Greenock, Scotland; Dublin, Ireland; Brno, Czech Republic; and Bangalore, India. IBM is providing Applications Management Services from its delivery facilities in Bangalore, Kolkata and Hyderabad India; Houston and Tulsa U.S., UK, Germany and Australia.

IBM Launches Pay-As-You-Go Model to Get Clients on Cloud Storage Quickly

Aggressive, first-in-the-industry pricing program helps organizations deploy IBM cloud storage systems quickly to focus more on building their business and less about the cost of equipment

Armonk, New York - 25 Feb 2013: To help organizations more easily and efficiently manage their swelling data volumes and adopt cloud storage solutions quickly, IBM (NYSE: IBM) today announced a new pricing program that offers high-performance storage systems without the heavy up-front costs.

The new IBM Advanced System Placement program for clients is a pay-as-you-go program that lets organizations purchase IBM XIV storage systems for only a fraction of the price upon installation. Only when the system reaches a predetermined capacity threshold will the client be charged for the balance of the system. At that time, a second unit will be delivered for only $1. The cycle continues and clients only pay for the subsequent systems when they reach the threshhold, and an additional system is delivered for an additional $1.

“Though this is a data consumption model, the technological impact on our clients, whose data volumes are growing rapidly, will be profound,” said Luc Greefs, Director of Shared Technology and Infrastructure Delivery at the company. Cegeka provides private cloud solutions, such as Infrastructure as a Service, Software as a Service, Storage as a Service, telephony services, and more, throughout Belgium, The Netherlands, Poland and Romania. “For Cegeka, it means we’ll be able to get customers onto cloud storage solutions quickly, and they’ll be able to pay for it when they have the revenue to support it.”

A financing version of the Advanced System Placement program is also available through IBM Global Financing. With this option, qualified clients sign a 36-month Fair Market Value (FMV) hardware lease and software loan, and payments for the first six months are set at a fraction of the overall cost. As with the cash purchase version, when the first system reaches a certain threshold, a second system is delivered and the payments for the first system continue as planned. The second system will come with a second 36-month lease, but the first six payments are free. By combining the Advanced System Placement program with a hardware lease program, payments become predictable and manageable.

The Advanced System Placement program complements IBM’s existing Capacity-on-Demand pricing program, which is designed to help organizations with less aggressive growth projections deploy high-capacity storage systems with ease.

The Advanced System Placement programs are available now worldwide through IBM. The company plans to expand the program to include additional IBM System Storage products and IBM Business Partners over the next quarter.

For more information go to www.ibm.com/xiv and www.ibm.com/financing.  

Gartner Announces Malaysia’s Business Intelligence Market to Reach US$30.4 million in 2017

Data Discovery and Mobility Create a Revival in Spending in Asia Pacific

Kuala Lumpur, 25 February, 2014 — The market for business intelligence (BI) platforms in Asia Pacific is expected to grow 7.4 percent to reach almost US$1.4 billion in revenue in 2014 and more than $1.6 billion by 2017, as data discovery and mobility create a revival in spending by business users, according to Gartner, Inc.

The author of a new report on the competitive landscape for BI platforms in Asia Pacific, Gartner research director Bhavish Sood, said growing interest in big data solutions will continue to positively impact BI spending across Asia Pacific in 2014 and beyond.

“Information intensive initiatives are popular in organizations in Asia Pacific's accelerating economies, because information is a competitive differentiator,” Mr Sood said. “We expect this to continue as organizations pursue regulatory compliance, performance management and overarching enterprise information management initiatives.”

In Asia Pacific, the top four "megavendors" — SAP, Microsoft, Oracle and IBM — controlled 72.2 percent of the BI platform market in 2012, up from 65 percent in 2011. However, Gartner analysts said that business units increasingly prefer data discovery solutions, such as Tibco Spotfire, QlikTech and Tableau Software, while their counterparts in IT are still more comfortable procuring from megavendors.

“Given the current economic climate of slow growth, CIOs are looking for solutions that need minimum servicing and can deliver fast time to value. These demands are being met by packaged analytical applications, preconfigured BI appliances and intuitive data discovery tools,” Mr Sood said.

Malaysia will continue as the second-largest BI market in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), after Singapore. The need to increase Malaysia's competitiveness against China's and that of other neighboring ASEAN countries and renewed focus on depending less on tourism and the oil industry will help drive BI growth. Malaysia's investment in infrastructure is proving to be a good advantage for attracting foreign investments. Gartner expects the market to reach $30.4 million by 2017. Telcos and financial services are among the most sophisticated adopters of BI.

Singapore is one of the most-developed BI markets within Asia/Pacific, and it will remain the third-largest BI market through 2017. Singapore's BI forecast outlook remains positive, with expected revenue of $95.9 million. With increasing competition from China and lower-wage neighboring countries, such as Malaysia and Vietnam, Singapore has countered by diversifying into new vertical industries, such as biotechnology and high-tech manufacturing. It is also continuously enhancing its well-established industries, such as banking and other service-related industries. In addition, as a well-developed country, Singapore will have a more-stable maintenance revenue stream, which will become more pronounced in the event of another slowing global economy.

China will remain the second-largest BI software market in Asia Pacific through 2017, reaching US$217.3 million. Most often, BI solutions in China are used tactically in departmental deployments — as a reporting tool, rather than as a strategic platform to build up analytic capabilities to support decision making. Chinese organizations' relatively low-level maturity of the demand and supply sides of IT and analytic professionals creates extra challenges for BI technology adoption in China.

According to Gartner research director Daniel Yuen, China will be the next battleground for vendor market share.

“In the past, due to cultural and market issues, many vendors hesitated before planning an entry into China. However, this is changing, and vendors are slowly waking up to the reality that China represents one of the largest custom development markets, and they are executing to grab market share there.
“Interest in big data has also spiked; however, confusion around the terms "analytics," "big data" and "BI" have started to disrupt the Chinese market, and we expect this trend will result in slowing BI spending cycles in 2014,” Mr. Yuen said.

Gartner predicts that the industry landscape will evolve considerably in the next three to five years. Some important trends include:

Big Data Use Cases Are Maturing, but Today It's All About Hadoop
Customers across the region are keen to harness the innovative capabilities of Hadoop. Most big data discussions tend to be mired in the technical capabilities of Hadoop, rather than focusing on the business problem or use case at hand. Because not many vendors in the region can offer both the technology and the business analytics capabilities, implementation issues are bound to arise. Most open governments, such as in Australia, promote the publication of great quantities of data in raw format in an effort to use data in meaningful ways for its citizens. This, along with smart city initiatives being promoted by several governments Hadoop; will be an important part of governments' information management strategy.

Mobility and Data Discovery Approaches Enhance Experience of Business Users
In Asia Pacific, mobile BI is being used as an information distribution channel for "road warriors." The use case is simply the mobilization of existing content — from basic reports to elaborate dashboards — targeted at current BI users. By following a different strategy, CIOs can use mobile BI to reach new constituencies, not necessarily those on the go.  By making it fun and easy to use, BI will appeal to nontraditional users — those mainstream users who don't enjoy staring at a grid all day.

The Asia Pacific Market Is Opening Up for Specialist BI and Analytics Vendors
When it comes to advanced analytics, Asia Pacific organizations are willing to examine products from smaller niche companies that offer packaged analytical applications that solve a particular business pain point. This is possibly due to the scarcity of skill sets in the market and the pressure on IT from business folks to deploy BI. As a result, clients are open to buying packaged analytical applications to address specific pain points and niche problems. One clear distinction is that, unlike platform sellers, these vendors predominantly sell to business buyers.

Low-Cost Alternatives
Apart from megavendors and emerging vendors, several low-cost alternatives are available in the market. These vendors saw an uptick in demand mostly from 2007 through 2012 as the megavendors worked on integrating their products. As a result, lower-cost local vendors, such as Yellowfin, TechnologyOne, Open Soft Technology and MAIA Intelligence, built a loyal user base, and they continue to gain market traction.

Additionally, open-source vendors, such as Jaspersoft, Actuate and Pentaho, are improving their products and continue to have mind share among government buyers and high-tech clients, especially product independent software vendors (ISVs).

IBM Expands World-class Service Delivery Hub in Selangor

New Global Delivery facility provides high value IT services and cloud solutions; provides platform for Malaysian talent development

SELANGOR, MALAYSIA – 20 February 2014: IBM (NYSE: IBM) today unveiled its new Global Delivery Centre (GDC) in Cyberjaya. The centre, IBM’s 21st shared services centre in Malaysia, is the latest addition to IBM's extensive network of service delivery hubs in 20 countries that provide business processing and IT services capabilities to clients worldwide.

In 2011, IBM announced a RM1 billion investment to build and operate the centre, which delivers high value services to clients in the areas of Software Platform Management, Server Systems Operations, Security and Risk Management, and Project Management. The centre also supports IBM’s cloud services, including the provisioning and management of IBM SmartCloud Enterprise + (SCE+) solutions, designed for running critical enterprise workloads, such as enterprise resource planning (ERP) and customer relationship management (CRM) applications.

Minister of Communication and Multimedia Dato Sri Shabery Cheek and IBM executive stamped their hand prints on a plaque to commemorate the inauguration of IBM Global Delivery Centre (GDC) in Cyberjaya on February 20, 2014
Flanking the Minister of Communication and Multimedia Dato Sri Shabery Cheek are (from left to right) Mr Paul Moung, Managing Director, IBM Malaysia, Diane Diggelman, General Manager, Global Delivery and Delivery Excellence, IBM; and Mr Craig Tucker, Director, IBM GDC Malaysia.

“The opening of this site represents another milestone in IBM’s legacy of trailblazing the future in shared services”, says Craig Tucker, Director of IBM Global Delivery Centre Malaysia. “Our centre has raised the bar for the IT eco-system in Malaysia by cultivating a knowledge-based workforce that will transform the way we work and interact.”

In addition to becoming a valuable source of local employment opportunities and income in Malaysia, shared services centres enable the transfer of important skills and competencies to local knowledge workers, as well as exposure to international best practices and standards. The Global Delivery Centre in Malaysia provides IT services around the clock to IBM clients all over the world, spanning multiple industries including Financial Services, Healthcare, Retail, Real Estate, and Technology.

IBM is also collaborating with local academic institutions and government agencies to provide students with work experience in an IT services delivery environment. The company engaged with Setia Haruman and Universiti Malaya on a landmark strategic internship program that combined real-life work experience with soft skills, leadership and English training.  More recently, IBM partnered with INTI International University and Colleges to investigate and recommend strategies to promote IT as a fulfilling career opportunity to a younger generation of graduates. The findings have been shared with local government authorities.

The 300,000-square-foot centre, which has been certified as gold industry standard by Green Building Index (GBI), features energy efficient solar panels, water reclamation, heat-reducing window treatments and other elements that will help reduce energy consumption by 25 percent. The GBI is Malaysia’s industry-recognised green rating tool for buildings designed specifically to address the tropical climate and Malaysia’s current social, infrastructure and economic development.

Diane Diggelmann, General Manager of Global Delivery and Delivery Excellence for IBM Global Technology Services, said, “Malaysia’s competitive business model, strong private-public partnership, as well as the and talent and skills of the Malaysian workforce are all factors for IBM’s continued investment in the country. In the two years since commencing operations, the centre has continually delivered real value to our clients all over the world. With IBM managing the IT infrastructure, our clients can focus on their core business.”

IBM was one of the first technology companies to invest in Cyberjaya. Since 2003, the company’s strong collaboration with Multimedia Development Corporation (MDeC) has helped set world-class standards for the global delivery business model. Working with MDeC, local recruitment firms, and universities to develop talent, IBM is aligned to the Malaysian government’s strategy of creating a knowledge-based economy by 2020.

Lenovo to Acquire Motorola Mobility from Google

Research Triangle Park, North Carolina, and Mountain View, California – January 30, 2014: Lenovo (HKSE: 992) (ADR: LNVGY) and Google (NASDAQ: GOOG) today have entered into a definitive agreement under which Lenovo plans to acquire the Motorola Mobility smartphone business. With a strong PC business and a fast-growing smartphone business, this agreement will significantly strengthen Lenovo’s position in the smartphone market. In addition, Lenovo will gain a strong market presence in North America and Latin America, as well as a foothold in Western Europe, to complement its strong, fast-growing smartphone business in emerging markets around the world.

The purchase price is approximately US$2.91 billion (subject to certain adjustments), including US$1.41 billion paid at close, comprised of US$660 million in cash and US$750 million in Lenovo ordinary shares (subject to a share cap/floor). The remaining US$1.5 billion will be paid in the form of a three-year promissory note.

(From left to right) Lenovo CEO Yang Yuanqing shaking hands with Google CEO Larry Page.

Lenovo, which in 2005 acquired IBM’s PC business and its legendary PC brand, will now acquire world-renowned Motorola Mobility, including the MOTOROLA brand and Motorola Mobility's portfolio of innovative smartphones like the Moto X and Moto G and the DROIDTM Ultra series.  In addition to current products, Lenovo will take ownership of the future Motorola Mobility product roadmap.

Google will maintain ownership of the vast majority of the Motorola Mobility patent portfolio, including current patent applications and invention disclosures. As part of its ongoing relationship with Google, Lenovo will receive a license to this rich portfolio of patents and other intellectual property.  Additionally Lenovo will receive over 2,000 patent assets, as well as the Motorola Mobility brand and trademark portfolio.

Motorola Mobility enjoys outstanding brand awareness around the world, and is currently the #3 Android smartphone manufacturer in the U.S. and #3 manufacturer overall in Latin America.

“The acquisition of such an iconic brand, innovative product portfolio and incredibly talented global team will immediately make Lenovo a strong global competitor in smartphones. We will immediately have the opportunity to become a strong global player in the fast-growing mobile space,” said Yang Yuanqing, chairman and CEO of Lenovo. “We are confident that we can bring together the best of both companies to deliver products customers will love and a strong, growing business.

Lenovo has a proven track record of successfully embracing and strengthening great brands – as we did with IBM’s Think brand – and smoothly and efficiently integrating companies around-the-world.  I am confident we will be successful with this process, and that our companies will not only maintain our current momentum in the market, but also build a strong foundation for the future.”

“Lenovo has the expertise and track record to scale Motorola Mobility into a major player within the Android ecosystem.  This move will enable Google to devote our energy to driving innovation across the Android ecosystem, for the benefit of smartphone users everywhere,” said Larry Page, CEO, Google.

“As part of Lenovo, Motorola Mobility will have a rapid path to achieving our goal of reaching the next 100 million people with the mobile Internet. With the recent launches of Moto X and Moto G, we have tremendous momentum right now and Lenovo’s hardware expertise and global reach will only help to accelerate this,” said Dennis Woodside, CEO, Motorola Mobility.

The transaction is subject to the satisfaction of regulatory requirements, customary closing conditions and any other needed approvals.

IBM Builds On Growing Client and Partner Momentum for Social Business in the Cloud

ARMONK, N.Y., January 29, 2014 – IBM (NYSE: IBM) today announced strong momentum for its Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) based social business offerings from partners, clients and developers. As part of today's news, IBM is also highlighting its continued investment with new innovations in its social business and cloud technologies.

According to a recent IBM study of more than 800 business decision makers worldwide, organizations that use software delivered as a service through the cloud (SaaS) reported two and a half times higher profit than their peers. In addition, organizations that adopt cloud-based solutions are 79 percent more likely to drive increased collaboration across their organization, and twice as likely to leverage analytics to unlock greater insight about their business.

A growing list of businesses such as Codorniu, Princess Cruise Lines, SIKA, SafeGuard, Shanks and Verisure have taken their business into the cloud, extending the benefits to millions of users around the globe.

 “We’ve seen amazing demand over the past year as clients adopt and partners extend the capabilities we’ve been delivering through the cloud,” said Jeff Schick, Vice President of Social Software, IBM. “Over this period, we have spurred new innovation by integrating social capabilities into an organization’s business processes. This has been made possible through our open and extensible APIs that have let us unleash the power of cloud and help organizations collaborate and increase workforce productivity.”

Connections in the Cloud and Next Generation Web Mail Experience

IBM today announced the rebranding of its mail, chat, meetings, office productivity and content capabilities, making them part of IBM’s Connections brand in 2014. As part of this effort, IBM plans to expand the Connections portfolio to include high-fidelity, high definition video based on its Sametime 9 technology.

In addition, IBM is also announcing its next generation web mail experience. In the age of information overload, workers must be able to quickly access and effectively manage the information most vital to their job, much of which resides in their inbox. This new mail offering, planned for availability in both the cloud and on-premises, will use analytics to deliver powerful task-level focus and inbox management capabilities that let employees easily track the content and messages needed to do their job.

"IBM’s new web mail experience is very intuitive and integrated with key social business capabilities. This will help our people be more efficient in prioritizing and managing daily work, including tracking requests and follow-ups in a powerful yet simple experience," said Berry van der Schans, Information and Communication Technology Manager for Shanks Group Plc.

IBM also plans to introduce Domino Applications in the cloud through a ready-made Platform as a Service offering built on IBM SoftLayer. As a result, customers will be able to build on the investments they have made in custom applications and enhance them with new mobile options. Partners will also have a faster path for bringing their new Domino applications to cloud and getting them to market more quickly.

Growing Ecosystem Drives Demand for a New Social Business Software

IBM is teaming with business partner Parallels to integrate with their innovative cloud automation platform, making it easier for partners that distribute IBM products to assemble and sell unique cloud offerings. For example, a telecommunications company can use IBM’s new plug-in to easily combine and provision its cloud offerings from IBM and other Parallels-ready vendors, such as Sugar CRM. This streamlines the business process of delivering cloud services through a reseller channel.

IBM is also introducing a new certified set of global partners that provide on-boarding services that make it easier than ever for clients to deploy their mail to the cloud.

Furthermore, IBM’s independent software provider (ISV) partner ecosystem continues to grow. To date, hundreds of unique Connections-based applications have been developed using APIs from the IBM Social Business Toolkit.  For example ISVs, such as AppFusions, Flow, HootSuite and Kaltura and Shoutlet have built entirely new applications on the IBM Connections platform -- both in the cloud and on premises.

HootSuite, for example, created a new social application integrating IBM Connections capabilities and content into the HootSuite dashboard. This allows data from corporate social networks to be viewed alongside social media data from Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and other networks so employees can be even more empowered, connected, and informed.

The Social Software Leader

In 2013 IBM was named the number one provider of enterprise social software for the fourth consecutive year by IDC1.. In addition Forrester Research recognized IBM as a leader in file sync and share platforms according to the July 2013 report, The Forrester Wave™: File Sync And Share Platforms, Q3 2013*.  Today 75 percent of the Fortune 100 have IBM enterprise social software  

Leo Burnett Worldwide Surveys Its Global Workforce Using IBM’s Behavioral Analytics Technology

ARMONK, N.Y. – January 28, 2014: IBM (NYSE: IBM) today announced that Leo Burnett Worldwide is using its workforce talent management software to analyze people surveys, strengthen its global workforce, drive revenue and increase retention.

Through IBM’s data analytics, Leo Burnett is able to glean valuable insights from its annual global people survey that allows it to better understand the needs of the workforce. With this pulse of their people, Leo Burnett, one of the world’s top advertising agencies, is able to identify a link between its overall corporate philosophy and greater business results through higher retention rates and a more productive workforce, saving the company valuable resources.

Leo Burnett’s “HumanKind” philosophy demonstrates how creativity can transform behavior. Leo Burnett partnered with IBM’s Smarter Workforce consultants, who use employee engagement analytics software to look at what drives their people to contribute to agency accomplishments. The information collected provided insights that helped generate suggestions that the agency can implement to better engage their people and improve productivity.

Leo Burnett used IBM’s analytics solutions to survey their 8,500+ people and applied IBM’s powerful analytics to synthesize the perspectives their people shared regarding agency strengths and weaknesses. They then identified those agency characteristics that lead to an engaged workforce. Additionally, the results helped Leo Burnett’s senior executives to identify the most engaged agencies.

In analyzing survey data, Leo Burnett discovered that agencies in the top half of engagement had retention rates 8.2 percent higher than those in the bottom half. This discovery is important in that the agency has the potential to save valuable financial resources and reduce recruiting costs. Agencies where people felt they were encouraged to be innovative were also 2.2 times more likely to meet their annual financial goals, which led to a greater belief in and adoption of its “HumanKind” focus.

A key contributor to Leo Burnett’s success is its commitment to listening and responding to its own people. By surveying its people, Leo Burnett leaders are quickly able to gain a deeper understanding of their workforce and how it impacts the business. This understanding helps them to establish action plans to improve specific areas of their business.

“With IBM, we now have the ability to more fully understand the perceptions that our people share about working in the agency. As a result we’re able to use that information to improve our agency work environment and, ultimately, our business,” said Sidney Chapon, Executive Vice President of Leo Burnett. “The quantitative and qualitative data shows a definite correlation between our investment to educate our people in HumanKind and provide them with the necessary resources to apply its mindset and tools toward agency results, both from a financial and creative perspective. The data proves it – when we invest in HumanKind and take the time to talk to our people and provide the necessary resources to apply it, we have positive results that dramatically impact the business.”

IBM’s Smarter Workforce initiatives help businesses capture and understand data and then use these insights to empower their talent, manage expertise and optimize people-centric processes. It includes IBM’s 2012 $1.3B acquisition of Kenexa, a leading recruitment, talent management and workforce sciences company.

New IBM Kenexa Talent Suite Taps Big Data To Energize Today’s Workforce

Cloud-Based Software to Combine Social Business Capabilities, Watson Foundations and Workforce Science to Modernize Human Capital Management

ARMONK, N.Y., January 28, 2014 –IBM (NYSE: IBM) today announced the software-as-service (SaaS)-based IBM Kenexa Talent Suite that allows Chief Human Resources Officers (CHROs) and C-Suite executives to gain actionable insights into the deluge of data shared every day by their workforce. As a result, organizations can now streamline, modernize and add precision to hiring practices, increase workforce productivity and connect employees in ways that impact business results.

Organizations around the world today are on a mission to identify and hire top talent. By hiring precisely the right employees and then arming them with powerful social tools, businesses can more effectively manage and develop their workforce and put them into the position to succeed.

With the IBM Kenexa Talent Suite, HR professionals can look at large volumes of employee data – such as work experience, social engagement, skills development and individual interests – to identify the qualities that make top performers successful. Organizations and teams can then use those models to pursue candidates through additional targeted social marketing on social recruiting sites, where job seekers matching the profile are automatically connected with opportunities matching their skills.

Customers can accelerate the onboarding and the integration of new hires through IBM Connections capabilities. This helps employees share information and find the right experts to accelerate learning and increase productivity and engagement, while at the same time providing a way for leaders to more effectively manage their teams. Through analytics and reporting, line of business leaders can better understand emerging employee trends and more effectively manage each individual career path in areas like skill attainment, performance appraisals, compensation, succession planning and more.

“We know people are the lifeblood of an organization, and business success on today’s stage requires not just talent but social capabilities that can energize, empower and nurture each team member so they can reach their full potential,” said Craig Hayman, General Manager, Industry Cloud Solutions, IBM. “By combining social, behavioral science and analytics in the cloud, we give businesses a clear path to empower their most valued asset – employees.”

Interested customers can complement the Suite with Watson Foundations, a comprehensive, integrated set of Big Data and Analytics capabilities that enable clients to find and capitalize on actionable insights. Watson Foundations provides the tools and capabilities to tap into relevant data – regardless of source or type – and apply a full range of analytics to gain fresh insights in real-time, securely across an enterprise.

Using Watson Foundations customers will be able to conduct a deeper level of analysis on key workforce-related data, identify trends within the workforce, predict future trends and proactively take action. Executives can also look at the profiles and work performance of their top employees and determine the appropriate type of rewards needed to keep them engaged.

According to an upcoming IBM C-Suite study that surveyed 342 CHROs representing 18 industries, many businesses are not taking full advantage of the insights delivered by workforce big data and analytics. The study found that just over half of organizations are using workforce analytics, with far fewer applying predictive analytics to optimize decision making and outcomes in areas such as sourcing and recruiting (7 percent), employee engagement and commitment (9 percent) and talent development (10 percent), retention (13 percent).

The CHRO study also found that human resources executives are in the early stages of applying social approaches within the organization. Currently, 66 percent are regularly using social for their recruiting efforts, but only 31 percent are using it for knowledge sharing and 41 percent for learning.

Today leading businesses such as AMC are benefiting from IBM talent management software. AMC, one of the world’s premier entertainment companies, uses recruitment technologies from IBM to gain a deep understanding through data analytics of what it takes to succeed at the organization. AMC then uses that knowledge to attract candidates who are more likely to succeed once they're hired.
“Harnessing the power of data gives us a better picture of what top talent looks like in our industry. IBM’s talent management solutions allow us to use data in new ways so we can make better informed decisions that have a greater impact on our business,” said Heather Jacox, Director, Diversity, Recruitment & Development at AMC.

The IBM Kenexa Talent Suite includes the following:

    · Talent Acquisition: Includes recruitment, skill and behavioral science-based assessments and onboarding. These integrated functions are designed to provide a deep understanding of what the best talent looks like and then how to attract, hire and engage them.
    · Talent Optimization: Includes performance management, succession planning and compensation planning to empower and get the most out of employees.
    · Social Networking:  Increases productivity with expertise identification and knowledge discovery – connecting employees and accelerating the time to productivity.

IBM Sets U.S. Patent Record; Achieves 21st Straight Year of Patent Leadership

IBM inventors received more than 6,800 U.S. patents in 2013 including 3 from Malaysia

PETALING JAYA 27 Jan 2014:  IBM (NYSE: IBM) inventors received a record-setting 6,809 patents for 2013, making it the 21st consecutive year the company topped the annual list of U.S. patent leaders. The 6,809 patents included three that were awarded to Malaysian teams whose inventions have helped our clients improve their business processes.

The three local patents were for the following inventions: automated paper consumption tracking and auditing;  message oriented construction of web services; and, spacer and process to enhance the strain in the channel with stress liner.

"IBMers in Malaysia are proud with the recognition that underscores that when talent and creativity are combined with teamwork, the results are immeasurable," said IBM Malaysia managing director, Paul Moung.

“We take pride in being recognized as the U.S. patent leader, but patents are only one gauge of innovation. Equally significant is the impact that our patented inventions have when they are used to enable solutions that help clients and societies solve problems,”said Bernie Meyerson, IBM Fellow and VP of Innovation. “Furthermore, the broad range of inventions that these patents represent underscores the need for a patent system that equally and fairly promotes and supports innovation across all technical fields.”

IBM's 2013 patent total exceeded the combined totals of Amazon, Google, EMC, HP, Intel, Oracle/SUN and Symantec. The company's record 2013 patent count was made possible by more than 8,000 IBM inventors residing in 47 different U.S. states and 41 countries.

The Top Ten list of 2013 U.S. patent recipients* includes:
1 IBM 6,809
2 Samsung 4,676
3 Canon 3,825
4 Sony 3,098
5 Microsoft 2,660
6 Panasonic 2,601
7 Toshiba 2,416
8 Hon Hai 2,279
9 Qualcomm 2,103
10 LG Electronics 1,947

IBM Commits $1.2 Billion to Expand Global Cloud Footprint

Builds a Massive Network of Local Cloud Hubs for Businesses Worldwide with 40 Data Centers Across Five Continents

PETALING JAYA, January 20, 2014: IBM (NYSE: IBM) announced plans to commit over US$1.2 billion to deliver cloud services from 40 data centers across 15 countries and five continents, including North America, South America, Europe, Asia and Australia.

IBM will open new 15 new centers adding to the existing  global footprint of 13 global data centers from SoftLayer and 12 from IBM. Among the newest data centers to launch are China, Washington, D.C., Hong Kong, London, Japan, India, Canada, Mexico City and Dallas. With this announcement, IBM plans to have data centers in all major geographies and financial centers with plans to expand in the Middle East and Africa in 2015.

The investment is designed to bring clients greater flexibility, transparency and control over how they manage their data, run their businesses and deploy their IT operations in the cloud.

IBM estimates the global cloud market is set to grow to $200 billion by 2020, driven largely by businesses and government agencies deploying cloud services to market, sell, develop products, manage their supply chain and transform their business practices.

 "IBM is continuing to invest in high growth areas," said Erich Clementi, senior vice president of IBM Global Technology Services. "Last year, IBM made a big investment adding the $2 billion acquisition of SoftLayer to its existing high value cloud portfolio. Today's announcement is another major step in driving a global expansion of  IBM's cloud footprint and helping clients drive transformation."

The new cloud investments IBM is making will provide business clients the ability to place and control their data globally. IBM SoftLayer gives clients the ability to choose a cloud environment and location that best suits their business needs and provides visibility and transparency to where data reside, control of data security and placement.

IBM SoftLayer is able to deliver high performance services globally across the SoftLayer network. The combination of distributed local data centers and a global network allows clients to place data where it is required, when it is required as well as the ability to consolidate or aggregate data as needed. This provides optimized application performance and responsiveness.  SoftLayer's unique network architecture allows clients to optimize global performance using a private network and not be subject to the uncontrolled nature of the public networks and the internet.

“Cloudant’s global expansion rate is fueled by the always-on commitment we make to our customers,” said Cloudant CEO Derek Schoettle. “Our mission is to be the standard data layer for Web and mobile applications. That mission requires us to push application data to the network edge, in as many locations as possible. Expanding beyond IBM SoftLayer’s current footprint presents significant value to our business. The investment IBM is making to expand their global footprint will not only help fuel our growth, but the growth of thousands of Cloudant users worldwide as well.”

    In today's world of rapid response with mobile and social data proliferation, this type of automation and speed of access to data with high availability and control makes IBM SoftLayer cloud infrastructure an ideal capability for business clients worldwide.

"Cloud represents a growing area for venture capitalist investment," said Ann Winblad, co-founder and Managing Director of Hummer Winblad Venture Partners . "By investing in the cloud ecosystem, IBM not only makes it easier for enterprises to adopt cloud and drive innovation, but also helps new companies of all sizes get off the ground more quickly." said Winblad.  

IBM SoftLayer Underpins IBM’s Growing Cloud Portfolio
The acquisition of SoftLayer represents another major investment for IBM clients. Since its acquisition in 2013, IBM SoftLayer has served nearly 2,400 new cloud clients.

In fact, IBM plans to establish SoftLayer as the foundation of its wide ranging cloud portfolio. The SoftLayer infrastructure will provide a scalable, secure base for the global delivery of cloud services spanning IBM's extensive middleware and SaaS solutions.  SoftLayer's flexibility and global network will also facilitate faster development, deployment and delivery of mobile, analytic, social solutions as clients adopt cloud as a delivery platform for IT operations and manage their business.

Last week IBM made a significant investment and established the IBM Watson Group, a new business unit dedicated to the development and commercialization of cloud-delivered cognitive and Big Data innovations.  As part of this initiative IBM will also deploy Watson on SoftLayer.

Exclusive Avnet-Iverson Pact for IBM Training for Malaysian Market

As one of Big Blue’s four Global Training Providers, Avnet readies to up-skill local IT workforce with IBM technology expertise 

PETALING JAYA, 15 January 2014 – Avnet Technology Solutions a leader in global IT solutions distribution and an operating group of Avnet, Inc. (NYSE: AVT), today announces its exclusive partnership with Iverson Associate Sdn Bhd to offer software and systems training and certification programs across IBM’s hardware, software and services portfolio.

In July 2013, Avnet was selected as one of four IBM Global Training Providers to deliver training to IBM business partners, employees and clients.

  (Left to Right)
1.           Dr Yap Chee Sing, Managing Director of Iverson Associate Sdn Bhd
2.           Mr Chiew Yue Lam, General Manager of Avnet Technology Solutions, Malaysia

According to Chiew Yue Lam, general manager of Avnet Technology Solutions, Malaysia, the collaboration with Iverson allows Avnet to provide a more comprehensive delivery model for the IBM training program via Iverson’s established resources as a leading IT training center.

“ICT (information communications technology) is an area that requires extensive and continuous upgrading of knowledge because technology evolves so fast. Not only does the local market need more ICT talent, but their skillsets also need to be updated regularly to cater to the systems and solutions built to manage big data,” says Chiew.

As big data, cloud computing and the mobile workforce gain traction, adding talent to support them will be a challenge for many organizations as they balance the need for new skills with those necessary to maintain existing IT operations.

“Together with Iverson, Avnet is able to provide more strategic IBM IT training programs that optimize one’s existing IT workforce by upgrading their technical skills and knowledge in areas such as advanced solutions for mobile, cloud, analytics and social business,” he adds.

Fulfill Market Demands for IBM Skillsets; Advocate Malaysian Development

To achieve the goal of becoming an 'inclusive and sustainable' high-income nation by 2020, Malaysia ICT professionals, particularly in the fields of software integration, business intelligence analysis and IBM’s WebSphere application development, are heavily sought after to drive business innovation, adds Chiew. . Professional certifications allow companies to more effectively bridge talent supply and demand gaps.

Chiew adds, “IBM has one of the largest customer bases in Malaysia. Therefore, the IBM professional certification will provide better recognition to the existing local IT workforce with specific expertise that is in demand across the local sectors. More importantly, it will help drive education to enable our partners and resellers to better address end customers’ business challenges with IBM solutions.”

Avnet Malaysia’s newly upgraded Avnet Solutions Center is equipped with the capabilities to facilitate the IBM training and certification program with Iverson.

Iverson’s Managing Director Dr. Yap Chee Sing shares, “The value of technology is realized through its implementation, and this requires resources that have been effectively trained with the necessary skills to make the best possible use of information technology solutions. As a dedicated IT training center, Iverson can provide the talent in the most efficient manner. Working with Avnet is definitely a synergic collaboration.”

The complete portfolio of more than 2,500 IBM training courses will be conducted in the formats of public and private classroom training and instructor-led online courses started 1st January 2014.  For more details on Avnet’s IBM training programs, please visit https://academy.avnet.com/.

安富利 - 艾弗森签專屬條約為IBM培訓馬來西亞市場科技人才

作為IBM的四大全球培訓伙伴之一，安富利準備提升本地科技专业人员與IBM专属科技專長

八打靈再也2014年1月15日讯 - 安富利科技解決方案公司 （Avnet Technology Solutions），国际科技解決方案分銷供应商，今天宣布與艾弗森準私人有限公司 （Iverson Associate Sdn Bhd）獨家合作，提供IBM的硬件，軟件和系統培訓和認證课程。

于2013年7月，安富利被選定為IBM四個之一的全球業務合作夥伴，員工和客戶培訓機構。

马来西亚安富利科技解决方案全国总经理赵汝霖表示，此项合作让安富利有机会提供了通過艾弗森的資源建立一個更全面的IBM培訓項目，并成为国内一個領先的科技培訓中心。

隨著Big Data，雲端科技和員工流动的增益牽引，培育人才將是許多企業是一大挑戰。

“与艾弗森合作，安富利能提供更具戰略性的IBM科技培訓計劃，通過升級科技技能和知識， 进而優化一個現有的科技員工，以便应付如今先進的流动科技，雲端科技，和社會事業分析等領域，”他補充道。

滿足市場IBM对科技專長的需求，倡導馬來西亞發展

“為了實現2020年成為一個“包容性和可持續的”的高收入國家的宏远，馬來西亞科技專業人士，特別是在軟件集成，商業智能分析和IBM的WebSphere應用開發等領域，都是市场上所需要的人
以推動本地企业業務創新，“赵汝霖说。

他也補充說：“IBM在馬來西亞可算是擁有国内最大的客戶群之一。因此，IBM公司專業認證將会为現有的本地科技人才提供更好的認識和具體的專業知識。“

另外， 安富利在馬來西亞新升級的安富利解決方案中心也将投入服务， 扮演配備功能的角色，方便配合與艾弗森的IBM的培訓和認證計劃。

艾弗森總經理Dr. Yap Chee Sing表示士，“技術的價值通過它實現變現，這就更需要得到了有效與必要的技能培訓，。作為一家專業的科技培訓中心，艾弗森可以提供最有效的方式来培训人才， 所以與安富利的工作絕對是一個協同合作。“

超过2500项IBM的培訓課程将会通过在公共和私人課堂的格式進行。培訓和在線指導課程也于2014年1月1日開始。關於安富利的IBM培訓計劃的詳細信息，請游览https://academy.avnet.com/.

IBMers Go Green!

MAKING EVERY EFFORT COUNT. IBM volunteers rehabilitate the shoreline at Bagan Lalang, Sepang. In partnership with the Malaysian Nature Society (MNS), employees spent an afternoon hauling 17 bags of trash from the shore, and repotting 500 mangrove seedlings. The seedlings will be housed in a nursery, to be replanted once matured.

Made in IBM Labs: Helping Clients Securely and Reliably Migrate Cloud Data

Cloud migration software invention eliminates vendor lock-in

Armonk, N.Y. - 6 Dec 2013: IBM (NYSE: IBM) inventors have developed new cloud storage software that provides a simple interface for clients to securely migrate data across multiple clouds, while keeping it confidential and secure.

Today, clients across all industries, including banks, retailers and government, are embracing cloud computing to drive business innovation and growth, but underlying concerns about security, reliability and vendor lock-in have inhibited widespread cloud adoption.

IBM’s patent-pending invention overcomes concerns about data resiliency, security and service continuity via an innovative technique called “InterCloud,” which seamlessly stores and moves data across multiple clouds. The InterCloud method employs a “cloud-of-clouds” approach that invokes the resilience of separate clouds to offer stronger protection against service outages and data loss than any single cloud can deliver.

“Our cloud-of-clouds invention can help clients avoid service outages and security incidents that impact the reliability and security of individual clouds,” said IBM Fellow Evangelos Eleftheriou. “We are adding multiple levels of redundancy and reliability by making cloud migration and backup easier and faster than is currently possible.”

Enabling the cloud-of-clouds
IBM scientists have developed a software toolkit called InterCloud Storage (ICStore), which enables storage systems to access and use third-party private and/or public clouds for data migration, backup or file sharing.

ICStore uses an “object storage” interface that permits clie
ICStore uses an “object storage” interface that permits clients to dragand drop files to be backed up or shared on the cloud(s) of their choice — independent of the vendor. ICStore explicitly addresses space efficiency, data synchronization, and metadata coordination when storing data redundantly on object storage. Once a cloud fails, the back-up cloud immediately responds and ensures data availability — transparentlyto the  user. No synchronization or communication among cloud clients is needed due to the innovative approach that adds redundancy and tolerates failures.

Softlayer, an IBM Company, is the default storage provider for ICStore and it provides the robust object-based interface. ICStore and SoftLayer enableclients to overcome limits in their cloud storage capacity bydynamically routing to an alternative storage system—such as easily migrating from a remote public-cloud to on-premise private-cloud-optimizing the overall efficiency of data storage management.

IBM scientists have developed patent-pending algorithms for ICStore which were published in a paper titled"Robust data sharing with key-value stores" at the IEEE/IFIP International Conference on Dependable Systems and Networks (DSN).

The technology was demonstrated in June at the IBM Edge 2013 conference in Las Vegas in conjunction with the IBM Storwize platform and is available for early trial testing.

IBM Cloud Computing
IBM is the global leader in cloud with an unmatched portfolio of open cloud solutions that help clients build, rent or tap into cloud capabilities. No other company has the ability to bring together unique industry knowledge and unmatched cloud capabilities, that have already helped more than 20,000 clients around the world. Today, IBM has more than 100 cloud SaaS solutions, 37,000 experts with deep industry knowledge helping clients transform and a network of more than 25 global cloud delivery centers. Since 2007, IBM has invested more than $6 billion in acquisitions to accelerate its cloud initiatives.

Most recently IBM acquired SoftLayer with more than 21,000 clients in 140 countries to further build out its IaaS portfolio with an easy and secure on ramp to cloud integrating IBM SmartCloud. For more information about cloud offerings from IBM, visit http://www.ibm.com/smartcloud