Archivo de la categoría: IBM

Andrew Buchanan, Enterprise IT, Graeme Osborne, IBM, IBM Cloud, New Zealand, News & Analysis

NZ Ministry of Health taps IBM gov cloud

NZ's Ministry of Health is moving some of its core services onto IBM cloud

NZ’s Ministry of Health is moving some of its core services onto IBM cloud

New Zealand’s Ministry of Health has enlisted IBM to help the department set up a cloud-based system to support the country’s national healthcare IT infrastructure.

The Ministry manages a set of technical services that support both internal IT systems and national health systems including the National Health Payment System, which processes transactions for pharmacies and healthcare providers, and a National Health Index, which supports planning and coordination in health service delivery.

The deal will see the Ministry deploy all of its internal systems on IBM’s managed cloud infrastructure (hosted in-country) for a minimum of five years.

“The agreement is a key element in improving the Ministry of Health’s ability to deliver shared services for the sector, which enables secure access to personal health records for patients and their health care providers,” said Graeme Osborne, Director of the National Health IT Board. “Our aim is to improve productivity and patient safety, and enable new models of care through strategic technology investments.”

The move follows an pledge made by Health Benefits Limited, the crown company set up in 2010 to support health service provision, to consolidate the infrastructure of all twenty District Health Boards onto IBM’s cloud platform.

“We continue to invest in advanced technology infrastructure vital for New Zealand’s long-term economic growth. IBM’s cloud services offer customers like the Ministry of Health the most comprehensive enterprise-grade cloud environment in New Zealand and will support new, enhanced services for the public, suppliers and staff,” says Andrew Buchanan, cloud business leader, IBM New Zealand.

“This agreement further demonstrates our leadership and commitment to health care innovation,” Buchanan added.

BlueMix, IBM, News & Analysis, PaaS, Platform as a service

IBM bolsters Bluemix with added services, Cloud Foundry Dojos

IBM is bolstering its Bluemix and Cloud Foundry initiatives

IBM is bolstering its Bluemix and Cloud Foundry initiatives

IBM has signed up a number of partners for its Bluemix platform that will see the company bolster the platform-as-a-service with and its Cloud Foundry efforts by establishing developer meeting spaces.

The company announced a public beta of a .NET runtime, which will enable Cloud Foundry developers to use Microsoft’s development technologies and develop .NET apps.

ThinkData Works’ data catalogue Namara.io, application KPI service Cupenya Insights, event processing service flowthings.io and push service Reappt were also added to Bluemix catalogue, as well as some new internally developed mobile and API management capabilities.

IBM also said it is supporting the expansion of Cloud Foundry Dojos, physical developer spaces designed to host developers looking to leverage the open source platform-as-a-service. The company said it will establish its first of a number of independent Cloud Foundry Dojos in Raleigh, North Carolina, in a bid to boost the number of – and mentor –Bluemix developers.

Having poured billions of dollars into cloud and PaaS, it’s clear IBM has high hopes for Bluemix. The company is putting Bluemix at the core of its Internet of Things strategy – it recently announced plans to carve out a section in Bluemix for specialist IoT services (IoT Zone) and a number of new IoT-focused cloud services available on the platform.

IBM claims Bluemix is the largest deployment of Cloud Foundry in the market today, though it hasn’t really clarified what “largest” means in this context; it’s equally unclear how Bluemix deployments compare with Pivotal CF and HP Helion among other commercial Cloud Foundry distributions.

Blake Chandlee, Deepak Advani, Facebook, IBM, News & Analysis

IBM, Facebook ink data-sharing marketing partnership

IBM and Facebook are teaming up on marketing cloud services

IBM and Facebook are teaming up on marketing cloud services

IBM and Facebook have inked a deal that will see IBM marketing cloud customers gain access to Facebook advertising data and capabilities.

The deal will see IBM offer access to Facebook data as part of its marketing cloud analytics services and combine IBM’s marketing cloud data with anonymised user data from Facebook’s 1.44 billion users in a bid to enable IBM clients to gain a more accurate profile of their potential customers.

“Our partnership with IBM will help top brands achieve personalisation at scale by using IBM’s marketing cloud to find and engage their target audiences on Facebook, as well as solve their vexing challenges by consulting with IBM Commerce THINKLab, ” said Blake Chandlee, vice president of partnerships for Facebook.  “We will also be working closely with IBM Commerce THINKLab to help deliver people-based marketing that’s optimized to achieve each brand’s business goals.”

The two companies also announced that Facebook will be the first company to join the recently announced IBM Commerce THINKLab, a research and collaboration environment where companies can work directly with brands to customise the user experience of their services.

Neither company has commented on the financial terms of the deal, but the move could give both companies a serious boost in their respective strategic initiatives – Facebook’s bid to monetise its data, and IBM’s to offer marketers among others compelling reasons to use its cloud services over Oracle’s or other competitors combining analytics and access to social media-born data.

“Brands understand the increasing need to provide customers with powerful and personalized experiences to nurture loyalty,” said Deepak Advani, general manager, IBM Commerce. “Through this collaboration, consumer product companies and retailers will be able to quickly and easily gain deeper insight into what their customers expect and provide them with compelling experiences that bridge the physical and virtual divide.”

Healthcare, IBM, Japan Post, M&A, Mike Rhodin, mobile services, News & Analysis, Vendor, Watch Over

IBM closes Phytel acquisition as healthcare partnerships continue

IBM has closed its acquisition of Phytel

IBM has closed its acquisition of Phytel

IBM announced this week it has closed the acquisition of Phytel, which provides cloud-based software that helps healthcare providers and care teams coordinate activities across medical facilities by automating certain aspects of patient care.

The company originally announced the acquisition back in April, when it also bought Explorys, a provider of cognitive cloud-based analytics that provides insights for care facilities derived from datasets derived from numerous and diverse financial, operational and medical record systems.

“The acquisition of Phytel supports our goal to advance the quality and effectiveness of personal healthcare by enabling secure access to individualised insights and a more complete picture of the many factors that can affect people’s health,” said Mike Rhodin, senior vice president, IBM Watson.

At the time IBM said the acquisitions would bolster IBM’s efforts to sell advanced analytics and cognitive computing to primary care providers, large hospital systems and physician networks.

To that end the company also created a special healthcare unit within its Watson business unit to develop solution specifically for the sector and based on the company’s cognitive compute platform.

Just last week the company redoubled its efforts to target health services, this time through social health and mobile platforms. It announced a deal with Japan Post and Apple that will see Japan Post deploy custom iOS apps built by IBM Global Business Services, which will provide services like medication reminders, exercise and diet tracking, community activity scheduling and grocery shopping as part of the post group’s Watch Over service for the elderly.

Apple, Enterprise IT, Ginni Rometty, IBM, Japan Post Group, News & Analysis, Taizo Nishimuro, Tim Cook

Japan Post, IBM and Apple ink cloud, iPad deal

Tim Cook, Apple CEO and Ginni Rometty, IBM CEO, walking the walk and talking the talk

Tim Cook, Apple CEO and Ginni Rometty, IBM CEO, walking the walk and talking the talk

Japan Post, IBM and Apple are partnering to deploy iPads with IBM-developed apps and cloud services to give local seniors access to healthcare and community services.

As part of its Watch Over service for the elderly, Japan Post will deploy custom iOS apps built by IBM Global Business Services, which will provide services like medication reminders, exercise and diet tracking, community activity scheduling and grocery shopping.

“What we’re starting today draws on IBM’s long heritage of innovation at the intersection of technology, business and society,” said Ginni Rometty, president, chairman and chief executive of IBM.

“The potential we see here – as broad as national economics and as specific as the quality of life of individuals and their families – is one example of the potential of mobile-led transformation anywhere in the world where issues of an aging population exist,” Rometty said.

The move will also see Japan Post deploy iPads and IBM cloud services – thinks like analytics, training services and collaboration services – for its own employees.

“We are joining with two of the world’s most respected leaders in technology to bring our elderly generation into the connected world, expand our businesses by deepening relationships, and discover new ways to strengthen the fabric of our society and economy,” said Taizo Nishimuro, chief executive of Japan Post Group.

Apple chief executive Tim Cook also commented on the deal: “This initiative has potential for global impact, as many countries face the challenge of supporting an aging population, and we are honoured to be involved in supporting Japan’s senior citizens and helping enrich their lives.”

Japan Post Group had been piloting iPads and custom apps and cloud services for the elderly since last year and the company hopes to reach between four and five million elderly customers by 2020.

Enterprise IT, Eugene Barbashin, Europe, IBM, Mariinsky Theatre, News & Analysis

Mariinsky Theatre taps IBM cloud to improve broadcasting

Russia’s Mariinsky Theatre is using a hybrid cloud to support live performance broadcasts

Russia’s Mariinsky Theatre is using a hybrid cloud to support live performance broadcasts

Russia’s Mariinsky Theatre is working with IBM to deploy a hybrid cloud solution that would improve its ability to stream live videos of performances to mobile devices globally.

The theatre already has more than 250,000 unique viewers around the world tuned into Mariinsky.tv, where it currently hosts webcasts of live performances and on-demand recordings.

It had previously broadcast performances on the web using its own on-premise platform to edit and stream performances, but the company said it sought a cloud-based platform for this in a bid to expand its global reach and improve its ability to withstand peaks in demand.

“To support a growing global community of loyal Theatre audiences, we needed a scalable, hybrid cloud solution that could meet the standards for quality that we and our viewers expect,” said Eugene Barbashin, head of the computer technology department, Mariinsky Theatre.

The company said at times its digital platform would need to scale to support thousands of simultaneous viewers, particularly around very popular orchestra or ballet performances, but that it was struggling to cope with demand at times.

“We tried various competitive offerings from Amazon Web Services and Microsoft Azure, but viewers still had buffering issues while streaming performances. We chose IBM Cloud to more fully meet our needs in terms of reliable performance and ease-of-use,” Barbashin added.

AWS, Google, IBM, John Dinsdale, Microsoft, News & Analysis, Synergy Research

Synergy Research: AWS still larger than four biggest rivals combined

AWS is larger than its four top rivals combined

AWS is larger than its four top rivals combined

Amazon pulled the curtain back from its AWS business last week, announcing its cloud services now rakes in over $5bn annually. John Dinsdale, chief analyst and research director at Synergy Research Group said that now puts the e-commerce giant ahead of most of its largest competitors.

Amazon recently reported its cloud business took in revenues of $1.57bn in the first quarter of 2015, and enjoyed close to 50 per cent growth year on year. This is the first time the e-commerce giant has publicly disclosed AWS revenues.

Following on from that, some vendors which shall remain nameless (AWS competitors) worked behind the scenes to remind press off how much more profitable their cloud businesses are by comparison. But Synergy Research data suggests AWS is far larger than most of its competitors combined, at least in the infrastructure services market specifically.

Microsoft enjoys the highest revenue growth rate and IBM is leading private & hybrid services segment, but according to Synergy AWS continues to grow faster than the market as a whole, and that its market share approached 30 per cent in the most recently reported quarter.

Google is quietly gaining share though it remains just half the size of Microsoft in this market, the firm said.

“Across the full and varied spectrum of cloud activities there are now six companies that can lay a valid claim to having annual cloud revenue run rates in excess of $5 billion – AWS, IBM, Microsoft, HP, Cisco and salesforce – and all are able to claim leadership in different parts of the cloud market,” Dinsdale said.

“However, on a strict like-for-like basis AWS remains streets ahead of the competition in cloud infrastructure services. Furthermore, this part of the cloud market is growing much more rapidly than SaaS or cloud infrastructure hardware and software.”

Like-for-like comparisons seems scarce in cloud revenue reporting, not the least of which because it’s such a nascent sector. Considering the market leader in cloud only just started publicly disclosing revenues tacked onto that business, it may be some time before vendors and service providers come up with standard definitions for what can be reported as ‘cloud’ (for instance, IBM recently reported its annual cloud revenues now exceed $7.7bn).

Synergy estimates quarterly cloud infrastructure service revenues (which includes IaaS, PaaS and private & hybrid cloud) now total exceed $5bn.

corporate turnaround, Datacentre, IBM, News & Analysis

IBM adds second SoftLayer datacentre in the Netherlands

IBM is launching a second SoftLayer datacentre in the Netherlands

IBM is launching a second SoftLayer datacentre in the Netherlands

IBM has announced the launch of a SoftLayer datacentre in the Netherlands, its second in the country. The move comes the same week IBM reported cloud revenue increases of close to 75 per cent.

The company said the new datacentre, located in Almere just outside Amsterdam, will double SoftLayer capacity in the region and provide customers with more in-country options for data storage and geographically isolated services.

“This new facility demonstrates the demand and success IBM Cloud is having at delivering high-value services right to the doorstep of our clients,” said James Comfort, IBM general manager of cloud services.

“We’re reaching customers in a way that takes all the guess work out of moving to the cloud. They can build and scale applications, run the toughest big data workloads, have the level of security they need, all in country and connected to a truly global platform,” Comfort said.

IBM has moved to rapidly expand its cloud services in the past year. The company has opened up 13 new SoftLayer datacentres in the past 10 months alone as it looks to shift its focus onto lower-margin strategic initiatives like cloud, big data and security.

That said, despite sequential quarterly revenue declines the company recently reported is annual “as-a-service” run rate stands at $3.8bn, up $1.5bn in the last year. Cloud revenue was up over 75 per cent from last year; on a trailing 12-month basis, the company reported cloud revenue of $7.7bn, with analytics up more than 20 per cent and social more than 40 per cent.

IBM, Martin Schroeter, News & Analysis, quarterly results

IBM reports flat revenues but cloud revenue is up 75%

IBM reported strong performance in cloud despite nearly three years of sequential quarterly declines

IBM reported strong performance in cloud despite nearly three years of sequential quarterly declines

For Q1 2015 IBM reported flat revenues year on year and operating income slightly up on last year, due in part to currency impacts and some of the recent restructuring efforts at the firm, respectively. But the company also reported strong performance in its ‘as-a-service’ segment.

The company reported strong growth in its Power and mainframe businesses, with quarterly mainframe revenue more than doubling (with particularly strong growth in China). The company said Power showed strong performance in the scale-out systems market as well, in part due to the expansion of Power architecture in SoftLayer datacentres.

But at $19.6bn in the first quarter of 2015 revenue at dropped for the 12th consecutive quarter at IBM if a stronger dollar and the impact of divested businesses are taken into consideration.

The company’s chief financial officer Martin Schroeter aimed to reassure the market that bold moves to invest in new areas like Internet of Things and restructure its business were having a positive impact.

IBM is spending billions to shift its focus on lower-margin strategic initiatives like cloud, big data, mobile, security and IoT, and is continuing to “rebalance” its workforce at the same time.

“As we continue the transformation of our business, I’d expect a similar level of workforce rebalancing next quarter, which will impact our year-to-year profit performance,” Schroeter said.

“At our investor briefing at the end of February, we spent a lot of time on how we are transforming our business to where we see long-term value in enterprise IT. We have a core portfolio that’s high value to our clients and high value to us. Quite frankly, it’s essential.”

“While the market for these capabilities isn’t necessarily growing, we continue to reinvent and innovate to deliver that value,” he added.

But performance in areas of strategic importance for IBM looks promising. Schroeter said the annual “as-a-service” run rate stands at $3.8bn, up $1.5bn in the last year. Cloud revenue was up over 75 per cent from last year; on a trailing 12-month basis, the company reported cloud revenue of $7.7bn, with analytics up more than 20 per cent and social more than 40 per cent.

Brendan Hannigan, CrossIdeas, cybersecurity, IBM, Lighthouse, News & Analysis

IBM makes cyber threat data available as a cloud security service

IBM is launching a cybersecurity cloud service

IBM is throwing its hat into the cybersecurity ring

IBM has unveiled a cloud-based cybersecurity service which includes hundreds of terabytes of raw aggregated threat intelligence data, which can be expanded upon by users that sign up to use the service.

At about 700TB, IBM’s X-Force Exchange service is being pitched by the firm as one of the largest and most complete catalogues of cybersecurity vulnerability data in the world.

The threat information is based on over 25 billion web pages and images collected from a network of over 270 million endpoints, and will also include real-time data provided by others on the service (so effectively, the more people join, the more robust the service gets).

“The IBM X-Force Exchange platform will foster collaboration on a scale necessary to counter the rapidly rising and sophisticated threats that companies are facing from cybercriminals,” said Brendan Hannigan, general manager, IBM Security.

“We’re taking the lead by opening up our own deep and global network of cyberthreat research, customers, technologies and experts. By inviting the industry to join our efforts and share their own intelligence, we’re aiming to accelerate the formation of the networks and relationships we need to fight hackers,” Hannigan said.

Last year IBM made a number of acquisitions to bolster end-point and cloud security (CrossIdeas, Lighthouse) and adding cyber threat detection to the mix creates a nicely rounded security portfolio. But the move also put it in direct competition with a wide range of managed security service providers that have been playing in this space for years and going after the same verticals (oil & gas, financial service, retail, media, etc.), so it will be interesting to see how IBM differentiates itself.