The IBM Endpoint Manager for Mobile Devices, based on technology acquired from IBM’s 2010 acquisition of BigFix Inc. The application enables remote management of tablet and mobile devices running on Apple iOS, Android, Symbian and Windows operating systems.

Endpoint Manager allows administrators to remotely wipe data from devices that may be lost or stolen, and also gives better capabilities to enforce passcode policies, encryption, VPN and other corporate security policies.

The software can also identify non-compliant devices and take action by denying email access or by issuing user notifications until corrective actions are implemented.

At the end of 2011, almost half of mobile devices used in the workplace were employee owned according to IDC.

“As the BYOD movement accelerates, it presents new opportunities and challenges for organizations. In order for them to take advantage of this trend, it is important that organizations have mobile security and management policies in place,” said Bob Sutor, vice president, IBM Mobile Platform. “The new offering from IBM will help organizations manage personal and enterprise-owned mobile phones and tablets across IT networks in order to minimize risk, increase productivity and enhance innovation.”

Source:http://www.itp.net/587856-ibm-reveals-mobile-management-software

International Business Machines (IBM) has announced that it is going with the proposed acquisition of Worklight – a private company that excels in smartphone and tablet applications.

Worklight’s services enable its customers to come up with different versions of their apps for multiple smartphone and tablet OS platforms. In addition, the company is also known for providing its services to establish secure connectivity between smartphones (as well as tablet devices) and enterprise IT systems.

IBM announced that the deal is likely to be closed some time by the end of the running quarter itself. Neither of the companies however, disclosed the financial terms of the deal.

“What you’re looking at is still a web page, but it’s programmable enough that you get all the good stuff under the covers. We think that’s going to be an interesting sweet spot,” said Bob Sutor, IBM’s vice president of mobile platform.

Robert LeBlanc, IBM senior vice president in charge of middleware software, on the other hand expressed his views with the words: “Now is the time to make IBM essential in the era of mobile computing.”

Source:http://www.itproportal.com/2012/02/01/ibm-bags-mobile-software-firm-worklight/

IBM (IBM) continued its acquisition purchase spree yesterday by agreeing to purchase Worklight, which is a privately-held company that creates applications for smartphones and tablets, including those for the Android and Apple platforms. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed, and will likely remain a mystery until after the deal has been finalized, which should happen near the end of next quarter.

IBM has insisted that they are not making this purchase in order to bolster support for their own smartphone and tablet offerings (they currently don’t have any) but instead want to provide premium apps to existing platforms for additional revenue. Worklight software, they said via press release, is unique in that it can be adapted to work with carrier-specific handsets. This includes the iOS software as well as carrier specific versions of Android.Worklight Software can also be used to make webapps, which do not require a specific device or OS to run, which makes compatibility for any future endeavors with IBM a non-issue.

News of the acquisition comes as IBM unveils a new service for mobile management and security service. Dubbed “IBM Endpoint Manager for Mobile Devices”. This new service along with this new mobile software acquisition should place IBM in a more strategic arena within the burgeoning tablet and smartphone market.

As Robert LeBlanc, IBM senior vice president in charge of middleware software, said in an internal memo “Now is the time to make IBM essential in the era of mobile computing”. Hopefully their strategy will pay off.

Source:http://localizedusa.com/2012/01/31/ibm-ibm-purchases-mobile-software-development-company/

Misys has selected IBM software to help power its BankFusion platform so that banks can develop new processes or adapt existing processes faster and better.

Under the licensing agreement, Misys is incorporating IBM business analytics, information management and application server software, including Business Process Server, into its BankFusion platform. As a result, clients will be able to install a proven, certified process management technology without the need for additional integration and testing of banking applications.

Robin Crewe, CTO at Misys, said, “BankFusion already provides outstanding intra-process flexibility; for example, it is easy for a bank to use BankFusion to change the steps in their customer acquisition process. The addition of IBM Process Server to the platform will give us extremely powerful inter-process flexibility; this is particularly useful for so-called ‘long running processes’ where the steps in the process are disconnected or run in parallel.”

For example, a loan approval process could involve several internal approvals as well as an external credit check and receipt of an external assessor’s approval of a collateral valuation; IBM Process Server enables Misys to orchestrate this sort of process flow very easily and flexibly.

“The new capabilities provided by IBM will be helpful to banks in all tiers. Tier 3 and 4 banks will in particular benefit by buying a pre-integrated solution that can cover hardware, middleware and rich application software. Tier 1 and 2 banks will also benefit from these capabilities but we expect they will be attracted more by the proven scalability of products like [IBM's] DB2 and IBM process serve,” he adds.

Misys is also adopting IBM’s Information FrameWork and will work to ensure that the processes developed within its BankFusion solutions follow the framework’s comprehensive business and data models. This will enable Misys to accelerate the development of new banking processes. It will also help clients, who are following a model-based approach to the renovation of their banking systems, by providing them with an out-of-the-box set of software that helps simplify their business models.

“Financial services clients are looking for faster and simpler ways to modernise core banking systems while keeping technology costs in line with growth strategies,” said Arvind Krishna, general manager, IBM Information Management. “The combination of Misys and IBM software can help clients better manage and analyse their data to meet these goals and set the stage for new products and services that provide a competitive advantage.”

Source:http://www.assetservicingtimes.com/assetservicesnews/article.php?article_id=2907

Itron has released the first set of specialized analytic software applications built on the Active Smart Grid Analytics (ASA) platform, each bundled with the company’s Analytic Accelerators and Extension Toolkits. Built to leverage its metering, communication network, and meter data management (MDM) solutions, Itron reports that the new applications “provide actionable business intelligence to enable specific smart grid solutions for distribution operations, revenue cycle services and customer engagement. Each analytic application is operational out-of-the-box and comes with an Accelerator and Extension Toolkit.”

By embedding technology from SAP, IBM, and Teradata, Itron’s ASA solution establishes an extensible platform to incorporate data warehousing, business intelligence, interval meter data and state-of-the-art analytic methods. It also enables utilities to combine and analyze data in innovative ways.

Mark deVere-White, Itron Energy’s senior vice president of North America and Latin America, says, “Successfully meeting the challenges that lie ahead requires a comprehensive, extensible set of analytic tools that create strong business value from the vast amounts of data utilities are now collecting. The flexibility inherent in Itron’s ASA solution enables utilities to gain valuable insight into the delivery and use of energy.”

Energy diversion detection, transformer load management, and power quality analytics are the first applications to be released on the ASA platform.

DeVere-White adds: “We set out with the goal of creating an analytics platform that had the flexibility of a custom solution while delivering the ‘time to value’ and decreased risk of an off-the-shelf application. By creating analytic applications that include prebuilt Accelerators for rapid deployment and Extension Toolkits for customization, we have created a best-of-both-worlds solution.

Source:http://www.smartmeters.com/the-news/smart-grid-news/2971-itron-releases-new-software-apps.html

IBM has made an announcement as the most recent element in its Smarter Commerce initiative, launching a new software that makes it easier for consumers to browse, and purchase retail items using social networks and mobile devices.

IBM is putting the spotlight on its ability to boost the ability of retailers to engage their clients by assisting them in taking advantage of rapid changes in the way the digital marketplace is always changing, so that customer demands can be better met, performance can be improved, and digital age customers will find them more appealing.

The IBM Smarter Consumer Survey has also just been released as a part of the initiative. It pointed out that consumers are currently seeking to be able to communicate more effectively with retailers through the media channels they like and use the most, and that they are looking to obtain a more personalized experience while they shop.

It went on to indicate that consumers are becoming more willing to provide information to the retailers they like the most in order to allow that business to become better aware of when, how, and where they want to be approached.

IBM has kept these factors in mind as it released its new software with social media and mcommerce capabilities. The new Mobile Commerce software is now available for mobile users with Apple- or Android-based devices, as it integrates with apps for those operating systems in order to provide a more engaging shopping experience. Retailers can use the applications to rapidly build their own mobile storefronts for these devices.

Source:http://www.qrcodepress.com/ibm-announces-new-smarter-commerce-software-for-retailers-and-consumers/856190/

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IBM reported fourth-quarter revenues below analysts’ expectations, but still beat forecast profits because of strong margins in its software and services businesses.
Revenues were $29.5bn for the quarter, up 1.6 per cent from the same quarter last year, but missing Wall Street’s anticipated $29.73.

Net income was $5.6bn, or $4.71 per share, up 11 per cent from last year, and beating analysts’ expectations of $4.62.
For 2011, the company reported a 15 per cent increase in profits, at $13.44, on $106.9bn in revenues.

The year marks IBM’s ninth consecutive year of double-digit growth in earnings per share, said Mark Loughridge, IBM’s chief financial officer.

The quarter was the first that Virginia Rometty served as chief executive since taking the post last autumn, though she did not participate in the earnings call with investors.

As traditional hardware sectors suffer across the technology industry, IBM is relying more on higher-margin businesses in software and services.
Pre-tax income from IBM’s hardware business was down 33 per cent. Its global financing segment saw pre-tax income decrease 9 per cent.

Instead, the company’s software and services businesses drove overall profits. Software pre-tax income rose 12 per cent, to $3.7bn, while services pre-tax income rose 18 per cent for the quarter, to $1.9bn.

However, analysts questioned whether the good margins in the services business were due to labour migrations outside the US.

“We were very specific in our overall business model for the 2010 road map and 2015, of our intention to pull spend and drive productivity as a global corporation,” Mr Loughridge responded. “Services businesses are a big beneficiary of that large structural corporate take-out.”

Mr Loughridge said IBM will continue to expand its business model by investing in its new, growing business segments in cloud computing, business analytics and “smarter planet” software, which makes cars and appliances run more efficiently.

IBM is on track to reach $14.85 in earnings per share this year, and meet its projected $20 per share by 2015.

Source:http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/2/ed3fdde2-42f6-11e1-b756-00144feab49a.html#axzz1kFVrZrjU

IBM brought its fiscal 2011 year to a close with modest gains in both revenue and net income, the company reported Thursday.

For the quarter that ended Dec. 31, IBM reported revenue of US$29.5 billion, up 2 percent from the same quarter in the prior year. Net income was $5.5 billion, up 4 percent.

“So, 2011 was another very good year for us,” said Mark Loughridge, IBM senior vice president and chief financial officer, in an online presentation Thursday. “Our focus on key growth initiatives and investments in innovation are enabling us to expand into new markets and capitalize on trends like analytics and cloud.”

Emerging nations continue to provide growth for the company. Collectively, the revenue for Brazil, Russia, India and China increased 10 percent for the year. The Americas’ fourth quarter enjoyed an increase in revenue of 3 percent from 2010, while Asia-Pacific revenue increased 2 percent.

For fiscal 2011, IBM reported revenue of $106.9 billion, up 7 percent from fiscal 2010. Net income was also up 7 percent, to $15.9 billion. Earnings per share (EPS) for the year were $13.06, a gain of 13 percent.

With these results, the company confirmed that it was still on track to reach its goal of EPS of $20 in 2015.

However, IBM fell slightly short on analysts’ expectations. Analysts estimated that the company would bring in $29.71 billion in revenue this quarter, with $5.6 billion in net income, according to a poll by Yahoo Finance. For the year, they estimated the company would bring in $107.12 billion in revenue and $13.37 billion in earnings.

This quarter’s results once again reinforced how IBM is enjoying most of its growth from software and services, said Gartner Research Vice President Christopher Ambrose.

The Global Technology Services unit increased revenue by 3 percent this quarter, up to $10.5 billion, and the Global Business Services unit increased revenues 3 percent as well, to $4.9 billion. Revenue from the Software unit increased 9 percent, to $7.6 billion, and certain sets of software programs produced even stronger revenue growth. In this quarter, revenue for the WebSphere family of products increased 21 percent. Information Management software revenue increased by 9 percent, and Tivoli software revenue increased 14 percent. Revenues from Lotus software decreased by 2 percent.

A number of initiatives that the company has invested in over the past few years are starting to generate revenue for the company as well, including IBM’s Smarter Commerce line of e-commerce software and services, as well as its analytics software and services, Ambrose noted. Revenue from Smarter Commerce-related offerings grew by 25 percent and business analytics offerings grew by 16 percent this quarter.

Another good area of growth for the company appears to be cloud computing. Cloud computing revenue more than tripled from 2010, Loughridge said. Ambrose, however, wanted the company to reveal more about how it defines the cloud business. “What are they really calling cloud? Is it cloud services? Is it helping other companies build cloud infrastructure? What makes up for the growth?” he asked.

Not all the business units did well this quarter. Systems and Technology revenue for the quarter was down 8 percent, to $5.8 billion. The decrease actually reflects unusually strong mainframe sales in the prior year, due to the launch of the zEnterprise 196 mainframe, which boosted revenue in the fourth quarter of 2010, Loughridge said. During this time period, System Z revenue declined 31 percent and MIPS mainframe sales slipped 4 percent, compared with 2010’s fourth quarter.

In contrast, sales of IBM Power systems, also managed by Systems and Technology, grew by 6 percent for the quarter. Moreover, this sluggish quarter only slightly dampened overall yearly sales for the Systems and Technology group: The unit reported 6 percent revenue growth for all of 2011.

Source:http://www.macworld.co.uk/apple-business/news/?newsid=3331497&pagtype=allchandate

International Business Machines Corp. on Thursday reported a 4.4% increase in fourth-quarter earnings and provided strong guidance for 2012, helped by its software and services businesses.

The Armonk, N.Y., company has benefited from its push toward higher-margin, complex businesses such as business analytics, and away from crowded fields where companies only can compete on price. While that bet has been paying off, worries have emerged that the macroeconomic environment is hurting spending on technology.

While IBM on Thursday reported revenue a little lighter than analysts expected, it largely attributed the miss to currency effects. Fourth-quarter earnings, however, were better than analysts projected, as was the company’s guidance for the year.

Chief Financial Officer Mark Loughridge said IBM is “confident in our ability to leverage our business model” to grow profit, revenue and margins. For 2012, IBM projected operating earnings of at least $14.85 a share, above the $14.82 expected by analysts polled recently by Thomson Reuters.

He said that while customers are being cautious with spending, they’re “looking for value to apply to business equations.”

“That’s why, in our fourth quarter, we saw pretty good performance in our business, especially in our key investment categories and our software business,” Mr. Loughridge added.

IBM shares climbed 2.7% to $185.40 in after-hours trading Thursday. The stock has been resetting its all-time high over the past few months, with the latest coming in December at $194.90.

“These results reinforced the fact IBM has a good business model,” said ISI Group analyst Brian Marshall.

The company reported signings of $20.4 billion, down 8% from a year earlier on a constant-currency basis, but above the $12.3 billion posted for the third quarter and the consensus estimate of $20.38 billion, according to Janney Capital Markets. Meanwhile, its services backlog rose to $141 billion from $137 billion in the third quarter.

For the fourth quarter, IBM reported a profit of $5.49 billion, or $4.62 a share, up from $5.26 billion, or $4.18 a share, a year earlier. Operating earnings, which exclude retirement-plan costs and amortization, rose to $4.71 a share from $4.25 a share.

Revenue increased 1.6% to $29.5 billion; including currency fluctuations, revenue rose 1%.

Analysts recently projected earnings of $4.62 a share on revenue of $29.71 billion.

Gross margin rose to 49.9% from 49%.

IBM’s systems-and-technology unit reported a 8% decline in revenue in the period. The unit, which includes its hardware business, has been an engine for revenue growth in recent quarters because of its System Z mainframe server for large enterprises. The decline was largely due to tougher year-to-year comparisons, Mr. Loughridge said, with the fourth quarter of 2010 seeing the largest mainframe sales in IBM’s history.

Software segment revenue was up 9% as most of the company’s key products saw growth.

Revenue from technology services and business services both rose 3%.

IBM has benefited recently from its investments in growing technology sectors, such as business analytics and cloud computing. Mr. Loughridge said revenue from business analytics—which mines data to gain insight—gained 16% in 2011, while revenue from cloud computing, which allows users to access their data over the Internet, more than tripled for the year.

In the company’s growth markets, which include Brazil, Russia, India and China, revenue grew 7%, or 8% adjusted for foreign exchange.

Meanwhile, revenue in the Americas improved 3%. Total sales in Europe, the Middle East and Africa rose 1%. Total revenue in Asia increased 2%; excluding currency impacts, Asian revenue declined 1%.

Source:http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204616504577171262566740048.html

Bloomberg Vault simplifies cloud-based message archiving by taking advantage of native features unique to the IBM Lotus Domino server in order to improve security and reliability, while lowering cloud integration costs. A demo of Bloomberg Vault is available at booth #815 Tuesday and Wednesday at IBM’s Lotusphere conference in Orlando, FL.

Financial institutions are moving to hosted e-mail compliance and archiving services to deal with rising costs, risks and industry regulations, an April 2010 study by Forrester Consulting, commissioned by Bloomberg Vault, has found. Today, more than 390 financial service companies have adopted Bloomberg Vault to manage growing legal and regulatory mandates governing corporate data.

“Growing compliance requirements and an increase in digital communications is driving up the cost of compliance, archiving, and eDiscovery processes, especially for financial services firms,” said Harald Collet, Global Business Manager for Bloomberg Vault. “We designed Bloomberg Vault to integrate with IBM Lotus Domino in a secure cloud environment, so we can start to reduce unnecessary IT costs by making the message management, archiving, and compliance process much more efficient.”

Michael Waxenberg, the chief technology officer at WestLB AG, the German commercial bank, commented, “We are pleased that Bloomberg Vault supports a fully native integration with IBM Lotus Domino that can assist regulatory and e-discovery processes.”

The Bloomberg Vault solution for IBM Lotus Domino provides:

-Superior security for IBM Lotus Notes communications through support for transport-level encryption and IBM Safe ID Technology, -Automated replication, transport and reconciliation of archived message data in IBM’s NSF data format and configured via native Lotus Domino journaling features, -Message file export capabilities and specialized export template for Lotus Notes communications, Internet e-mail, Bloomberg messages and instant messaging.

“The market for cloud-based archiving services is estimated to reach over $1B in spending in 2012, and is expected to grow at a 24.8 percent compounded growth rate from 2010 to 2015,” said Laura DuBois, Program Vice President at IDC. “Companies tell us they are under a tremendous pressure to reduce the cost of compliance, and Bloomberg Vault’s Lotus Notes support offers companies an uncomplicated solution that also helps to reduce IT costs.”

Source:http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-01-17/bloomberg-vault-adds-cloud-archiving-for-ibm-message-software.html

IBM announced that appliance maker Electrolux is using IBM social software to connect its workforce in 60 countries and encourage a deeper level of innovation and knowledge sharing.

At its Lotusphere 2012 conference here, IBM announced that Electrolux is using Big Blue’s IBM Connections and IBM Sametime software to connect its employees in the company’s growing community and to help them collaborate on projects with others spread around the world.

“Social business is enabling companies to scale in new ways and drive greater innovation within their organization,” Alistair Rennie, general manager of Social Business at IBM, said in a statement. “Organizations can seamlessly connect and share information across a global network of clients, partners and employees through the power of social business.”

Using IBM’s social software, Electrolux employees in the office or on the go can find experts and gain valuable insight from the data on their company’s intranet portal, IBM Connections social networking platform and IBM Sametime instant messaging software.

Working with business partners Infoware Solutions and Avantime, Electrolux has seen the number of internal online communities, networks and microblogs grow rapidly, the company said. The intranet, powered by IBM Connections and Microsoft SharePoint, contains more than 100 information portals managed by more than 450 editors, and has 15,000 monthly and 9,000 daily readers. There are more than 1,100 collaboration spaces with 8,500 members, Electrolux said.

Electrolux employees are using IBM Connections microblogging to quickly spread information across the organization, including new-product and customer care ideas, and strategic organizational announcements.

In addition, Electrolux employees will also have access to a social-collaboration dashboard. Through integrating IBM Lotus Notes email and IBM Sametime instant messaging, employees will be able to drag an email into a Connections Activity and discuss with colleagues in that specific window. This will help to better engage the team, provide a more comprehensive overview of the project and reduce attachments in the email inbox, the company said.

“Our goal is to empower our employees so they have access to content and collaboration tools anytime and from anywhere,” Ralf Larsson, director of online employee engagement and development at Electrolux, said in a statement. “Working with IBM, our employees are now becoming better engaged and more connected into specific business processes that help them expand the scope of product innovation.”

Source:http://www.eweek.com/c/a/Enterprise-Applications/Electrolux-Taps-IBM-for-Social-Software-531447/

For corporate managers, I.B.M. is a security blanket. Over the years, Big Blue’s endorsement and embrace of a new technology product or trend have been the signal that it is safe for the business mainstream, from the personal computer to Linux.

I.B.M. is benefiting from its seal-of-approval status as it seeks to build a big business in selling Web-based social networking, collaboration and decision-support software to corporations. The unit selling social business software, Connections, was founded in 2007, and it has tens of thousands of customers, I.B.M. says. About 5,000 people, mostly customers and partners, are expected to attend the company’s Connect 2012 conference in Orlando, Fla., on Monday and Tuesday.

The enthusiasm for adopting social media tools is another sign of consumer-led innovation in technology. The business world is taking a page from the social-media leaders like Facebook and Twitter — after the tools have been tamed a bit for corporate use. The potential for these tools to speed up communication and decision-making within corporations has been evident for years. The term Enterprise 2.0 was coined in 2006 by Andrew McAfee, then at the Harvard Business School and now a principal research scientist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Center for Digital Business.

But I.B.M., analysts say, is going well beyond a refashioning of consumer features with the latest version of its Connections social business software, with beta code being released this week. The company, they note, is increasingly folding its information discovery, or analytics, technology into its social business software.

I.B.M.’s Connections software allows access to internal and external networks from one location.
The technology is both homegrown, from its research labs, and acquired. Since 2005, I.B.M. has spent more than $14 billion on 25 companies that specialize in data mining and analytics.

“It’s what the analytics side of I.B.M. is doing with social media that is new and compelling,” said Stephen O’Grady, a founder of RedMonk, a research firm.

Many corporate technology companies, Mr. O’Grady noted, have social media or analytics products, including Microsoft, Oracle, EMC, Salesforce and Adobe. But I.B.M., he said, has the early lead in marrying the two, social media tools and analytics.

The intelligence being built into the software can be applied inside a company or out in the marketplace, said Alistair Rennie, general manager of social business software at I.B.M.

For an individual worker, the new software can help find and recommend experts within the company to solve, say, a specific marketing or manufacturing problem. The Web-based software, Mr. Rennie said, can sift through a worker’s online messages, comments on company blogs and wikis, and shared documents to determine what is most important to the person — and present that first on an on-screen dashboard.

“The more you use it, the system itself becomes smarter,” Mr. Rennie said. “It becomes a background service that helps you prioritize work.”

More advanced features, he said, can cull through public posts on Twitter and Facebook to analyze trends in how people view the company and its products.

At TD Bank, a large North American bank based in Toronto, the new software has been available to workers in Canada for about a month. (The bank plans to make the software available to its 40,000 employees in the United States this week.) In Canada, it has already proved quite popular, attracting 43,000 unique users, said Wendy Arnott, the bank’s vice president for social media and digital communication.

Thousands of blogs and wikis have been created by the workers themselves, including a group of small-business advisers sharing best practices and spreadsheet users sharing software and tips. Online project-management groups, Ms. Arnott said, are already finding they need fewer meetings.

So far, the intelligent features have been used internally, for things like finding and communicating with subject experts across the bank. “Data that is shared becomes searchable and findable in a way that could not be done before,” Ms. Arnott said. “There is a lot of power in that.”

Source:http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/01/16/i-b-m-makes-its-social-computing-strategy-smarter/#h[]

Your job comes with a web of security permissions that an IT department has to regulate. IBM‘s newest security software, however, knows what role you have and can assign access before the IT guys ever have to lift a finger.

A lot of companies use software that limits what an individual employee can do on the computer. Some classes of employees, such as sales people, are allowed access to different applications, software, and social media that others are not. This is especially true in larger organizations where confidential information is distributed on a need-to-know basis, and can slip outside of company firewalls without this the right security software. The problem is that as a company grows larger, tailoring security for individual employees can become tedious.

IBM has developed identity software that takes care of this problem. The software, which is called Security Role and Policy Modeler, looks at your existing applications and detects how many permissions each person has. These applications include Salesforce, Oracle Finance, Active Directory and more. Based on the access permissions certain employees have in these applications, Security Role and Policy Modeler will group employees into “roles” and assign them a blanket permissions scheme, which can be edited manually. The roles aren’t based necessarily on what job you have, just on what permissions already exist for you, and how they are similar to other people in the company.

But not everyone is the same, right? Well, from a security standpoint, your 10,000 person company may be filled with individuals, but it costs a lot of money to sort them one by one. For IBM, it makes more sense to divvy them up into groups and then, if necessary, manually tweak permissions, also known as, “roles plus.”

“Having roles well defined will get the compliance auditor off your back faster,” said IBM Security Systems vice president of strategy and product development Marc van Zadelhoff in an interview with VentureBeat.

Industries such as finance and medical have compliance regulations around communications and security that are often audited for updated practices. This can be sloppy if your permissions are spread across a number of different applications, especially when a compliance officer wants to see order. Van Zandelhoff believes the role creating software is a way to bring calm to the chaos.

For Van Zandelhoff, the new software is also a testament to IBM. The product was born out of IBMs newest division, Security Systems, and is meant to show what Van Zandelhoff calls “good ol’ fashion organic innovation.” The company announced this morning that it acquired 6180 patents in 2011, and won the most patents received in a year for the 19th year. While this and company acquisitions are what IBM is known for, the Security Systems team wants to change that with internal inventions.

Ironically, the department has acquired 12 companies thus far, but doesn’t want to limit itself.

“We announced IBM Security Systems in October,” said Van Zandelhoff, “It’s the culmination of security growing to become quite a sizeable business.”

Source:http://venturebeat.com/2012/01/11/ibm-security-software/

IBM (NYSE: IBM) announced today that BodyMedia, Inc., a leader in wearable body monitors designed for health and wellness, is using IBM software to help consumers more easily achieve their weight-loss goals. Powered by IBM software, the new personalized feedback capabilities in the BodyMedia FIT body monitoring system now provide users with their own fitness coach.

Historically, fitness devices have tracked data, but not offered advice on what to do next. However, personalized feedback can help improve the success of consumers’ weight loss plans. The use of technology for fitness is a business that is growing rapidly. In fact, 37 percent of those surveyed had planned to purchase a fitness technology device in the next 12 months, while almost half of all people that work out use technology to enhance their efforts already.*

“Our BodyMedia FIT Armbands have tracked calorie burn for hundreds of thousands of people trying to lose weight, but we wanted to also help consumers understand how all of this data could effect their fitness goals,” said Christine Robins, CEO, BodyMedia. “By using IBM’s software, the new system now provides daily advice tailored to each user’s specific activities, food consumption and weight loss goals to keep them on track.”

Using both historical and current BodyMedia data, as well as user input, the feedback engine tracks each user’s daily calorie burn, food intake and sleep patterns, and then compares the results to their weight loss goals. By being able to analyze this fitness data, the new technology helps users make sense of this information and provides personalized feedback to help them stay on top of their fitness objectives.

For instance, if a user slept too little, was not active enough, and ate several meals that are high in fat, the device will offer tips and advice on what types of activities must be done to still meet their weight loss target.

BodyMedia teamed up with Pittsburgh, Pa.-based IBM Business Partner Summa to develop the new FIT Coach component. By applying IBM WebSphere Operational Decision Management (WODM) software to the millions of data points collected by BodyMedia on-body Armbands, Summa was able to create the business rules required to run the system.

The IBM Decision Management platform powers the armband’s feedback engine. It is then able to make all the necessary calculations to assess the users’ current status and compare it to their long-term goals. The rules defined in the system then determine all of the possible feedback that can be provided, while analyzing, selecting and filtering the most relevant feedback and suggestions to display in the BodyMedia FIT Activity Manager.

The Activity Manager application works in tandem with the BodyMedia FIT Armband, which uses a proprietary four-sensor system to track calories burned, steps taken, level of physical activity and sleep patterns that affect health and weight at a rate of 5,000 data points per minute. The Activity Manager software analyzes and stores that data and allows users to set individualized activity goals and document daily food intake. Now, it also provides IBM-powered personalized feedback based on user activity.

“As the marriage of fitness and technology becomes more and more pervasive, we continue to see companies rely on software to distinguish their products in a crowded marketplace,” said Bruce Anderson, general manager, Global Electronics Industry, IBM. “With the help of IBM analytics, BodyMedia has been able to provide users with the insight to make sense of all the information they’ve been tracking and turn it into actionable progress towards their weight loss objectives. This is providing their clients with a fitness experience that no other company can offer.”

The new FIT coach will become a standard feature with all BodyMedia FIT Activity Manager subscriptions later this year. The feedback engine can also be customized for partners and has already been incorporated into the Activity Manager portion of the Jillian Michaels 360 degree Weight Loss Navigator, a weight loss support program by the celebrity fitness trainer that incorporated the entire BodyMedia system.

Originally developed to help businesses and organizations streamline their day to day operations, IBM Decision Management provides personalized services for clients across a wide range of industries, including fitness (Athletes Performance), airlines (British Airways), finance (VISA Europe), manufacturing (Caterpillar) and retail (Yves Rocher).

Source:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/bodymedia-selects-ibm-software-to-personalize-weight-loss-advice-137070453.html

Confused about what kind of software you’re running, and exactly how you’re using it? A new release of IBM’s Tivoli Asset Discovery for Distributed may help you get a handle on your software inventory and how you use it.

Many software companies license their software in a myriad of ways. IBM, for example, offers several ways to license software, including sub-capacity licensing by LPAR or VMware virtual machines, and everybody’s all-time favorite, processor value unit (PVU)-based pricing.

Enter Tivoli Asset Discovery for Distributed, a software application designed to help organizations maintain an up-to-date inventory of installed distributed software and hardware, as well as the software’s use of data. The product monitors the usage of software and usage trends across a range of environments, including IBM i, Linux, Windows, Unix, and z/OS.

The software also can produce reports for the purpose of complying with software audits by software companies. It is often used with Tivoli Asset Management for IT, which provides additional capabilities in the area of license management and audit readiness.

With the release of Tivoli Asset Discovery for Distributed version 7.5, IBM has split the software from another related tool, Tivoli Asset Management for IT.

Version 7.5 also introduces several other enhancements, including: better maintenance of bundle definitions, which is required for PVU audit readiness; improved reporting; better problem determination; support for IBM Support Assistance Lite; support for WebSphere Application Server version 7 and Tivoli Integrated Portal version 2.2; and support for logical domains, which will improve the work of agents deployed by Tivoli Asset Discovery for Distributed.

IBM is also selling components of Tivoli Asset Discovery for Distributed version 7.5 with the IBM License Metric Tool version 7.5. This tool is useful for managing IBM-specific licensing schemes, including sub-capacity and PVU pricing.

Tivoli Asset Discovery for Distributed supports all major server platforms with its agents, including IBM POWER, Sun SPARC, Intel X86 and Itanium, and System z. The server component of the software runs on Windows, Linux, AIX, Solaris, and HP-UX. Pricing starts at $2.85 for 10 PVUs.

Source:http://www.itjungle.com/fhs/fhs011012-story10.html

The high availability software market in the IBM i space is getting off to an interesting start in 2012 now that Rocket Software has bought the iCluster software business from IBM. The deal was announced on January 4, but was actually closed by Rocket Software and IBM on December 31 for an undisclosed sum, and it puts iCluster logical replication software in the hands of a third party that plans to invest in the product and grow the business.

Rocket Software has been on an acquisition tear in the IBM space for the past couple of years, having snapped up application development tool maker Seagull Software in December 2006 for $55.7 million, which gave the company its LegaSuite tools as well as the BlueZone terminal emulators that are now the Rocket Seagull and Rocket BlueZone divisions at the company. (Seagull itself had only acquired BlueZone in March 2006.) In October 2009, Rocket Software raised a chest full of $91.9 million in equity cash to do acquisitions, which was only a month after Rocket Software had paid an undisclosed sum to buy the U2 database and application development tool business from IBM. In March 2011, Rocket Software bought Aldon, a maker of application lifecycle management and compliance tools that run on the IBM i, from Marlin Equity Partners, which had acquired Aldon from its founders in May 2007.

Under the terms of the deal between IBM and Rocket Software, all of the employees working on iCluster software within IBM’s Power Systems Software division will be making the jump to Rocket Software, including Mike Warkentin, who is the lead on the iCluster team. The majority of the iCluster team is still located in the Markham, Ontario, suburb of Toronto, where DataMirror, the creator of iCluster, was located when it was founded and when it was acquired by IBM back in July 2007 for $161 million.

DataMirror was founded in 1993 by Nigel Stokes, who was the company’s CEO and chairman and who took the company public on the Toronto Stock Exchange in 1996. DataMirror grew to be one of the big three in the AS/400 high availability software clustering market, alongside the original Vision Solutions and Lakeview Technology, which were merged a few years back by private equity firm Thoma Bravo in the wake of its acquisitions of Vision and iTera. (DataMirror once tried to do a hostile takeover of Vision Solutions, providing much drama for the AS/400 community of the time. The attempt failed.)

At the time of the DataMirror acquisition, IBM made no secret that it was more interested in the Transformation Server database replication software that DataMirror had created than the iCluster HA software. That software lives on inside of IBM’s Information Management division inside of the Software Group behemoth and has been integrated with various database and integration tools that Big Blue created and acquired over the years. At the time IBM bought DataMirror, it had around $45 million in annual sales, about 2,200 customers, and 220 employees.

Neither Rocket Software nor IBM wanted to talk about the revenue stream and the customer base size of the iCluster product as 2011 came to a close. Ahead of the deal, Rocket Software had around 900 employees and more than $200 million in annual revenues. Rocket is privately held, so it does not provide an insight into its financials. The company has now done a slew of acquisitions of public and private companies, not including intellectual property and asset acquisitions since it was founded in 1990 by Andy Youniss, who is still its president and chief executive officer, and a silent equity partner who is active in the company today.

Rocket Software will add the iCluster software to its portfolio of products sold from the Storage, Networks and Compliance business unit, which includes a number of storage and data archiving products. These include various archiving tools for Linux, Unix, and Windows platforms sold under the Arkivio brand (acquired in January 2008), the Mainstar hierarchical storage management software for IBM mainframes, and the Servergraph chargeback software for tape and offsite media storage.

“Rocket Software has done over 30 acquisitions in the past number of years, and has a history of acquiring growing businesses and growing them, and that’s our intention with iCluster,” Brian Starr, vice president and general manager of the Storage, Networks and Compliance business unit, told The Four Hundred. “We intend to invest in and grow the business, and we intend to have a very competitive offering.”

In addition to investing in the iCluster software to help boost its customer base, Starr says that there are some synergies between existing Rocket Software replication and archiving tools in the unit and the company obviously intends to cross-sell iCluster into Aldon, BlueZone, and LegaSuite accounts.

One interesting possibility, and one that IBM never got around to doing with the iCluster software, is to port the code so it works with Linux, Unix, and Windows platforms, much as other tools do in the SNC business unit where iCluster now lives. Starr would not comment on that possibility.

When I asked Ian Jarman, manager of Power Systems software at IBM, if Big Blue had ever thought of porting iCluster to AIX and Linux, he reminded me that what IBM did instead is transform its High Availability Cluster Multiprocessing (HACMP) hardware clustering for AIX into PowerHA and port it to run on IBM i. IBM never did do logical replication for AIX, but there are a number of third-party tools that do.

Jarman says that in the wake of the acquisition of iCluster by Rocket Software, iCluster will still be sold through the IBM channel and that the two are working together to make sure iCluster customers are properly supported. IBM has been doing Level 1 support for iCluster out of the Rochester labs and Level 2 out of the Toronto labs where the iCluster people work. Eventually, Rocket Software will be taking all the iCluster calls and IBM will just take the calls for the IBM i platform itself.

Source:http://www.itjungle.com/tfh/tfh010912-story02.html

The financial terms of the acquisition, announced on Wednesday, were not disclosed. The deal will give IBM cloud-based tools its customers can use to analyse the performance of major vendors’ software in a controlled environment and test how it interacts with their existing IT stack.

“By using Green Hat’s solutions, a virtual test environment can be set up in a matter of minutes”, as opposed to the weeks needed to set up a physical lab for quality checking, IBM said in a statement.

Green Hat’s technology allows developers to stress-test an application by hammering it with a very high number of I/O requests. It can also virtualise parts of an application via the GH Virtual Integration Environment. Businesses can plug the software into their existing infrastructure then bombard it with requests to see how it behaves, prior to being integrated.

IBM plans to integrate Green Hat’s portfolio into its existing Rational software assurance line. The two are a good fit, said Ovum principal analyst Michael Azoff, who noted that Green Hat’s test labs can handle complex differing systems, from mainframes to distributed cloud and mobile environments.

“Green Hat provides a virtualised solution to this complexity that allows individual virtualised components to be switched in turn to their live counterparts and for effective systems-testing to be performed,” Azoff said in a statement.

“The drive towards agile development, with higher frequency of testing and also testing earlier in the lifecycle, is producing huge pressures on [quality assurance],” he added. “Green Hat reduces the time to set up, run and return back to neutral test labs, and removes impediments to agile processes in mission-critical, large-scale projects.”

Green Hat’s products promise to help businesses to evaluate the performance of software products from IBM, Microsoft, Oracle, SAP and Tibco, among others. The company, which has headquarters in Wilmington, Delaware, as well as in London, will become part of IBM’s Rational Software group.

Source:http://www.zdnet.co.uk/news/mergers-and-acquisitions/2012/01/05/ibm-buys-green-hat-for-software-testing-40094744/

Announced today that it has closed the acquisition of the iCluster business from IBM. iCluster offers software for High Availability/Disaster Recovery (HA/DR) for IBM i. The iCluster team will be joining Rocket Software’s global organization of more than 900 employees and become a new brand — Rocket iCluster — within the Rocket Storage, Networks and Compliance group.

Andy Youniss, President and Chief Executive Officer of Rocket Software, said, “We are excited to announce this strategic acquisition. We believe that iCluster’s HA/DR offerings are a perfect complement to Rocket’s storage solutions and will help address the business continuity needs of our customers. In addition, developing and providing solutions for IBM i is a core focus area for Rocket, where we have multiple brands on this platform. We plan to continue investing in Rocket iCluster to deliver new features and functionality and will work to further enhance this solution for HA/DR on IBM i. Most importantly, we want to assure our new Rocket iCluster business partners and customers that Rocket Software is committed to helping you achieve success with this solution.”

Over the coming months, Rocket Software will be working to establish direct relationships with iCluster partners, and introduce them to Rocket Software. During the transition of business operations, partners may continue to order iCluster from IBM as they do today. In addition, Rocket is working closely with IBM to ensure that customer support needs are seamlessly managed and support delivery is unaffected. In most cases, the product contacts with whom partners work today will not change given that the entire iCluster team has joined Rocket Software.

Source:http://www.marketwatch.com/story/rocket-software-completes-acquisition-of-ibm-icluster-2012-01-04

IBM and Enterprise Bank Inc., a community-based rural bank that provides a variety of financial services in Mindanao, have announced that the bank has achieved better overall business performance, including enhanced communication and collaboration within the company’s network, and increased data security with the help of IBM solutions.

Enterprise Bank EBI embarked on this enterprise collaboration project early this year to better cater to the increasing demands of small and medium-size businesses (SMBs), entrepreneurs, and members of low-income groups in Mindanao.

IBM has a business expansion program in place to support and tap into the growth in this region. It is committed to assist local businesses and organizations in smaller provinces outside the capital such as Mindanao, to develop skills and advance new and more efficient processes with the use of information technology.

Geographic expansion is one of IBM’s core growth strategies and the Philippines is one of IBM’s focus countries in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN).

Enterprise Bank worked with IBM and IBM Business Partner AMTI to implement the project anchored on IBM BladeCentre technology and IBM Lotus software.

Using IBM-proven hardware technology and collaboration software, Enterprise Bank was able to offer better customer service by increasing collaboration and help ensure data security via private, internal-communications platform in over 20 branches across Mindanao.

Today, Enterprise Bank has a flexible and highly secure internal communications platform that enables seamless collaboration capabilities across disparate branches and bank departments.

The collaboration project enhanced communication and collaboration within the company’s network, increased employee productivity and improved customer service enterprise-wide, resulting in a better overall business performance.

“In the past, we lacked the ability to communicate efficiently with our more than 20 branches. We also faced many challenges when it came to data security. Enterprise Bank needed a solution that could provide a private, internal communications platform to increase collaboration and help ensure data security, hence we decided to partner with IBM,” said lawyer Ronald Alvizo, Enterprise Bank president and chief executive officer.

The IBM Lotus collaboration software lets organizations get in touch with people and information in real time conveniently — whether they are using e-mail, instant messaging, social networking, document sharing, Web conference, telephone or video conference.

IBM BladeCentre technology and offerings provide clients with an alternative to their headache of having to handle sprawling racks and overheated rooms.

With their modular design, IBM Blade Centre servers can reduce cost with a more efficient use of valuable floor space, and its simplified management can help speed up such tasks as deploying, re-provisioning, updating, and troubleshooting hundreds of blade servers.

In addition, IBM BladeCentre servers provide improved performance by doubling current rack density and by integrating resources and sharing key components, helping to reduce costs and increasing availability, without sacrificing performance.

“IBM is committed to providing solutions that contribute to our client’s bottom line. We are pleased that the IBM Lotus collaboration software anchored on IBM’s innovative BladeCentre hardware immediately resulted in better business for Enterprise Bank,” said James Velasquez, country general manager of IBM Philippines.

“IBM Lotus software helps organizations around the world work smarter every day. This success story with Enterprise Bank is also indicative that businesses outside capital cities are slowly realizing the great value in information technology adoption as a way to increase competitiveness and as a key enabler for growth,” Velasquez added.

Source:http://www.philstar.com/Article.aspx?articleId=764164&publicationSubCategoryId=71

IBM (NYSE:IBM) today announced that it has completed its acquisition of Cúram Software Ltd. The company expands IBM’s ability to help cities and governments serve citizens better by adopting more intelligent and efficient ways to assess needs, execute social programs, and maximize program results.

Cúram Software is used by health and human services, workforce services, and social security organizations around the world to deliver welfare, social insurance and both individual and employer based social programs. The Cúram Software Platform allows government and providers to focus on lowering overall program costs by ensuring that the benefits and services provided address core issues and that people become more self-sufficient.

Cúram, which means “care and protection” in Irish, was founded in 1990 and is based in Dublin, Ireland. One of the company’s investors was Enterprise Ireland, which helps Irish companies achieve global success.

The acquisition builds on IBM’s Smarter Cities initiatives and broadens IBM Ireland’s role. Last year, IBM opened its first Smarter Cities Technology Center in Dublin. With the addition of the Cúram Research Institute, which is focused on deploying new business models for managing social programs, IBM will enhance its ability to help clients increase the social and economic potential of people and their families.

Through its Smarter Cities initiative, IBM helps cities and governments serve citizens better by adopting more intelligent and efficient ways to analyze data, anticipate problems and coordinate resources. IDC Government Insights estimates the new Smarter Cities information technology opportunity at $34 billion in 2011, increasing more than 18 percent per year to $57 billion by 2014.

With the closing of this acquisition, approximately 700 Cúram Software employees will join IBM’s Software Group, which is a key driver of growth and profitability for the company.

Source:http://www.vadvert.co.uk/business/19789-ibm-completes-acquisition-of-curam-software-2.html