IBM Drives Enterprise Adoption of Big Data, Cloud, Mobile and Social Business Technologies

LAS VEGAS, April 29, 2013 /PRNewswire/ -- As the world experiences sweeping business change powered by big data, cloud, mobile and social business technologies, IBM (NYSE: IBM) today unveiled new business process and integration software and services that will enable global organizations to accelerate adoption. 

According to an IBM study, CEOs for the first time have identified technology as the most important external aspect impacting their organizations today[i]. As the adoption of big data, cloud, mobile and social business technology continue to transform industries, organizations increasingly value how these technologies can improve customer engagement, forge new partnerships and drive competitive advantage. Yet, many organizations are still struggling to reinvent their business operations and keep pace with the explosion of mobile channels and volume of data being generated.

To meet these growing needs, IBM's new business process and integration software and services will enableorganizations to extend and connect their existing infrastructures to a wide variety of mobile devices and machine-to-machine (M2M) technologies. As a result, clients will now be able to simplify day-to-day operations and reach their customers and constituents with insightful information, anywhere and anytime.

At the cornerstone of this strategy is IBM MessageSight, a new appliance designed to help organizations manage and communicate with the billions of mobile devices and sensors found in systems such as automobiles, traffic management systems, smart buildings and household appliances.

New Software and Services Transform Business Operations

On a Smarter Planet, business processes must be instant, seamless and insightful. Whether an insurance agent in the field needs to process a claim or a doctor requires immediate test results to seamlessly route patients through a hospital, these tasks are expected to be simple and immediate. 

To help clients meet these demands, IBM is extending its Business Process Management (BPM) and Operational Decision Management (ODM) solutions to integrate with the IBM MobileFirst portfolio. With access to these IBM MobileFirst capabilities, clients can now infuse their processes and operational decision making into custom mobile apps, accelerating the delivery of mobile BPM applications and tapping into location, camera and notification features. 

For organizations seeking a fast, easy and cost-effective way to manage business operations, IBM is making both IBM BPM and IBM ODM solutions available on the IBM SmartCloud as a Software as a Service (SaaS) offering. These advances in cloud options for business processes complement a new release of IBM Blueworks Live, a fully SaaS-based cloud offering that enables clients to capture, document and understand the decisions that businesses use to run their operations.

With this announcement, IBM is also bringing together its consulting expertise to enable clients to make their business operations more agile and customer-centric. As industries rapidly transform and customer demands increase, businesses are under pressure to aggressively stay in touch with - and even ahead of - their customers' needs. To help business leaders design their operations for change, IBM is announcing new BPM Industry Solutions that combine IBM Global Business Services' deep industry and process expertise with IBM software to enable clients to be proactive and respond rapidly. These solutions will initially target the banking, insurance and financial markets, and healthcare industries.

"The technology shifts created by big data, cloud, mobile and social business are drastically changing the business landscape, driving an intelligent, interconnected and instrumented world that is smarter than ever before," said Marie Wieck, general manager, WebSphere, IBM. "To be competitive on today's Smarter Planet, successful businesses must find ways to extend and connect their existing infrastructures to the billions of mobile devices and M2M technologies that now exist. IBM's new offerings, being rolled out today, will simplify this process drastically."

WestJet Leverages IBM Technologies to Assist in Improving the Travel Experience

WestJet Airlines, Canada's low-cost carrier, is using IBM ODM software to enrich the travel experience for the more than 50,000 customers it serves daily. To better meet the needs of today's always connected traveler, WestJet is using IBM technology to provide customers with more meaningful notifications from the moment they decide to take a trip, to the day they return. Using IBM software, WestJet is integrating its notification capabilities with customer identity to provide customers with critical information at the right time through various channels. For instance, if a traveler's aircraft has changed to an alternate gate, they are now sent a real-time notification containing the new gate information. 

"At WestJet one of our priorities is to create a stress free, enjoyable experience for our guests across the travel continuum," said Bill Souliere, WestJet architect and senior technical advisor. "Clearly the mobility of individuals and the accessibility of information on-demand are very important factors for travelers today. By working with IBM technologies, we have been able to enhance our communications with our guests and gain competitive advantages by integrating intelligent solutions in the travel experience."

New Software Integrates Front and Back Office Systems

IBM is also announcing several updates that enable clients to reinvent their business operations, including: 

• IBM API Management - IBM is unveiling a complete solution to help organizations securely create, manage and socialize APIs in an effort to extend their products and services to various mobile channels. Clients can also access a collaboration portal to view operational metrics and gain business insights into how apps are performing in the market. For instance, a pharmaceutical company can give third party developers access to online healthcare portals to create new and innovative apps with drug pricing, FDA information and provider data so pharmacists can instantly help patients. 
• IBM WebSphere Application Server - Building on 15 years of experience, WebSphere Application Server (WAS) now supports several open standards protocols and integrates with the IBM MobileFirst platform and IBM MessageSight to help organizations quickly build and run new web applications that embrace big data, cloud, mobile and social business technologies. A large retailer can now provide customers with an enhanced shopping experience by quickly deploying a lightweight app, such as a digital storefront, that seamlessly connects and immediately analyzes data captured from social media sites and credit card companies. With real-time insights, retailers can determine the right products to offer customers at the right time. 
• IBM Integration Bus - With access to IBM MobileFirst capabilities, organizations can now extend critical data to mobile devices in real time to improve business operations. Additionally, new traffic shaping capabilities allow organizations to monitor and interpret massive amounts of data flowing into the enterprise from mobile devices. Now, a hospital can notify a doctor's mobile device automatically if a patient's vitals drastically drop, and retail companies can adjust inventory instantly by analyzing data coming in from mobile devices and apps.

Delivering these technologies on an open architecture is imperative to allow clients to quickly and easily bridge the gap between their infrastructure and front office systems, such as mobile devices. Through work with the OpenStack community to make its cloud services and software open source-based, and the recently announced proposal to standardize Message Queuing Telemetry Transport (MQTT), IBM is continuing to drive an open architecture approach to help simplify this process. Further enhancing this effort is IBM's leadership in HTML5 and Apache Cordova.

These new capabilities are on display at this year's IMPACT 2013 conference, which features more than 8,000 attendees and hundreds of client testimonials, presentations, workshops and product demos. For more information on how these technologies underscore how IBM is connecting a Smarter Planet and helping global businesses accelerate the adoption of big data, cloud, mobile and social business, please visit: www.ibm.com/systems-of-interaction/

For more information on IMPACT 2013, join the conversation on Facebook and tune in to the live stream here: www.ibm.com/impact/.

Join the conversation on Facebook and Twitter by following @IBMImpact and #IBMImpact. For more details, visit the IMPACT 2013 Tumblr page.

Media Contacts

Faye Abloeser
Phone: 908.770.0762
E-mail: [email protected]

Tara Tsapepas
Phone: 914.204.9758
E-mail: [email protected]

Liz Campbell
Phone: 781.820.9840
E-mail: [email protected] 

[i] *Source: Capitalizing on Complexity: Insights from the Global Chief Executive Officer Study

SOURCE IBM

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