IBM Introduces Customizable Cloud Business Solutions

ARMONK, N.Y., May 29, 2014 /PRNewswire/ -- As part of an ongoing commitment to cloud computing, IBM (NYSE: IBM) today announced plans to deliver 20 new cloud-based business solutions that can be easily personalized to support a client's unique business requirements. The offerings combine the scale, speed and ease of cloud with the industry insight of IBM consulting services to address specific industry verticals and business functions such as mobile, asset management and analytics.

Today's announcement builds on IBM's significant investments in cloud computing. Called IBM Cloud Business Solutions, the portfolio includes multiple components packaged into a single client agreement and delivered "as a service" for speed and simplicity. This includes consulting services, pre-built assets from IBM Research, software, advanced analytics, ongoing support and cloud infrastructure delivered via Softlayer, an IBM company. Pricing is based on a subscription model. Clients pay a set-up fee up front, and then ongoing subscription or usage-based fees. 

This approach recognizes the mandate for speed and time to value, along with the requirement of clients to personalize business solutions to their own processes and deploy them via the cloud. For example, a healthcare provider could start by moving their existing solutions to the cloud and then add pre-built IBM assets to counter medical fraud or address a range of additional business priorities. The solution would then be customized with consulting services and support aimed at transforming their business, thus establishing a competitive advantage.

"Our clients view cloud as the catalyst for entirely new business models, not just technology innovation. The decision to use cloud to support business priorities is being strongly influenced -- if not entirely determined -- by leaders across the C-Suite," said Kelly Chambliss, Chief Technology Officer, IBM Global Business Services. "IBM Cloud Business Solutions represent the next evolution in high-value business services, in line with the expectations and priorities of our clients. We're providing access to the best IBM has to offer -- from cloud to data analytics – as a simple, accessible and customizable service."

TP Vision, which manufactures the Philips TV brand, uses IBM's Customer Data Cloud Business Solution to deliver a personalized consumer experience and manage its smart TV service, capturing and analyzing data in order to fuel the development of new services. Smart TVs have changed the business landscape for both the manufacturer and service provider by offering direct interaction with consumers. TP Vision uses a cloud-based environment to manage and collect data from these interactions. By being able to quickly analyze it, the company can constantly update the personalized user home screen for the customer, personalizing every interaction.

"IBM's Cloud Business Solutions allow us to place the service and application intelligence into the cloud and reduces the complexity of managing software in the TVs for our consumers," said Albert Mombarg, Director Smart TV, TP Vision. "This provides an economic, more flexible way to create new services for our viewers, driving ongoing business innovation. The user experience is constantly fine tuned and upgraded in the cloud, eliminating the need to continually update the actual TV set to accommodate new applications and services. This helps reduce costs for both the consumer and the manufacturer."

IBM will initially offer 12 solutions, with plans to bring at least 20 industry-focused solutions to market this year. Many of the solutions come with deep analytics prowess from industry-tested assets developed by IBM Research. Each solution includes multiple, industry-specific versions to adapt with ease to variances across industries, while leveraging common cross-industry patterns. The first Cloud Business Solutions include:

• Care Coordination – With a goal of improving patient outcomes while reducing healthcare costs, this solution enables different stakeholders in a healthcare ecosystem to collaborate across the continuum of care. It integrates the capabilities of care coordination, management, analytics and patient engagement.
• Customer Data – To help clients gain insights and apply them rapidly to business processes, this solution brings together disparate, internal and external data sources to improve marketing operations and planning performance across all channels. By leveraging analytics, clients maximize marketing return on investment.
• Mobile – Mobile initiatives increasingly span enterprises and spur business transformation. This suite of solutions for industries such as banking, retail, healthcare, insurance and travel and transportation provides clients the assets and agility needed to re-imagine and define mobile engagement models with employees, customers and partners. It includes mobile accelerators, mobile designs and development models that support an agile, iterative development process.
• Predictive Maintenance – A lack of visibility into equipment health and inability to accurately forecast downtime results in expensive, unscheduled maintenance. The Predictive Maintenance solution enables a proactive analysis process using equipment and application data to plan, monitor, manage and mitigate equipment failures.   
• Smarter Asset Management - Asset management is critical to business operations, but not an area in which business leaders want to invest significant capital. Smarter Asset Management provides clients with minimal resources and low capital investment, optimized for maximum performance.

For a complete list of currently available Cloud Business Solutions, visit http://www.ibm.com/services/us/business-consulting/cloud-business-solutions.

These offerings are now available on the IBM Cloud Marketplace, which serves as the digital front door to cloud innovation, bringing together IBM's capabilities-as-a-service and those of partners and third party vendors with the security and resiliency enterprises expect.

IBM Cloud Business solutions are founded on proven assets and repeatable patterns. They include ongoing support and enhancements provided via a managed service in a private or hybrid cloud environment. The subscription-based pricing model includes start-up and ongoing fees that are often based on usage or outcomes based on client requirements. Clients have the option to leverage previously purchased software and to transition the solution 'in house' in the future.

About IBM Cloud Computing
IBM has helped more than 30,000 clients around the world with 40,000 industry experts. Since its acquisition in 2013, IBM SoftLayer has served 4,500 new cloud clients. Today, IBM has 100+ cloud SaaS solutions, thousands of experts with deep industry knowledge helping clients transform and a network of 40 data centers worldwide. Since 2007, IBM has invested more than $7 billion in 17 acquisitions to accelerate its cloud initiatives and build a high value cloud portfolio. IBM holds 1,560 cloud patents focused on driving innovation. In fact, IBM for the 21st consecutive year topped the annual list of US patent leaders. IBM processes more than 5.5M client transactions daily through IBM's public cloud.

For more information about cloud offerings from IBM, visit http://www.ibm.com/cloud.  Follow us on Twitter at @IBMcloud and on our blog at http://www.thoughtsoncloud.com. Join the conversation #ibmcloud

For more information on IBM Global Business Services, please visit http://www.ibm.com/services/us/gbs/consulting/      

Contact Information
Suzanne Aronowitz
IBM
617.693.1811
[email protected]

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SOURCE IBM