Oberbank Bank Chooses IBM and I-Flex to Launch New Branches in Hungary
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IBM (NYSE: IBM) and i-flex(R) solutions today announced that Oberbank, an Austrian bank focused on international expansion and a member of the "3 Banken Gruppe" (3 banks group), has selected IBM's System p running i-flex's flagship product, FLEXCUBE, for its core banking operations in Hungary.
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In a move to modernize its venerable line of mainframe-based CICS middleware, IBM on Wednesday introduced an updated version of its CICS Transaction Server that enables corporate IT administrators to extend the product to work better with SOAs (service-oriented architectures) through Web services.
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(InfoWorld) - IBM is taking the first step toward a major overhaul of how it packages and sells global services. The vendor is due to begin rolling out the first two of what it terms "service products" worldwide on Tuesday. The standardized offerings are designed to be used by any IBM customer anywhere, a very different approach from the company's previous focus on providing customized, one-off services to individual users. "This will enable us to access the market in a new way," Laurence Guihard-Joly, vice president of IBM's newly formed Integrated Communications Services (ICS) unit, said. "Our strategy is to get to the next level in services, to be brand-driven in the way our systems technology and software already are." The first two services are Network Convergence Services Product and Internet Protocol (IP) Telephony Services Product. The network convergence bundle of services is aimed at customers keen to determine their readiness for adopting communications networks that combine support for data, voice, and video. The IP telephony offering is for users looking to work with IBM and its partners, including Cisco Systems, on designing, deploying, and managing IP telephony infrastructure. As part of the restructuring, IBM has taken what was the networking services piece of IBM Global Services (IGS) and turned it into a new business unit, ICS. Although IBM's services business is a huge operation, its growth rate has appeared somewhat stagnant over recent quarters. In the company's most recent financial results, IBM reported IGS revenue fell 0.9 percent to $11.9 billion compared with the year-ago quarter. IGS competes against Accenture, Capgemini, and Electronic Data SystemsÂ (EDS). "IBM is trying to invigorate its services business and propel it into growth faster than it has been," Bob Djurdjevic, president of Annex Research, said. He expects IBM's rivals will also adopt the service product approach in areas where they have specific expertise to draw upon. IBM begun the work on the new services strategy a year ago engaging in a "deep re-analysis of the market" including talking to its customers at all levels, Guihard-Joly said. By year end, IBM plans to release around 30 service products. They will be a mix of brand-new offerings and existing assets that have been "reassembled, updated, hardened and tested," Guihard-Joly said. The products will include network management services around the Netcool software IBM acquired when it bought Micromuse and radio frequency identification (RFID) services. Even with highly complex projects, Guihard-Joly believes about 80 percent of a customer's services needs could be met by IBM's new building block approach. The new ICS business unit has four main focuses for its services -- converged communications; networking strategy and optimization; mobility, wireless and RFID; and network integration and management services. IBM may create other business units within its evolving services operations. "The key challenge is going to be training their own staff to think in a new way," Djurdjevic said. Having a specific unit focused on a specific market might help employees move more quickly to the different way of doing business.
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IBM is expanding its resources to help application software companies generate leads and close sales.
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IBM launched its European Venture Capital Center in Dublin, the first such center outside of the company's corporate offices in Menlo Park, California.
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International Business Machines  Corp. IBM.N late on Wednesday rolled out a new version of its  database software aimed at users of Linux and Unix operating  systems that it hopes will help the company take away market  share from market leader Oracle Corp. ORCL.O.
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IBM Lotus expanded its lineup of Workplace client-computing software Tuesday, debuting an Express version of the product for small and midsize businesses.
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International Business Machines Corp IBM.N on Sunday announced a new computer server using its Power5 microprocessor tuned for the popular Linux operating system, as the No.
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(InfoWorld) - IBMÂ is making another move to strengthen ties with global IT startups and their venture capital backers, providing special access to the technical experts and products housed in IBM Innovation Centers. The vendor is due to make the announcement Thursday at its Venture Capital Symposium at IBM's T.J. Watson Research Center in Yorktown Heights, New York. The symposium brings together venture capitalists (VCs), the startups they fund, and IBM staff. IBM runs 32 Innovation Centers worldwide, offering training, testing and support facilities for the company's partners and customers in relation to IBM hardware, software and services. The vendor has eight centers in the Americas, 18 in Europe and the Middle East, and six in Asia-Pacific, with the most recent opened in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. IBM plans to open its thirty-third Innovation Center in Dublin, Ireland, next week, according to Drew Clark, director of strategy for IBM's Venture Capital Group. The company will also open its European Venture Capital Center at the same time on the same site as the Dublin Innovation Center, he said. VC-backed startups gave IBM feedback that they wanted more access to the company's technologies, Clark said. The idea is to give the startups free access on the product side to emerging technologies such as IBM's blade servers and its Cell processor and to offer the companies ways to develop and test their software against IT set-ups that may not exist within their own regions. All the centers are linked via grid software so that once a developer's software has been uploaded to the IBM system in one location, it's easy to distribute to other centers. IBM can give startups free advice on how best to approach markets outside their home countries, for instance, how a company in China can sell its offerings in the U.S., Clark said. Startups also can talk to IBM's technical architects either face-to-face in the centers or remotely from their phones or computers to take advantage of their specific areas of expertise. What IBM gets out of theÂ tighter relationship with VC-backed startupsÂ is access to developing companies. "It's the sweet spot for IBM," Clark said. "It's early enough that we can have some influence over companies." IBM can encourage the startups to join its partner programs and to use more of its hardware, software and services. Another interesting benefit to IBM is seeing how different geographies adopt newer technologies. For instance, in China, the platform of choice to use Web 2.0 software like social networking, blogs and wikis is a mobile handset, not a PC running a Web browser as is the case in the U.S. "We can spot trends and understand very early on what the software's doing," Clark said. The early insight helps IBM get a better handle on which technologies it needs to make available to users in the future. "It's a very nice virtuous cycle," he added.ADVERTISEMENTMAKE SOA REAL WITH IBM WEBSPHERE PODCASTStreamline processes and maximize efficiency within a proven service oriented architecture. Take back control of your business processes with IBM WebSphere.
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IBM is adding to its blade server line with an upcoming model targeted at small-to-medium-sized businesses.
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Apple Inc  is to open new retail  stores in Germany, Switzerland and Ireland following its  successful European launches in Britain and Italy, a spokesman  said on Monday.
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The firm is bringing its style of banking to new high-growth markets.
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IBM on Friday announced it has signed up 115 companies since early September to develop for its eServer BladeCenter open specification it co-authored with Intel.
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IBM Corp. on Tuesday will announce an expansion of its services for companies seeking help with radio frequency identification (RFID) technology.
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IBM, HP, Sun and Manhattan Associates head the list of vendors launching new products and services at this week's EPCglobal U.S. Conference 2004 in Baltimore.
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European banking giant Lloyds TSB has tapped IBM to assemble a voice and high-speed Internet network connecting branch branches, call centers and cash machines, the two companies said Monday.
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IBM Corp. Monday introduced new services, dubbed Open Client, designed to make it easier for customers to run its Lotus collaboration software on a mixture of Windows and Linux desktop operating systems.