IBM exec: Information on Demand is coming together
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InfoWorld - It's been a bit more than two years since Ambuj Goyal launched IBM's Information on Demand strategy, an effort by the company to bring together a virtual menagerie of data management, access, and analysis software under a single heading.
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InfoWorld - Next week at its annual Lotusphere conference, IBM will extend its collaboration vision with an increased focus on tools.
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IBM has announced a slew of new or upgraded products and services aimed at helping companies better integrate business processes and make their operations more efficient through the use of service-oriented architectures.
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IBM Corp has expanded its on Demand initiative with new products and services aimed at its content management business.  The Armonk, New York-based IT giant debuted its new FileNet P8 4.0, a content management and records management system based on its recent acquisition of FileNet Corp.
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CA continued to move toward a turnaround in its business with an uptick in its fourth-quarter revenue driven by software subscriptions and professional services.ADVERTISEMENTIBM Information On Demand 2006Industrial Industry Leaders, please join us at IBM's premier information management global event, IBM Information On Demand 2006, October 15-20, Anaheim, CA. More IBM business and technical solutions content in one place than ever before! Select from  over 800 sessions. Register today!
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(InfoWorld) - IBM's India Research Laboratory has developed technology for retrieval and integration of information from both structured and unstructured data. The new technology integrates data that is currently stored in separate silos, Mukesh Mohania, lead researcher on the project, said on Wednesday. "We are leveraging the structured data by extracting the information from the unstructured repositories, and then providing rich business intelligence on this consolidated information," Mohania said. A research prototype of the technology has been deployed in the customer support operations of HDFC Bank, a large private bank in Mumbai. The prototype application integrates customer data from a structured database and business intelligence sources, with incoming information on customers from multiple sources, including e-mails and phone calls. The lab decided to use the new technology at HDFC Bank to validate it in a real, operational environment, Mohania said. IBM announced Wednesday it will offer the technology early next year. The middleware software developed on Java technology currently runs on Linux, but can be ported on to any Java compliant operating system, Mohania said. The technology can be used in other areas of an enterprise, besides customer relationship management, where there is both structured and unstructured data to be integrated and analyzed, he said. ByÂ  automaticallyÂ  combiningÂ  structured and unstructured information, HDFC BankÂ canÂ provideÂ callÂ center agents with a more complete history of all customerÂ activityÂ soÂ they are aware of information that has already been shared through previous interactions, IBM said. The technology also enables HDFC Bank to generate newÂ contextual and actionable insights that can be used to automate tasks, enhanceÂ up-sellingÂ andÂ cross-sellingÂ opportunities,Â andÂ improve agent performance, it added. EROCS (Entity Recognition in the Context of Structured data) is a key component of the technology developed by the lab. EROCS addresses the problem of linking a document with related structured data in an external relational database. Partial information provided, for example, in e-mails from customers do not often allow identification of the entity, such as the customer, in the structured data, Mohania said. EROCS views the structured data in the relational database as a set of predefined entities, and identifies the entities from this set that best match the given document, he added. A highlight of EROCS is that it identifies an entity even if it is not explicitly mentioned in the document, according to Mohania. It exploits the context information present in the document to match and identify the entities, Mohania added. Another technology, called SCORE (Symbiotic Content Oriented information Retrieval) addresses the problem of consolidated querying of structured and unstructured data, using a type of contextual search. The application specifies its information needs using a SQL query on the structured data, and this query is automatically "translated" into a set of keywords that can be used to retrieve relevant unstructured data. At the core of this technology lies a technique for obtaining these keywords from not only the query result, but also from additional "neighborhood" related information in the underlying database, Mohania said.
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(InfoWorld) - IBMÂ is looking to add real-time capabilities to its data integration software by buying Canadian firm DataMirrorÂ for about C$170 million (US$162.3 million). The two companies have entered into a definitive agreement for IBM to acquire all outstanding DataMirror common shares for C$27 per share, they announced Monday. IBM's offer represents a premium of 19.4 percent compared with the average trading price of DataMirror's common shares on the Toronto Stock Exchange over the last 20 days. In Monday midmorning trading, DataMirror's shares rose 4.2 percent on the news, up from Friday's close of C$22.50. Subject to shareholder and regulatory approval, the deal is set to close in the third quarter of this year. DataMirror's Transformation Server software identifies and captures data that has been added, updated, or deleted, and it enables the changed information to be delivered in real time to processes, applications, and databases. IBM previously partnered with DataMirror, pointing customers to the vendor whenever they needed heterogenous real-time change data-capture software. However, recently, it became clear that IBM needed to own the technology since more and more of its users required it. "DataMirror's capabilities are very important for our Information on Demand strategy," said Michael Curry, director, product strategy and management, information platform and solutions at IBM. Having the ability to note data changes as they occur and react accordingly is vital for users of dynamic warehouses, master data management, and service-oriented architecture, he added. Information on Demand is designed to give users access to all kinds of data regardless of where it's stored in their enterprises. A key piece of that strategy isÂ Information Server, data integration software IBM released last year, based on technology it acquired through the 2005 $1.1 billion purchase of Ascential. IBM plans to continue offering DataMirror's data integration, auditing, high availability, and data replication software as stand-alone products as well as incorporating them into Information Server, Curry said. "We've already seen very strong traction for Information Server," he added. Acquiring DataMirror is testimony to the fact that the Information Server business is growing so well that IBM continues to invest in the product, Curry said. IBM expects to release a more detailed road map for DataMirror once the acquisition has closed. DataMirror will become part of IBM's Information Management Software unit, which is headed up by Ambuj Goyal. IBM was particularly attracted to DataMirror by its very broad support of different types of data, Curry said. The Canadian vendor provides data integration on Windows, Unix, IBM's System i servers and mainframes and supports databases from IBM, Microsoft, Oracle, and Sybase. DataMirror also has its own Java database called PointBase. There's no real overlap between DataMirror's technologies and what IBM already has, Curry said. IBM already provides some data capture capabilities but they're limited to its DB2 database. IBM intends to continue DataMirror's partnerships with other vendors, notably BEA Systems, Business Objects, Microsoft, and Oracle. Such relationships are vital to ensure that IBM can be effective in offering heterogenous data integration, Curry said. With its headquarters in Markham, Ontario, DataMirror has around 2,200 customers. IBM hopes to retain all of the firm's 220-plus staff, Curry said.
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(InfoWorld) - It may be too early to talk plug-and-play but IBMÂ believes it can help businesses of all sizes easily cluster their servers to handle intensive computing workloads. Leveraging its expertise in high-end computing and vertical industry applications, IBM has launched several initiatives to allow small and medium-size businesses (SMBs) and the departments of large enterprises to integrate their servers -- from as few as two to many thousands -- into computing clusters designed for high-performance computing tasks, the company said Wednesday. Initially targeted at the businesses in the life sciences, computer-aided engineering, and finance sectors, IBM will offer preconfigured "snap-together" cluster systems for customers using the company's computers and storage devices. The systems are designed to run on Linux and Microsoft Windows Compute Cluster Server 2003 operating systems and will include networking technology from companies such as Cisco Systems. The collaboration with Microsoft will allow businesses to use parallel processing on clusters to free up client machines from long-running applications. ISVs (independent software vendors) and business partners will receive tools to help them introduce IBM's cluster systems. These include sizing guides with predefined cluster configurations for simple ordering and installation. IBM business partners have access to the company's Cluster Enablement Team for technical questions and advice. For customers, software vendors and business partners running Microsoft cluster servers, IBM has four new benchmarking facilities in Poughkeepsie, New York, Raleigh, North Carolina, Beaverton, Oregon and Montpelier, France. These centers join a network of global Linux benchmark centers. To attract businesses interested in computing clusters, IBM's Deep Computing Capacity on Demand centers will give them access to more than 20,000 processors to test the technology for themselves. IBM offers a range of products that support computing clusters, including its System x, System p and BladeCenter servers, as well as the IBM System Storage and IBM System Cluster 1350.
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Data broker ChoicePoint Inc. will pay US$500,000 and has agreed to change the way it screens new customers under a multistate settlement for aÂ 2004 data breach.ADVERTISEMENTIBM Information On Demand 2006Industrial Industry Leaders, please join us at IBM's premier information management global event, IBM Information On Demand 2006, October 15-20, Anaheim, CA. More IBM business and technical solutions content in one place than ever before! Select from  over 800 sessions. Register today!
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Big Blue enhances its "on demand" offering for companies through its data centers.
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CHICAGO - (BUSINESS WIRE) â-ept. 14, 2004 â -ay IBM announced a broad suite of services to speed the benefits of radio frequency identification (RFID) systems to industrial companies and mid-market businesses.
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Saying customers have been asking for such a tool, IBM and SAP are building an application that would make it easier for customers to bring their SAP data into their Lotus Notes collaboration systems.
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(InfoWorld) - Microsoft and IBM executives Wednesday admitted feeling heat from Google now that the Web search giant is trying to make inroads into the enterprise market with its hosted suite of communication and collaboration tools. Google Apps, a hosted service, is gaining traction primarily in universities but is a welcome addition to enterprise software because of its simplicity and ease of use, said Rob Curry, director of Microsoft's Office business platform group, during a panel discussion today at the Enterprise 2.0 conference in Boston. "We actually see [Google] as a great competitor in this space," Curry said. "And they bring a good spirit in terms of simplicity, ease of use and things we're trying to leverage as we go forward in our development cycle." Google Apps was described as a "direct shot at Microsoft Office" by Forrester Analyst Erica Driver when Google released an enterprise version of the tool in February. For US$50 per user per year, customers get e-mail, instant messaging, a calendar tool, a Web page creator, support for e-mail on BlackBerry mobile devices and integration with Google Docs & Spreadsheets. Analysts say Google Apps offers less functionality than Office but is less expensive. IBM, which offers the Lotus Notes set of e-mail, calendaring and collaborative applications, and Lotus Sametime, an IM and Web conferencing tool, has partnered with Google but still sees the company as a potential competitor. Lotus Sametime allows IM customers to communicate with users of Google Talk. "We're a key partner of Google's," said Ken Bisconti, vice president of messaging and collaboration software for IBM, during the panel discussion. "We partner with them, and continue to partner with them, hopefully for the good of our customers. I also fully expect them to become a competitor to us in the business space." Google executives are busy trying to understand the requirements of enterprises, a learning process that will be crucial if the search company hopes to gain market traction for Google Apps outside of academia, Bisconti said. "Most of our customers tell us they're talking to the Google enterprise team," he said. "Google is doing a good job of collecting information to understand enterprise requirements. ... I don't see them as a near-term competitor but as a long-term potential substitution." No Google officials participated in the panel. The session, titled "Vendor Spotlight: Assessing IBM & Microsoft Platforms for Collaboration & Unified Communications," also gave the vendors a chance to discuss the broad trend in which employees expect the types of instant communication available to them in their personal lives. This is placing increased important on IM, Web conferencing, video and audio conferencing, and mobile communications. "The role of instant messaging has completely transformed and it has become a business expectation," said Akiba Saeedi, IBM's program director for unified communications and collaboration products. Years ago, people questioned whether e-mail would become a necessary business function. No one would question e-mail's importance today, and IM seems to be heading in a similar direction, Saeedi said. Bisconti cautioned against getting caught up in industry buzzwords such asÂ "enterprise 2.0," but said the desire for collaborative technology in general is real and has created a huge business opportunity for software vendors. "I have never seen so much senior-level interest in companies in improving the way they communicate, collaborate and improve the speed and agility of their business," he said.
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John DeFazio won't miss the 2 a.m. conference calls. Along with colleagues in IBM Corp.'s huge technology services division, DeFazio used to be summoned to the phone whenever a client's computing center hiccuped in the middle of the night.
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InfoWorld - Hoping to speed acceptance of its service-oriented architecture initiative, IBM at last has rolled out a new service to help corporate users shape their projects to better fit their business goals.
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IBM plans to announce today that it is getting into a fast-growing segment of the data storage industry that&#39;s currently dominated by Hewlett-Packard.
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Relational databases have been powerful tools in techish hands for over 30 years, but it's time to lay the technology to rest -- and that's according to one of the men responsible for developing it. And, he says, the change is coming on fast.