IMPACT 2012: IBM BIDS TO RETOOL BUSINESSES WITH NEW SOLUTIONS
By Emeka Aginam, who was in Las Vegas
Last week at the Las Vegas Venetian Hotel and Resort in the US, no fewer than 9,000 technology and business experts worldwide gathered at the 2012 IBM Annual Impact conference that featured especially, latest IBM capabilities and solutions that help drive innovation, transformation and grow businesses.
Innovation on parade
With innovation as the overall theme of the Impact 2012 conference, participants were able to get technical insight and hand on information on IBM innovative solutions announced at the capacity building event including WebSphere, Business Process Management, (BPM), SOA, expert integrated systems, mobile and cloud computing technologies, PureSytems and many more.
John Russell of Cannon Software at the event said that IBM solutions have the technology capacity to retool businesses around the world.
'Iam happy to be here. We have a lot of traffic in our stand here. It is worthwhile participating at Impact 2012 where innovations changed the game,' he said.
Also speaking, CEO of Sproxil, a US firm protecting brands globally, Dr Ashifi Gogo said the IBM impact conference was the good place to be for product showcase and offerings.
With the collaboration of IBM on software to fight counterfeit drugs, he disclosed that , Sproxil also uses IBM's cloud service to provide clients with secure, reliable data access virtually anywhere.
In his assessment of the conference, the Vice President, Client Services of WebLayers while showcasing their solutions at the event told Vanguard Hitech that IBM solution offerings were already changing the game in the IT industry especially in the mobile and cloud based services.
'We are very delighted to be part of this important annual event. It has been exciting. We have been having visitors wanting to know about our products offerings. IBM did a good job by staging this event whose content is relevant in the global IT scheme of things'he added.
Earlier, Senior Vice President of IBM Software Solutions Group, Mike Rhodin told the gathering IBM has state-of-art solutions that can help business around the world to grow for better.
'IBM has come to stay. We have come a long way in delivering business solutions in the 21t century knowledge society. We are here today to listen and engage. Mobile is an enterprise priority and IBM delivers comprehensive end-end mobile solutions to meet the needs of customers and business partners looking to build mobile applications, manage and secure their data, devices and applications while delivering their capabilities.
'What you will be seeing at this event is first hand what IBM offers the mobile enterprise and many other solutions including PureStems, Cloud Computing among others' he told the gathering.'
PureSystems
One important new offering unveiled by IBM at the event was PureSystems, a solution designed to make it easier for business partners and clients to create 'patterns of expertise.
The solution introduced in April, was the result of $2 billion in research, development and acquisitions over four years, and has been designed to help change the economics of IT so that organizations can reduce their IT costs and complexity and put more resources towards innovation and growth.
'With almost two-thirds of global IT budget being spent on just maintaining their current infrastructure, it is imperative that companies find ways to reduce the complexity in their data centers,' Wieck, General Manager, IBM Application and Integration Middleware. Said, adding that , 'The introduction of patterns will revolutionize how applications are being developed and managed, simplifying tasks that organizations once spent months on and allowing them to refocus on innovation.'
Mobile foundation
One of the major announcements at the event was Mobile Foundation, a comprehensive portfolio of software and services designed to help organizations capitalize on the proliferation of mobile environments including laptops, smartphones and tablets.
The IBM Mobile Foundation, according to Marie Wieck, General Manager, IBM Application and Integration Middleware at the opening ceremony was targeting $22 billion market opportunity, expected to grow to $36 billion in 2015.
'Over this time, we have evolved our market-leading portfolio to meet our client's needs to extend their reach through new channels like mobile and cloud computing. Our latest offerings are yet another step in this direction and will provide customers with everything they need to support mobile devices in their business and use them to transform the way they interact with customers, partners and employees.' she added.
Software to fight counterfeit drugs
Another exciting announcement at the impact conference was IBM technology to help the pharmaceutical industry fight drug counterfeiting and allow consumers to verify the authenticity of prescriptions in seconds with their mobile phones.
Sproxil Chief Executive Officer Dr. Ashifi Gogo, told newsmen at one of the panel sessions,that 'Through our work with IBM, we can enable our clients to render charts with high-speed, even in low-bandwidth situations. Through IBM's cloud service, we are also able offer clients secure and reliable application availability no matter where they are located,' he said.