IBM launches into the Cloud

October 7, 2008: IBM is acknowledging the appeal of cloud computing with a new commitment to extend its traditional software delivery model.

"We are moving our clients, the industry and even IBM itself to have a mixture of data and applications that live in the data centre and in the cloud," said Willy Chiu, vice president, high performance on demand solutions, IBM.

"IBM's cloud computing strategy was inspired by feedback from the business world's broadest IT customer base indicating a growing desire to utilize data, applications and services from any device and from any location based on open standards."

IBM has a four-pronged strategy to capture the cloud computing opportunity by: 1) delivering its own cloud services portfolio; 2) helping ISVs design, build, deliver and market cloud services; 3) helping clients integrate cloud services into their business; and 4) providing cloud computing environments to businesses.

IBM's clients and partners will have access to a growing number of cloud services specialists through its worldwide network of 13 Cloud Computing Centers and 40 IBM Innovation Centers to help test applications via cloud computing models.

IBM's cloud-building services include: server, storage and network virtualization, service management solutions to automate workload management, usage tracking and billing and a portfolio of security and resiliency offerings to enable end-user confidence.

IBM is launching a free open beta for "Bluehouse," a Web-delivered social networking and collaboration cloud service designed to connect people from different businesses. "Bluehouse" combines social networking and online collaboration tools to help businesses of all sizes to securely work together through firewalls and beyond organizational boundaries.

This suite of hosted online technologies allows individuals to share documents, contacts, engage in joint project activities, host online meetings and build social networking communities via the cloud through a Web browser.

A beta of the Software as a Service (SaaS) platform is available at http://bluehouse.lotus.com

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