IBM Named a Worldwide Business Consulting Services Leader in IDC MarketScape's 2012 Vendor Analysis

IBM (NYSE: IBM) has announced that it has been named a leader in the IDC MarketScape Worldwide Business Consulting Services 2012 Vendor Analysis report. IBM was also the only vendor named as a leader in both the Data Center Transformation and Enterprise Architecture consulting assessments.

According to the report, IBM is seen as the most capable of all firms at applying proven methodologies/tools and at delivering innovation in the project. IBM is also seen as the most capable of all firms at integrating its project team with the client's and at helping clients drive innovation. "Our assessment indicated that IBM is seen as among the most capable at providing a full spectrum of business consulting services, and among the most innovative at helping clients create a more effective business and implementing options for growth," said Cushing Anderson, author of the IDC MarketScape Worldwide Business Consulting Services report (IDC MarketScape: Worldwide Business Consulting Services 2012 Vendor Analysis, Cushing Anderson, Doc# 233425, March 2012).

IBM's business consulting services are delivered through global practices in every major industry, as well as its industry leading Business Analytics and Optimization practice, and service lines dedicated to Strategy and Transformation consulting, Enterprise Resource Management and its Application Innovation Services practice, which includes web and interactive expertise. IBM's prowess in Data Center Transformation and Enterprise Architecture Consulting were also highlighted in IDC MarketScape assessments which named IBM a leader in both categories.

According to the Data Center Transformation assessment (IDC MarketScape: Worldwide Datacenter Transformation Consulting 2012 Vendor Analysis; Ali Zaidi and Gard Little, Doc #233919,): "IBM is seen as strong in providing functional technical and industry insights, and complements its Data Center Transformation consulting services with a strong suite of infrastructure consulting offerings, and is also seen as strong at delivering innovation to clients."

IBM provides Data Center Transformation consulting services across 18 vertical industries using a global delivery model. The IDC Enterprise Architecture MarketScape report (IDC MarketScape: Worldwide Enterprise Architecture Consulting 2012 Vendor Analysis, Ali Zaidi, Gard Little, Doc # 233918) highlights IBM's consulting capabilities in the areas of business, application, information and infrastructure architecture. The report specifically calls out IBM's innovation, breadth of skills, and methods and tools as strengths in these areas.

IBM's Enterprise Architecture consulting services are handled primarily by the Technology Strategy, Business Analytics and Optimization, and Application Innovation Services groups within IBM Global Business Services. "These evaluations reflect the value IBM provides clients at the intersection of business strategy and IT consulting," said Marc Chapman, IBM Global Business Services Managing Partner, Strategy & Transformation. "Especially as we watch trends like big data and social media transform the nature of every CXO profession, this ability to understand what the most advanced technologies are making possible has never been more important to our clients."

The comprehensive MarketScape Reports, which IDC has published for four years, provide an overview of the competitive fitness of Information and Communications Technology suppliers in a given market. The IDC Worldwide Business Consulting Services 2012 MarketScape report, which analyzed 10 vendors, is based on IDC analysis of IBM input and feedback from more than 300 joint IBM and IDC clients. The Data Center Transformation and Enterprise Architecture Consulting Assessments were based on evaluations of the 10 largest global IT consulting firms and eight largest enterprise architecture consulting vendors respectively. IDC analysts base individual vendor scores, and ultimately vendor positions in the IDC MarketScape reports, on detailed surveys and interviews with the vendors, publicly available information, and end-user experiences in an effort to provide an accurate and consistent assessment of each vendor's characteristics, behavior and capability.

For more information on the IDC MarketScape Worldwide Business Consulting Services 2012 Vendor Analysis of IBM, please visit: http://idcdocserv.com/233425e_IBM

About IDC MarketScape

The IDC MarketScape vendor analysis model is designed to provide an overview of the competitive fitness of ICT (information and communications technology) suppliers in a given market. The research methodology utilizes a rigorous scoring methodology based on both qualitative and quantitative criteria that results in a single graphical illustration of each vendor's portion within a given market. IDC MarketScape provides a clear framework in which the product and service offerings, capabilities and strategies, and current and future market success factors of IT and telecommunications vendors can be meaningfully compared. The framework also provides technology buyers with a 360-degree assessment of the strengths and weaknesses of current and prospective vendors.

About IBM

For more information on IBM Global Business Services, visit www.ibm.com/gbs

IBM Expands Social Business Initiative To Help Organizations Develop Skills and Seize New Market Opportunity

IBM is introducing new programs, services and partnerships to help organizations develop and deepen skills to accelerate business opportunities being driven by the rapid adoption of social networking in the enterprise. According to Forrester Research, the market opportunity for social enterprise apps is expected to grow at a rate of 61 percent through 2016, reaching $6.4 billion, compared with $600 million last year.*

With today's news, IBM is investing in its clients and business partners to develop the skills, technical support and industry resources that will allow them to effectively adopt social networking capabilities to transform their business operations.

This includes introducing new technical workshops designed to improve skills and consulting offerings to help develop a business culture that fosters open collaboration and sharing among employees, clients, and business partners. Through the use of interactive online courses, live support and one-on-one guidance with IBM Social Business experts, IBM is working with organizations across the globe to educate them on the benefits of applying social networking technology to their organizations, while at the same time helping to assess the barriers of social business for faster adoption.

As the industry leader in social business, among the first to embrace social internally and to develop social computing policy and guidelines, IBM is poised to help organizations exploit the transformation into a social business, helping them to build stronger relationships among their employees, customers and business partners and make better decisions, faster. A successful social business must combine the use of social technologies with a business culture that promotes transparency, trust and information sharing among the workforce. Quite often, organizations need guidance around developing social policy, governance, the skills needed for compliance and connecting social technologies to business processes.

Through the new social business initiatives, IBM is delivering the right set of skills, technical support, development resources, and industry expertise that will allow clients and business partners to expand their social business capabilities effectively and accelerate adoption. This includes:

Strategic consulting from IBM Global Business Services to help organizations better understand their current adoption of social business tools for both internal and external purposes and helps to articulate how social business accelerates and alleviates business challenges.

Global educational and mentorship programs for clients and business partners on how to become effective community managers, the fastest growing job in social, while increasing employee engagement over top, line-of-business communities on the social software platform.

Technical certification programs that help customers and business partners validate and demonstrate their skills through assessment exams and training resources so that they can plan for and perform the installation, configuration and day-to-day tasks associated with ensuring the smooth and efficient operation of social software solutions.

Social Business Agenda workshops on IBM PartnerWorld providing immediate access to discussions forums focused on the benefits of becoming a social business, providing clients and business partners with case study examples of successful social businesses, and helping them to develop an agenda for driving social adoption.

IBM is also announcing a partnership with The Dachis Group, the world's leader in powering the design, development, management, and measurement of Social Business performance, to help organizations quickly drive adoption success through a social business adoption quickstart workshop. The workshop combines IBM services for the implementation of Social Business solutions for enterprises with additional services from The Dachis Group and focuses on the use of social business technology while fostering cultural skills and engagement.

IBM is also collaborating with Group Business System, an IBM Business Partner, to help IBM clients convert IBM Lotus Notes applications into applications accessible on the Web or via mobile devices. The new IBM services offering using Group Business System's Transformer product will help clients retain the value of their significant investments made over the years in the Lotus Notes and Domino platform while enabling them to take full advantage of the latest web technology to support their business.

According to a 2011 AIIM survey, over 50 percent of user organisations now consider becoming a Social Business to be imperative or significant to their business goals. However, many organizations use social technologies only to find them fall flat. This is often the case because of a failure to align their Social Business strategy to their unique, organizational culture. According to the 2011 State of Community Management Report from The Community Roundtable, culture is the hardest thing to change in an organization. According to a survey from the report, 28 percent of respondents said that their organizational culture was either resistant to sharing, controlling, or paranoid.

"The opportunity to transform into a social business can be stunted without a focus on engagement, culture change, and policy," said Alistair Rennie, General Manager, Social Business, IBM. "Social technologies, when combined with the right skills and culture, can truly unlock the potential of people within the organization to collaborate, innovate, make smarter business decisions and ultimately drive their bottom line."

For more information about IBM's social business initiative, please visit http://www.ibm.com/press/socialbusiness.

Top Five Companies in the IT Consulting & Other Services Industry with the Highest Free Cash Flow per Share (IBM, CACI, ACN, UIS, MANT)

Below are the top five companies in the IT Consulting & Other Services industry as ranked by free cash flow (FCF) per share. FCF/share is a valuable metric signaling a company's ability to facilitate growth in the business.

International Business Machines (NYSE:IBM - Analyst Report) ranks first with free cash flow per share of 12.11x; CACI International (NASDAQ:CACI - Analyst Report) ranks second with free cash flow per share of 6.99x; and Accenture (NYSE:ACN - Snapshot Report) ranks third with free cash flow per share of 4.48x.

Unisys (NYSE:UIS - Analyst Report) follows with free cash flow per share of 4.45x and Mantech International (NASDAQ:MANT - Snapshot Report) rounds out the top five with free cash flow per share of 4.45x.

SmarTrend currently has shares of Unisys in an Downtrend and issued the Downtrend alert on March 02, 2011 at $35.12. The stock has fallen 55.9% since the Downtrend alert was issued.

SmarTrend analyzes over 5,000 securities simultaneously throughout the trading day and provides its subscribers with trend change alerts in real time. To get a free trial of our trading calls and maximize your trading results, please visit http://www.mysmartrend.com.

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Zobrist Consulting Wins 2011 IBM IMPACT Best of Show Award for Smart Merchandiser

IBM named Zobrist Consulting, Inc., a firm dedicated to developing online business solutions, the winner of the IBM IMPACT Conference Best of Show Award at the conference kick-off this Monday.

During the Business Partner Summit, IBM announced the winners of the annual Impact Business Partner Awards, rewarding excellence in delivering impressive business value solutions based on IBM WebSphere software. The Best of Show Award recognizes the best demonstration of a solution that illustrates the unique power of using IBM Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) and WebSphere components.

“We are honored to receive the IBM IMPACT Best of Show Award.” says Teresa Zobrist, President of Zobrist Consulting. “Receiving the Best of Show Award validates the hard work our team has put into creating a cost-effective but powerful tool that helps our clients effectively and profitably manage their online stores.”

Smart Merchandiser is the first single tool to combine the intelligence of web analytics with the ease of a graphic, intuitive inventory management system. With its WYSIWIG (What you See Is What You Get) interface, Smart Merchandiser allows non-technical users to see product analytics, ratings, conversion rates and stock status just by clicking on product images. Featuring drag-and-drop inventory arrangement, merchandisers can make fast, informed decisions based on real-time analytics and available colors and styles.

For more information about the IBM IMPACT software conference, please visit http://www-01.ibm.com/software/websphere/events/impact/

About Zobrist Consulting Group

Zobrist is a Premier IBM Business Partner focusing on Online Retailing since 2001. Zobrist wins awards year after year for their industry-leading solutions for clients like The North Face, Lee Jeans and Wrangler.

IBM Introduces Consulting Services Practice for Business Process Management

IBM has announced a new global consulting and services practice to help companies improve the performance of core business processes such as marketing, human resources and finance, as well as industry-specific processes such as insurance claims, campaign management and compliance.

Drawing on the expertise of thousands of IBM consultants from around the world, the new practice will provide solutions at all phases of process transformation, from enterprise strategy and governance to specific process solutions. IBM business process management (BPM) and service-oriented architecture experts will provide these services from a variety of locations in the U.S. and around the world.

According to Gartner, Inc.’s recent Magic Quadrant report for Business Process Management Suites, “Gartner estimates that the size of the BPMS software market in 2009 totaled $1.9 billion in revenue, compared with $1.6 billion in 2008 – an increase of 15%.” In that report, IBM’s WebSphere Lombardi Edition is positioned in the Leaders Quadrant.1 IBM’s BPM product portfolio, which is growing at a double-digit pace, includes offerings from IBM WebSphere software and technologies from IBM’s acquisitions of Lombardi and ILOG, as well as new offerings such as IBM Case Manager.

The practice IBM is introducing today is designed to help line-of-business executives rapidly deploy technology solutions to improve business processes and to create systems for enterprise governance and centers of excellence for BPM.
To gain a competitive edge, businesses need to make their core business processes flexible enough to support business growth while improving cost structures and productivity. This is driving growth in the market for BPM software and services, as demonstrated by IBM’s double-digit BPM software sales growth and the growth in consulting engagements across several major industries.

BPM enables line of business executives to control specific processes and associated tasks, giving them true ownership of the assets that are the life blood of their businesses. These technologies are simple for executives to use and understand and can drive increased return on investment. BPM technologies also empower leaders to identify opportunities for broader improvements such as application modernization and complex system integration, providing concrete business justification for the investment.

Among the clients IBM has worked with in BPM is Lincoln Trust Company, one of the leading independent U.S. providers of self-directed IRA accounts, as well as recordkeeping, administrative and custodial services to 401(k) plans and other defined contribution plans.

“Our business process management initiatives helped us survive and even thrive through the global financial crisis,” said Helen Z. Cousins, executive vice president and chief information officer, Lincoln Trust Company. “This practice is much needed to accelerate business improvements and give control to people in each department that really run the business every day.”

Among the services, the new practice offers are:

· Analyzing core processes, identifying gaps and creating a roadmap for process transformation.
· Developing a framework for enterprise-wide business process governance.
· Creating models for new, improved, and/or optimized business processes.
· Using BPM to better orchestrate work and integrate disparate systems within and across the enterprise.
· Implementing BPM-enabled solutions.

Regulatory compliance will be one of the areas the new BPM services practice will focus on. For example, in the U.S., IBM is helping health care payers prepare to comply with regulations that require the use of new diagnostic and procedure codes by October 1, 2013. Using IBM Transformation Accelerator and Manager for ICD-10 technology based on IBM’s BPM software, IBM consultants are helping clients comply with this mandate, known as International Classification of Diseases version 10 (ICD-10). The mandate requires payers to migrate from a system involving the use of 30,000 procedure and diagnosis codes to a new code set of more than 142,000.

In retail, key BPM drivers include the need for efficiency and customer satisfaction. For example, for a global retailer whose custom-built systems were no longer able to support the company’s growth, IBM consultants are building a solution that combines proven BPM methods with IBM software. The retailer will use a single dashboard to view information on all the products moving through its supply chain that will have automated rules for handling late shipments or other exceptions, as well as the flexibility the company needs to change business rules over time without custom coding.

“Business processes are the mechanism that allow companies to execute on their strategies,” said Michael Natoli, partner and BPM executive, IBM Global Business Services. “The mission of IBM’s BPM practice is to help clients rapidly transform business processes to better support their overall enterprise strategy.”
The new practice will be part of the GBS Application Innovation Services line and complements GBS’ broader portfolio. Find more information about GBS here: http://www.ibm.com/services/us/gbs/consulting/

About Gartner’s Magic Quadrant

The Magic Quadrant is copyrighted 2010 by Gartner, Inc. and is reused with permission. The Magic Quadrant is a graphical representation of a marketplace at and for a specific time period. It depicts Gartner’s analysis of how certain vendors measure against criteria for that marketplace, as defined by Gartner. Gartner does not endorse any vendor, product or service depicted in the Magic Quadrant, and does not advise technology users to select only those vendors placed in the “Leaders” quadrant. The Magic Quadrant is intended solely as a research tool, and is not meant to be a specific guide to action. Gartner disclaims all warranties, express or implied, with respect to this research, including any warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose.

IBM Launches Consulting Services and Software to Help Businesses Adapt to Rising Customer Demands

IBM (NYSE:IBM) announced a new initiative with the creation of a Smarter Commerce consulting practice, sales and marketing resources, and new software dedicated to helping companies swiftly adapt to rising customer demands in the era of mobile and social networks.

The Smarter Commerce consulting organisation will help businesses reinvent their customer relationships and transform all the core business processes required to address a digitally transformed marketplace.

It will deliver new services and software that will automate marketing, selling and fulfilment, allowing clients to quickly respond to key market shifts through sophisticated analytics that predict buying trends and automatically adjust marketing, sales and supply chains on the fly.

Led by the expertise of 1 200 IBM consultants, the new practice will pursue a $70 billion market. The practice naturally extends IBM's existing experience and capabilities in business analytics, industry depth, supply chain, commerce, enterprise marketing management and business-to-business integration services, as well as the leading WebSphere Commerce platform and a $2.5 billion investment in on-premise and cloud-based software from IBM's acquisitions of Sterling Commerce, Unica and Coremetrics.

IBM will also deliver the skills training necessary to equip businesses with a new range of capabilities through a Smarter Commerce University.

The practice will capitalise on billions of dollars of investment in foundational software assets and capabilities across the business value chain, and integrate Smarter Commerce services and solutions across every important stage of the process of commerce from procurement, development, distribution, sales, marketing, through customer engagement and service.

Just as the Internet changed the economics of global business models, a new shift is occurring as the social networking and mobile phenomena are putting more power into the hands of consumers. Today, 70% of a consumers' first interaction with a product or service takes place online, 64% of consumers make a first purchase because of a digital experience, and of the 2 billion people connected to the Internet, more than 600 million are on Facebook.

These disruptive forces are empowering consumers and raising their expectations of the entire customer experience. This power shift from the seller to the buyer is redefining the term "commerce". Retailers were the first to face the rising power of consumers but now companies in a wide array of industries such as manufacturing, telecommunications, financial services and others have begun adapting to these changes.

IBM is working with companies across many industries, including retail, telecommunications and healthcare, including Danone, Kimberly-Clark, Mckesson Medical, Mousejaw Mountaineering, Staples, US Lumber, XO Communications and 1-800-FLOWERS (customer approvals TBD) to ensure they are marketing to the right audience at the right time; engaging buyers seamlessly in all the right channels and mediums; maintaining inventory levels that meet, but do not exceed, demand; and automate their interconnected supply chains for maximum efficiency.

Through the new Smarter Commerce initiative, IBM is taking a leadership role in helping organisations deal with the collision of market forces that reflects their new reality through new software and services that will allow clients to respond to key market shifts in real-time, automate marketing, selling and fulfilment, while creating a global brand experience.

The new services and software includes:

• A Global Business Services consulting practice, with more than 1 200 experts offering deep insights into Smarter Commerce.
• New cloud analytics, including IBM Coremetrics software, to evaluate a company's brand reputation on Facebook and Twitter.
• IBM will also deliver customised software, automating a company's Web presence consistently across all sales and marketing channels.
• An "IBM University" will provide educational resources for sellers and partners to build the job skills required of the Smarter Commerce marketplace.
• IBM will align hundreds of sales professionals to Smarter Commerce, to go after this emerging market.
• IBM will launch an aggressive marketing campaign, as well as launch a global city road tour across the US and Tokyo.

With 110 million tweets per day, mobile purchases tripling annually to $119 billion this year and 64% of consumer purchases starting with information technology, the Web has shifted control from the seller to the buyer in most commercial transactions.
Billions of empowered consumers expect to buy and interact with businesses in entirely new ways using online, mobile, social and a range of technology tools that have changed the equation. The sellers, or businesses, are largely unprepared for these changes. As a result, there are massive inefficiencies in the complex network of transactions that make up global commerce and its supply chain, at a time when economic and competitive pressures reduce enterprise margins for error to zero.

A recent IBM Institute for Business Value survey of more than 500 economists worldwide estimated that much of the $15 trillion in system inefficiencies on the planet comes from waste in commerce systems, such as inventory backlogs, failed product launches, wasted materials and ineffective marketing campaigns.

“Faced with customers that are more connected - but not necessarily more connected to the people making and selling products and services - businesses require a new set of capabilities that start with the ability to hear the global conversations taking place about their products and brands," said Paul Papas, global Smarter Commerce practice leader in IBM Global Business Services. "This new level of insight has to be followed by an entirely different kind of engagement with these customers, including a tighter and highly responsive network of suppliers and partners."

“It's a buyer's world now,” said an IBM spokesperson. "Faced with more connected and empowered customers, businesses require a tighter and highly responsive network of suppliers and partners to ensure they deliver the right product or service at the right price, time and place,” said Craig Hayman, general manager, Industry Solutions, IBM Software. The key to business success in this unfolding environment is predicting trends and automating market responses in advance to eliminate the gaps between buy and sell, supply and demand.”

Global food products manufacturer Danone, makers of Dannon Yogurt and Evian Water among other brands, is working with IBM to provide a secure cloud trading network for its customers and business partners. "The network is designed to increase the flexibility and responsiveness of our business-to-business commercial interactions and improve our overall customer experience," said Hans Vollebregt, integration team manager, Danone Integration Lab.

“Being competitive today means being a lot smarter about all facets of commerce, from initial marketing efforts to customer interaction in the buying and selling phase, to the product delivery and subsequent service that ensure customer satisfaction,” said Steve Bozzo, CIO of 1-800-Flowers. “We optimised our entire order life cycle and improved the customer experience, with a comprehensive solution from IBM that manages incoming orders from multiple channels like the Web and call centres in a timely accurate way."

To learn more about IBM's corporate citizenship initiatives, visit: http://www.ibm.com/blogs/citizen-ibm. To learn more about People for a Smarter Planet on Facebook, visit http://www.facebook.com/peopleforasmarterplanet. To learn more about IBM's Centennial, visit http://www.ibm100.com.

IBM Launches Software and Consulting Services to Help Businesses Adapt to Rising Customer Demands

IBM (NYSE: IBM), today announced new software and the creation a new consulting practice dedicated to the emerging category of "Smarter Commerce," which is focused on helping companies swiftly adapt to rising customer demands in today's digitally transformed marketplace.

The Smarter Commerce consulting practice extends IBM's leadership and investments in business analytics and optimization. The new software and services offerings, supported by global sales and marketing resources, will address the spectrum of enterprise commerce activities -- new ways to buy, sell and secure greater customer loyalty in the era of mobile and social networks.

IBM estimates the Smarter Commerce market opportunity at $70 billion, driven by demand from clients that must bring new levels of automation to marketing, customer engagement and sales, as well as core processes for production, fulfillment and service for much more immediate responses to changes in markets and buying trends.

IBM's Smarter Commerce initiatives draw on its market-leading WebSphere Commerce platform and a $2.5 billion investment in on-premise and cloud-based software from IBM's acquisitions of Sterling Commerce, Unica and Coremetrics.

IBM will deliver new integrated software building on these extensive capabilities, new services, and an education initiative to arm an extensive ecosystem of partners, suppliers and customers with new skills to connect the entire Smarter Commerce ecosystem. This includes:

• A new global business services consulting practice offering deep insights into Smarter Commerce.
• New cloud analytics software that enables companies to monitor their brands presence in real-time through social media channels to better assess the effectiveness of new services and product offerings, fine tune marketing campaigns and create sales initiatives in real-time.
• Software that automates a company's ability to design and deliver a personalized shopping experience, campaigns and promotions on new services and products online, or through mobile devices.
• An "IBM University" will provide educational resources for sellers and partners to build the job skills required for the Smarter Commerce marketplace.

A shift is occurring as social networking and mobile communications its putting more power into the hands of customers. Today, 70 percent of a customer's first interaction with a product or services takes place online, 64 percent make a first purchase because of a digital experience and of the two billion people connected to the internet, more than 600 million are on Facebook. This is compounded by an explosion of mobile purchases, which is tripling annually to $119 billion this year alone.

These disruptive forces are empowering consumers and raising their expectations of the entire customer experience. This power shift from the seller to the buyer is redefining the term "commerce." Retailers were the first to face the rising power of consumers but now companies in a wide array of industries such as manufacturing, telecommunications, financial services and others have begun adapting to these changes.

This is creating enormous challenges for businesses. What used to be seen as a flow of goods from manufacturers through a distribution chain to customers has become an interactive feedback loop, where consumers, producers, distributors, the media, and marketers all have new roles to play. Companies see "selling" not so much as a traditional function of their organization but rather as an ever-evolving set of services they perform for their customers -- performed in concert with their business partners.

IBM is taking a leadership role in helping organizations deal with this collision of market forces that have empowered customers, to also create powerful tools for businesses. Through new software and services, IBM is enabling clients to respond to market shifts in real-time, automate marketing, selling and fulfillment, while creating a global brand presence.

"It's a buyer's world now," said Craig Hayman, General Manager, IBM Industry Solutions. "Businesses require a tighter and highly responsive network of suppliers and partners to ensure they deliver the right product or service at the right price, time and place. The key to business success in this unfolding environment is predicting trends and automating market responses in advance to eliminate the gaps between buy and sell, supply and demand."

"If they are going to engage with customers that are more connected -- but not necessarily more connected to the people making and selling products and services -- businesses require a new set of capabilities that start with the ability to hear the global conversations taking place about their products and brands," said Paul Papas, global Smarter Commerce practice leader in IBM Global Business Services. "This new level of insight has to be followed by an entirely different kind of engagement with these customers, including a tighter and highly responsive network of suppliers and partners."

The sellers, or businesses, are largely unprepared for these changes. As a result, there are massive inefficiencies in the complex network of transactions that make up global commerce and its supply chain, at a time when economic and competitive pressures reduce enterprise margins for error to zero.

In addition to these shifts occurring in the front-end sales transaction, a recent IBM Institute for Business Value survey of more than 500 economists worldwide estimated that much of the $15 trillion in system inefficiencies on the planet comes from waste in inventory backlogs, failed product launches, wasted materials and ineffective marketing campaigns.

IBM is working with more than 2000 global and local brands such as global food producer Danone, McKesson, Moosejaw Mountaineering, Staples, US Lumber and 1-800-FLOWERS to ensure they are marketing to the right audience at the right time; engaging buyers seamlessly in all the right channels and mediums; maintaining inventory levels precisely aligned to demand and automating their supply chains for maximum efficiency.

"Being competitive today means being a lot smarter about all facets of commerce, from initial marketing efforts to customer interaction in the buying and selling phase to the product delivery and subsequent service that ensure customer satisfaction," said Steve Bozzo, CIO of 1-800-Flowers. "We optimized our entire order lifecycle and improved the customer experience with a comprehensive solution from IBM that manages incoming orders from multiple channels like the Web and call centers in a timely accurate way."

For more information, visit: http://www.ibm.com/press/smartercommerce.

Zobrist Consulting Wins 2011 IBM Beacon Award for Best Industry Solution for Retail

IBM named Zobrist Consulting, Inc., a firm dedicated to developing online business solutions for Small and Medium-sized companies, the winner of the Best Industry Solution for Retail in the IBM Beacon 2011 Awards competition for its Smart Merchandiser product. This prestigious honor is awarded each year to a select number of IBM Business Partners to recognize information technology excellence, commitment to skills attainment, industry knowledge and innovative solutions based on IBM products and services.

Beacon Award winners set the standard for business excellence, innovative technology solutions, industry knowledge and client satisfaction. The Beacon Awards are an important element of IBM’s Business Partner recognition program. Winners are chosen from among hundreds of nominations by leading industry journalists, analysts and IBM executives.

“We are extremely honored to be recognized with a Beacon Award,” says Teresa Zobrist, President of Zobrist Consulting. “Receiving the Beacon speaks to our passion for creating innovative best-in-class solutions that deliver complete customer satisfaction. We developed Smart Merchandiser specifically to give our clients a cost-effective but powerful tool to managing their online stores, combining the intelligence of web analytics and social media with the ease of a graphical, intuitive inventory management system.”

“The IBM Beacon Awards recognize Business Partners who have delivered high value, innovative solutions that exemplify our focus on technical excellence, industry expertise and client satisfaction,” said Rich Hume, general manager, IBM Global Business Partners. “We congratulate Zobrist Consulting on winning the IBM Beacon Award for Best Industry Solution for Retail and demonstrating their commitment to delivering innovation and business value to our mutual clients.”

For more information about the IBM Beacon Awards, including information about winners and finalists, please visit https://www-304.ibm.com/partnerworld/wps/servlet/ContentHandler/2011_beacon_awards_solutions.html.

To learn more about IBM PartnerWorld, a comprehensive program that offers marketing and sales resources, training, certification and technical support to help create new revenue and market opportunities for IBM Business Partners, visit http://www.ibm.com/partnerworld.

About Zobrist Consulting Group

Zobrist is a Premier IBM Business Partner focusing on Online Retailing since 2001. Zobrist was awarded the IBM WebSphere Commerce Leadership Award for "Best B2C Deployment” in 2008 for the launch of the thenorthface.com. Zobrist and VF Services were recognized by IBM with the “Foundational Leadership Award” in 2009 for the launch of Lee.com and Wrangler.com.

Independent Research Firm Names IBM a Leader in Managed Security Services

IBM today announced that it was ranked a leader in "The Forrester Wave™: Managed Security Services, Q3 2010" (August 2010) report and included prominently in "The Forrester Wave™: Information Security And Risk Consulting Services, Q3 2010" (August 2010) report.

The Forrester Wave ™: Managed Security Services, Q3 2010" report included 11 managed security service providers in the assessment. Forrester Research, Inc. thoroughly evaluated these vendors across 78 criteria, broken down into three main areas: current offering, strategy, and market presence. "The Forrester Wave™: Information Security And Risk Consulting Services, Q3 2010" included 12 information security and risk consulting service providers in the assessment and evaluated these vendors across 75 criteria also in three main areas: current offering, strategy and market presence.

The Forrester Wave™ managed security services (MSS) report stated that IBM was a leader in managed security services because of the flexibility, competency and breadth of coverage offered. The report stated: "IBM has the broadest suite of MSS of all the providers assessed in this Forrester Wave…. The IBM X-Force Threat Analysis service is well respected in the industry and provides leading-edge security intelligence and research to IBM clients…. Customers identified responsiveness and breadth of offerings as positive attributes for IBM."

Separately, the Forrester Wave™ Information Security and Risk Consulting Services report noted that IBM continues to offer significant value to its clients by delivering a wide spectrum of capabilities and expertise across its various business units. According to the report, "IBM offers the greatest number of security consulting services. It has a great presence in this market and continues to provide thought leadership and expertise in technical and operation areas of security…. Client references pointed to consultant expertise, customer service, and global presence as areas of strength."

"The Forrester Wave ™: Managed Security Services, Q3 2010" report stated: "security organizations that require global reach, a broad suite of security services, and good threat intelligence from a single vendor should look to IBM to deliver these services." Recommendations included in The Forrester Wave™: Information Security And Risk Consulting Services, Q3 2010" report noted "If you are looking for a single vendor that offers a breadth of capabilities and security technologies and that has a wealth of experience in working security, look to IBM."

"We believe this independent analysis reflects the focus IBM Managed Security Services has on delivering the right expertise, tools and infrastructure needed help to secure information assets and preempt security threats," said Marisa Viveros, vice president, IBM Security Services. "Our global team of security researchers, developers, and subject matter experts have a unique handle on the broad threat landscape, which benefits clients of all sizes and industries."

IBM is one of the world's leading providers of risk and security solutions. Through product offerings, professional security services and managed and cloud-based security services, IBM provides flexibility and breadth of solutions as a trusted security vendor. Clients around the world team with IBM to help reduce the complexities of security and strategically manage risk.

About IBM

For more information on IBM's security solutions, visit: http://www.ibm.com/security/

Triton Consulting Confirmed as Speakers at the UKCMG Forum 2010

The UKCMG have announced details of the annual UKCMG Forum, taking place on 13th October 2010 at the Novotel London St Pancras. Triton Consulting are delighted to confirm that they have been selected to run a session on DB2 pureScale.

This one-day conference will include three tracks with elective sessions covering Capacity Management, Performance and Service Management. Alongside the conference there will be an exhibition and networking event.

Triton Consulting will be running a session at 10am on Wednesday 13th October called "Pure Genius: How to get Mainframe-like scalability & availability for midrange DB2". During this session, Julian Stuhler - IBM Data Champion, IBM Gold Consultant and Director at Triton Consulting will provide an introduction to DB2 pureScale and an overview of the architecture. He will be joined by James Gill who is a Principal Consultant at Triton. James is heading up an R&D project on DB2 pureScale and recently spent a week in the IBM Labs in Boeblingen Germany to gain practical experience of working in a DB2 pureScale environment and testing for scalability and resilience. James will be sharing details of the team's own experiences of implementation and findings from the work in the labs.

"We are delighted to be involved in this year's UKCMG Forum. This is a great event with a fully packed agenda including some really interesting speakers. Our DB2 pureScale team are really looking forward to sharing some insights into this exciting new technology from IBM" Laura Hood, Marketing Manager, Triton Consulting.

For the last 15 years, mainframe DB2 has been the industry leading platform for availability & scalability thanks to Data Sharing, the High Availability solution for DB2 for z/OS. Technologies such as clustering have tried to match mainframe levels of scalability and resilience for midrange databases but require application changes as data is not shared across clusters. With the DB2 pureScale feature, IBM has provided a solution which enables customers to achieve mainframe-like scalability and availability for Midrange DB2.

“This is the single most significant technology improvement that IBM has introduced to the midrange market in years. By utilizing the many years of mainframe data sharing experience, DB2 pureScale will revolutionise the way organisations are able to manage their workload; achieve scalability and continuous availability” says Julian Stuhler, Service Delivery Director, Triton Consulting.

The UKCMG Free Forum is an event for the IT industry designed to help professionals to keep up to date with key industry trends, developments and best practice. The event is an ideal opportunity for networking with industry peers.

For more information or to book a place, vist the UKCMG website - http://www.ukcmg.org.uk/ifOct2010.html

For more information on Triton's time at the IBM labs, visit our DB2 pureScale blog - http://www.triton.co.uk/blog/category/db2-purescale-lab-experiences/

About Triton

Triton Consulting are Data Management specialists and IBM Premier Business Partners. Specialising in DB2 for both the mainframe and distributed systems, Triton provide a full range of services from consultancy through to education and remote support.

IBM Wins Project Management Office of the Year Award

PM Solutions and the Project Management Institute's Program Management Office Specific Interest Group (PMOSIG) announce that IBM's Project Management Center of Excellence (PM/COE) has been selected as the 2010 PMO of the Year. The award, which distinguishes a project management office (PMO) for its success in developing and maturing an organizational structure that supports the effective management of projects, recognizes IBM's PM/COE specifically for creating global project management standards and enterprise-wide consistency among its 26,000 project managers worldwide; establishing a dedicated project management knowledge repository and communications network; increasing project accountability; improving time-to-market by 65%; and decreasing the number of troubled projects by 25%.

Now that's worth an award.

IBM's Center of Excellence was selected from a field of more than 40 applicants from nearly every continent and including state and federal agencies, major nonprofit organizations and Fortune 1000 companies. The finalists include:

Finalist #1 The Doe Run Company's Enterprise Program Management Office (St. Louis, Missouri) Finalist #2 Auckland City Council's Program Office (Auckland, New Zealand) Finalist #3 T-Mobile USA's Enterprise Program Office (Bellevue, Washington)

"All of this year's award applicants are excellent examples of the incredible impact a mature PMO can make on an organization and of how far the PMO has come over the last decade," said J. Kent Crawford, PMP, CEO of PM Solutions. "The vast measures that IBM has taken in this area and its outstanding accomplishments reveal a telling story on how to create a successful PMO that sets the course for the entire enterprise."

Inside IBM's Program Management Center of Excellence (COE) During the early 1990s, industry dynamics such as global competition, resource pressures, rapid change in customer segments, and new technology drove IBM to rethink its organizational structure, business model, and management approach. IBM identified project management as key to reliably delivering complex business solutions to its global customers. Studies supported that the lack of good project management was a major contributor to project failure, customer satisfaction issues, and the erosion of revenue and profit. So the company initiated a corporate strategy to transform IBM into a project-based enterprise by raising project management to a core competency. An Executive Steering Committee (ESC) of senior executives from all major business units was established and remains in place today.

IBM's ESC chartered the Project Management Center of Excellence (PM/COE), a formal global PMO, as the change agent for this transformation. Its mission is to develop and implement a corporate strategy to achieve global organizational competence in project management. Then and now, IBM's PMO establishes and drives a consistent career infrastructure, a common methodology based on industry standards and the PMBOK(R) Guide, a community of knowledgeable practitioners, and supportive enablers including processes and systems. It also develops and maintains a professional project management community within IBM and is the interface between this community and other internal and external professional communities.

"Being honored with this award is a coming of age for our team," said Deborah Dell, PMP, IBM's PM/COE Manager. "We've been working toward this level of maturity for years and will continue to do so simply because it is a business model that works. It keeps our enterprise operating efficiently, productively, intelligently...and profitably."

According to one judge, "IBM set the stage for other organizations to follow with the creation of its Center for Excellence back in 1996. IBM has continued with its maturity initiatives, career progression, emphasis on portfolio management, its return on investment in knowledge management, and its continuous emphasis on business benefits."

PM Solutions and the PMOSIG will jointly present the award to IBM at the PMOSIG's PMO Symposium, being held November 7-10, 2010 in Dallas, Texas.

"IBM has unquestionably demonstrated the ability to integrate project and program management into the infrastructure, organization, and processes used to execute its business," said Rommy Musch, Executive Chair of the PMOSIG. "All PMOs, including the ones represented by our 4,000+ members around the world, can benefit from hearing how IBM's PM/COE was able to accomplish such significant business impact."

For complete details on the award, including in-depth profiles on the 2010 winner and finalists, view the new PMO of the Year 2010 digital eBook -- downloadable at http://www.pmsolutions.com/pmoaward.

About IBM

International Business Machines (IBM) is a multinational computer, technology and IT consulting corporation headquartered in Armonk, New York, United States. IBM manufactures and sells computer hardware and software and offers infrastructure services, hosting services, and consulting services in areas ranging from mainframe computers to nanotechnology. With almost 400,000 employees worldwide, IBM is the second largest (by market capitalization) information technology and services employer in the world. IBM holds more patents than any other U.S.-based technology company and has eight research laboratories worldwide. The company has scientists, engineers, consultants, and sales professionals in over 200 countries.

About the PMOSIG The Program Management Office Specific Interest Group (PMOSIG) is a non-profit, global professional association focused on the project/program management office (PMO) and related disciplines. It provides education, collaboration, knowledge-sharing and professional development opportunities for a growing global community of over 4,000 members worldwide, and is registered as a chartered specific interest group of the Project Management Institute (PMI(R)). For more information, visit http://www.pmosig.org/.

About PM Solutions PM Solutions is a project management firm helping organizations execute, govern, and measure their portfolios to improve business performance. They are the leader in applying project and portfolio management processes and practices to drive operational efficiency for our clients. Their comprehensive offerings address organizational improvement, project execution, and learning and development delivered through their training arm, the PM College(R). PM Solutions serves a diverse client base that includes some of the world's leading organizations. For more information, visit www.pmsolutions.com.

IT Consulting Firm Perficient Honored at IBM's IOD 2009

Perficient, an information technology consulting firm serving Global 2000 and other large enterprise customers throughout North America, announced it is the sole recipient of IBM's 2009 Information Agenda Partner of the Year award.

The honor was announced during the opening general session at IBM's Information on Demand 2009 conference at Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas.

"We're thrilled to be recognized by IBM and the Information Management brand for our contributions to helping the world's leading enterprises implement an information-led transformation," said John Jenkins, vice president of Perficient's IBM practice. "We see meaningful opportunity around the IM portfolio and will continue to invest in helping our customers understand the power inherent in Information Management solutions."

Perficient Named Information Agenda Partner of the Year at IBM’s IOD 2009

Perficient, Inc. (NASDAQ: PRFT), a leading information technology consulting firm serving Global 2000 and other large enterprise customers throughout North America, today announced it is the sole recipient of IBM’s 2009 Information Agenda Partner of the Year award. The honor was announced during the opening general session at IBM’s Information on Demand 2009 conference at Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas.

“We’re thrilled to be recognized by IBM and the Information Management brand for our contributions to helping the world’s leading enterprises implement an information-led transformation,” said John Jenkins, vice president of Perficient’s IBM practice. “We see meaningful opportunity around the IM portfolio and will continue to invest in helping our customers understand the power inherent in Information Management solutions.”

About Perficient

Perficient is a leading information technology consulting firm serving Global 2000 and enterprise customers throughout North America. Perficient’s professionals serve clients from a network of 19 offices in North America and three offshore locations, in Eastern Europe, India and China. Perficient helps clients use Internet-based technologies to improve productivity and competitiveness, strengthen relationships with customers, suppliers and partners and reduce information technology costs. Perficient, traded on the Nasdaq Global Select Market(SM), is a member of the Russell 2000® index and the S&P SmallCap 600 index. Perficient is an award-winning "Premier Level" IBM business partner, a TeamTIBCO partner, a Microsoft National Systems Integrator and Gold Certified Partner, a Documentum Select Services Team Partner, and an Oracle Certified Partner. For more information, please visit www.perficient.com.

New IBM Sustainable Supplier Information Management Consulting Offering

A new IBM (NYSE: IBM) consulting service can help clients develop methods to collect, manage and analyze supplier information for energy use, environmental impact, quality, safety, cost, efficiency, and labor practices.

This offering draws on IBM's own experience running one of the largest, most complex supply chains in the world, including development of an expansive database covering 30,000 supplier locations in 60 countries to help collect and analyze data on a wide range of sustainability issues. This will allow clients to improve supply chain efficiency, lower costs, and reduce waste and environmental impact, and reporting sustainability information to business partners, regulators and other key stakeholders.

"A global supply chain with thousands of partners exposes a company to increased risk, waste, inefficiency, environmental impact and cost," said Eric Riddleberger, IBM's business strategy consulting global leader, who heads up the company's corporate social responsibility consulting efforts. "Being able to set sustainability standards and truly measure performance against them across such a large network is an enormous task, particularly in industries such as consumer products, retail and healthcare."

Companies are under tremendous pressure to continuously improve business performance and sustainability, and that extends to their entire supply chains. Inefficiencies and inconsistent practices can cause excessive use of energy, water and materials, increased environmental impact, variances in quality, product safety concerns and poor labor practices throughout the supply chain. These can lead to increased cost, compliance issues, and disenfranchising key stakeholders, such as customers, shareholders, partners, and current and prospective employees, who care about these issues.

To improve efficiency and consistency and reduce environmental impact, companies must use new "smart" technologies and processes that allow them collect and analyze large amounts of information from across their supplier networks. This allows them to apply uniform standards, measure compliance and performance, and take corrective action where necessary. IBM estimates that doing this effectively could improve supply chain efficiency by a minimum of 8 to 12 percent or more, with corresponding reductions in cost, environmental impact and risk.

But most companies are not equipped to do that kind of data collection and analysis, either within their own operations or across their supply chains. In IBM's 2009 global survey of c-level executives on green and sustainability, 29 percent of the respondents said they aren't collecting any of this data at all from their supply chains. Eight in 10 aren't collecting supplier data for CO2 emissions and water usage, and six in 10 aren't checking supplier data for labor standards.

Half the respondents said supply chain partners are requiring that they adopt new standards for carbon management, but only 19 percent are collecting CO2 emissions data often enough to effectively manage it. And three-quarters said supply chain partners also require they adopt new standards for energy management, waste and ethical labor standards.

IBM's Sustainable Supplier Information Management offering is designed to help them develop processes and systems for:

• Part number management, to ease part and product traceability;
• Process change management, to improve response and reduce costs associated with changing requirements;
• Supplier audit management, to ensure compliance on issues ranging from cost and quality to business ethics and environmental practices;
• Qualification management, to vet new suppliers for performance and sustainability standards;
• Supplier problem management, to ensure quick response when problems arise;
• Real-time quality management, to reduce cost, improve quality and ensure continuity of supply;
• Predictive quality management, using automated systems and virtual supplier auditing to head off problems before they occur.

The Sustainable Supplier Information Management offering can be used with IBM's Sustainable Procurement offering, which helps companies define cost, efficiency and sustainability measurements and goals for their procurement activities. This covers all supplies, materials, ingredients, components, finished goods and services they purchase to run their operations and to develop, manufacture and deliver their own products or services.

To learn more about IBM's green and sustainability consulting offerings visit: www.ibm.com/gbs/sustainability

For more information on IBM's full portfolio of energy and environment offerings and products, go to: www.ibm.com/green

Zacks Analyst Blog Highlights: International Business Machine, Accenture, Intel Corp., Google Inc. and Advanced Micro Devices

Zacks.com announces the list of stocks featured in the Analyst Blog. Every day the Zacks Equity Research analysts discuss the latest news and events impacting stocks and the financial markets. Stocks recently featured in the blog include: International Business Machine (NYSE: IBM), Accenture (NYSE: ACN), Intel Corp. (Nasdaq: INTC), Google Inc. (Nasdaq: GOOG) and Advanced Micro Devices (NYSE: AMD).

Get the most recent insight from Zacks Equity Research with the free Profit from the Pros newsletter: http://at.zacks.com/?id=4579

Here are highlights from Friday’s Analyst Blog:

IBM Exceeds & Raises Outlook

International Business Machine’s (NYSE: IBM) third-quarter 2009 earnings exceeded the Zacks Consensus Estimate by one cent. As a result of expense management, net profit improved by 14% to $3.2 billion, while earnings per share rose 18% to $2.40 per share. This compares to a profit of $2.8 billion or $2.04 per share in the year-ago period. Net margins increased 250 basis points to 13.6%.

Profitability in the quarter was fueled by higher gross profit margin, which improved to 45.1% from 43.3% in the year-ago quarter led by improved margin in the Services and Software segments. IBM has benefited from the growing focus on these high margin businesses. This has allowed the company to expand its gross margins for 20 of the past 21 quarters. Moreover, the company benefited from lower interest expense, which fell 46.9% from the year-ago period.

IBM remained focused on its cost-cutting initiatives, as a result of which third quarter operating expenses fell 11% year-over-year. SG&A expense decreased 11.2% to $5.0 billion and RD&E expense decreased 8.4% to $1.4 billion from the year-ago period.

Total revenue was in line with the Zacks Consensus Estimate, although it declined 6.9% (down 5.0% when adjusted for currency) to $23.6 billion from the year-ago quarter. We remain cautious about currency fluctuation, which is taking a toll on revenue and may be critical to earnings growth over the next two years.

Overall, sales were down across all segments. However, IBM benefited from market share gains in its Hardware and Software segments in the quarter. The company reported improved revenue from its branded middleware products that include WebSphere, Information Management, Tivoli and Lotus products, which increased 2% year over year. As a result, the decline in the company’s Software segment was the lowest of all segments and fell just 3% year over year in the quarter.

From a geographic perspective, revenue was down 5% in the North American region and 6% in growth markets, but dropped 12% in the EMEA (Europe, Middle East and Africa).

Weak IT spending pulled down revenue, and we do not expect a recovery this year. IBM did not provide any comment on the IT spending environment, but said that the economy is improving. Moreover, IBM’s rival Accenture (NYSE: ACN) has refrained from predicting a full recovery in business spending. Intel Corp. (Nasdaq: INTC) also expects corporate spending to remain weak until 2010.

Weak recovery in technology spending has made it hard to win new business. As a result, IBM reported a drop in signed services contracts, which fell to $11.8 billion, a decrease of 7% from the year-ago period. Thus we remain concerned on the company’s long-term customer wins. Signings in Consulting and Systems Integration and in Integrated Technology Services decreased 16%. The estimated services backlog on Sept. 30 was $134 billion.

The balance sheet continues to be strong as IBM delivered $11.5 billion in total cash and marketable securities, compared to $12.5 billion in the previous quarter. The company reported cash flow from operations (excluding Global Financing receivables) of $4.4 billion, with free cash flow of $3.4 billion. Debt was reduced by $4 billion in the quarter.

2009 EPS Outlook Raised

The company raised its earnings outlook for fiscal 2009, the second time this year, and now expects full-year earnings of at least $9.85, up from the previous forecast of $9.70. This is above the Zacks Consensus Estimate of $9.77 per share.

IBM expects to return to revenue growth in the fourth quarter. Management stated that IBM is well on course to deliver an EPS of $10 to $11 in 2010. The company also expects 2009 pre-tax income for its software and services businesses to grow at double-digit rates and reach around $8 billion.

IBM has been growing its profits and stands to benefit from cost-cutting measures, strong liquidity position, operational efficiency, substantial free cash flow and earnings momentum. We believe that IBM is fundamentally a sound company with a strong market position. Thus we remain optimistic on the company’s long-term growth and expect it to post stronger results in 2010.

We expect further upside on IBM’s share price and advise stockholders to wait for a favorable exit point. Until then we remain Neutral on IBM.

Earlier this week, IT giants, Google Inc. (Nasdaq: GOOG), Advanced Micro Devices (NYSE: AMD) and Intel Corp. all reported better than expected results due to the improving economy. We expect the year 2010 to be a good year for the IT sector as a whole, due to improving demand and better tech spending.

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IBM and the NFL to Continue Longtime Partnership

International Business Machines Corp. (IBM) has announced a renewed marketing and services partnership with the National Football League (NFL). As part of the agreement, IBM, which has been an NFL sponsor since 2003, will continue providing consulting expertise and IT solutions to the NFL in an effort to more efficiently manage the IT infrastructure and data storage.

As the NFL looks to improve upon its current data center, IBM will help to reduce costs and energy consumption all while increasing power and cooling capacity.

The first phase will include an initiative to shift the NFL's IT Shared Services environment to a dynamic infrastructure by delivering a number of operational improvements. IBM will provide design and construction services for an upgraded data center facility located in Mt. Laurel, New Jersey. These services will allow the NFL to improve scalability and capacity all while reducing daily operating costs and improving the overall energy efficiency for the NFL.

"With IBM's help, our IT infrastructure can become more energy efficient, cost effective and adaptive with how we manage our IT services and data," said Nancy Galietti, Vice President of Information Technology from the NFL. "IBM understands our needs from a business and IT perspective and we look forward to working together on this journey to deliver a dynamic infrastructure."

As part of the initiative, the upgraded data center facility will create efficiencies and allow the NFL to take advantage of newer, faster and less expensive technologies. The upgraded facility will:

• Improve resiliency by minimizing single points of failure
• Add the capability to install high density computing and offer more computing power in less space.

IBM also plans to accelerate the server virtualization of existing IT Shared Services hardware in New York, New Jersey, and Los Angeles to improve operational consistency and increase availability.

"The NFL is a great partner, and we believe that this initiative will enable their business growth," said Rick Singer, Vice President, Client Executive Marketing, IBM. "Our goal is to provide the NFL with opportunities to offer premium services to its business divisions and clients."

In addition, IBM will deliver a plan to optimize the NFL's storage environment that can reduce the overall cost of storage hardware through virtualized storage provisioning.

As is critical with any business, IBM will provide the NFL with the design and implementation plan for a highly resilient solution architecture to meet the operational availability and disaster recovery requirements of the NFL business.

IBM

Over the past 48 years, IBM has extended its business solutions into entertainment and professional sports by providing results and competition management systems. Today, IBM provides technology support and solutions to major sports and entertainment properties, including the Australian Open, Roland Garros, Wimbledon and U.S. Open Tennis championships, the Masters, the NFL and Tony Awards.

For more information on IBM, please visit www.ibm.com.

IBM Launches New Storage Cloud Solution for the Enterprise

At its Information Infrastructure Analyst Summit IBM (NYSE: IBM) announced its intention to enter the cloud storage space with the launch of the IBM Smart Business Storage Cloud, IBM Information Archive and new consulting services.

Traditional storage cloud solutions have piqued the interest of many enterprise clients for their very low price points, but these systems have mostly been limited to 'sandbox' use cases for secondary or tertiary copies of data or for use in development and test environments in which data does not have to be frequently accessed and does not tend to grow into large scales.

The IBM Smart Business Storage Cloud is a private cloud offering that utilizes low cost components in a true scale-out clustered model not offered by its competition. Hallmarks of the solution include support for multiple petabytes of capacity, billions of files, and scale-out performance previously limited to the largest 'high performance computing' systems.

Industry-leading technologies like IBM's General Parallel File System have been combined with the latest advances in storage, virtualization and server technologies like XIV and BladeCenter to provide performance and scalability all under one globally addressable namespace. The solution is highly secure and built to make use of a client's existing security and authentication infrastructure. In addition to this, IBM offers tightly coupled services for implementation support and an optional ongoing lightweight managed service to help clients manage their cloud environment on an ongoing basis.

Many clients have also expressed concern about vendor lock-in with currently available cloud solutions, especially for data storage where migration costs into and out of the cloud can be costly. IBM has paid careful attention to these concerns and is offering full support for standard file access protocols so that moving data into and out of their storage cloud is as simple as a file copy operation.

Kantana Animation Studios Co., Ltd, one of the leading entertainment companies in Thailand, found that its animation processes were putting increasingly heavy demands on its data storage infrastructure. "Katana has greatly benefited from IBM's storage services - our animators are now able to gain access to team projects faster and easier," said Auchara Kijkanjanas, Managing Director of Kantana Animation Studios Co., Ltd. "We also benefit from greatly reduced operational costs and better business flexibility and productivity, critical drivers in a competitive and growing industry."

IBM Smart Business Storage Cloud is the first of IBM's cloud-based storage solution, built to be implemented either on the client premise or as part of its strategic outsourcing capabilities. The company will continue to build out this area of the portfolio, including a business-grade public cloud for storage, which will be offered with flexible consumption models and a self-service user interface to fully abstract the technology from the end user.

For clients looking for a single unified platform for information retention, IBM is announcing a new Smart Business System called IBM Information Archive. This integrated hardware and software solution helps organizations address their complete information retention needs, including business, legal and regulatory, and enables organizations to leverage different tiers of storage, including disk and tape, with policy-based management that automatically moves less active information to more cost-effective storage systems. Using a customizable "collections-based" approach, the archived data can be accessed in a private cloud computing environment, even if it's stored on tape media. This capability is critical as an increasing amount of data is expected to exist in archived formats.

With key contributions from IBM Research, IBM Information Archive addresses one of the key promises of cloud computing; to provide seamless access to information, including archived data, no matter where it resides.

In addition, IBM Global Business Services is adding three new cloud consulting offerings to its business and IT consulting portfolio. These new offerings provide flexible entry points based on client needs, and are priced and delivered for near-term ROI. They are designed to help clients who are looking for an end-to-end cloud business-based IT strategy or to help clients select the right cloud delivery model for their business.

• Strategy and Change Services for Cloud Adoption - IBM consultants can help firms determine how to get started with cloud adoption by quickly identifying priority business areas; acknowledging key gaps in processes, technology, organization and governance; and evaluating the range of new cloud-based delivery models in order to develop a roadmap for piloting cloud.
• IBM Strategy and Change Services for Cloud Providers - For firms looking to enter the cloud provider market, IBM can help define an in-depth roadmap that treats cloud as a new operating model rather than just a method of IT delivery -- an essential step in business model evolution.
• IBM Testing Services for Cloud - IBM can also help companies build a business case that quantifies the cost, schedule and quality improvements associated with pursing a cloud application test environment. This can help reduce capital expenses by provisioning test servers on demand, decreasing the cost of test setup and tear-down and associated defects, while shortening overall cycle time.

In June of this year IBM unveiled its cross-company strategy to capture the enterprise cloud computing market, helping clients attack rising costs and complexity by workload. Since then many products and services from the portfolio have entered the market, including Smart Business Development and Test on the IBM Cloud, which began its public beta on October 1, 2009.

The company will continue to offer clients more cloud consumption and delivery options to balance the advantages of the cloud model (massive scalability at low and flexible costs with little capital expense) with the need for service levels that are enterprise grade; meaning secure, governable, reliable and address operational expense to lower costs over time.

For more about IBM's cloud computing efforts, please visit www.ibm.com/cloud.

IBM Completes Acquisition of SPSS Inc.

IBM (NYSE: IBM) today announced it has completed its acquisition of SPSS Inc. (Nasdaq: SPSS), a publicly-held company headquartered in Chicago. IBM announced a definitive agreement to acquire SPSS on July 28, 2009.

IBM's acquisition of SPSS further strengthens IBM's business analytics and optimization strategy by providing predictive analytic capabilities that can help customers predict future events and proactively act upon that insight to drive better business outcomes.

With this acquisition, IBM expands its focus on business analytics and optimization designed to meet growing customer needs to cut costs, reduce risk and drive profitable growth. The acquisition, along with IBM's existing software and services portfolio, will enable business leaders and CIOs to leverage trusted information and analytics for better, faster decisions and continuous optimization throughout the organization.

The addition of SPSS will help IBM deliver market-leading, comprehensive predictive analytics capabilities including data collection for market research and feedback management, text and data mining, advanced statistical analysis and predictive solutions, enabling customers to gain insights into complex questions, predict potential future outcomes and take action.

The acquisition strengthens the range of offerings available through the recently announced IBM Business Analytics and Optimization consulting organization, with its 4,000 consultants lending expertise to help clients better use their information for smarter business outcomes. And, it is in alignment with IBM's broader business strategy, which combines organic growth with acquisitions to move the company into higher value capabilities that accelerate margin expansion.

SPSS will be integrated into IBM's Information Management software portfolio and the many industry offerings already available. Predictive analytics will also be an essential component of the smarter business systems that IBM is helping companies and organizations build to help address the complex challenges presented by the exponential growth of data.

Additional information about IBM's business analytics and optimization strategy is available at: http://www.ibm.com/software/data/new-intelligence/

For more details about the combination of IBM and SPSS see: http://www.ibm.com/software/data/info/spss

Total Resource Management Expands into IBM IT Service Management; Earns IBM Premier Business Partner Status

Total Resource Management, Inc. (TRM) announces its expansion into the IBM IT Service Management space and new IBM Premier Partner status. This strategic move builds on TRM's leadership as one of the largest provider of Enterprise Asset Management (EAM) solutions -- specifically in the area of IBM Maximo Asset Management deployments -- by leveraging their deep technical expertise in the technology platform and the addition of several new IBM Service Management (ISM) solutions.

With the understanding that many of the IBM Tivoli Automation products are built on the Maximo platform (Tivoli Asset Management for IT, Tivoli Service Request Manager, Configuration and Change Management Database, Tivoli Application Dependency Discovery Manager, and Tivoli Provisioning Manager) and that a unified solution platform for managing all assets, including IT, production, facilities and fleet drives down the costs and improves productivity across asset-intensive organizations, TRM's market strategy of delivering both EAM and IT Service Management consulting and technology solutions closely aligns to IBM's strategy for service and asset management.

These new initiatives, geared to augment TRM's growth in its fifteenth year of operation, help strengthen and consolidate TRM's position as the Maximo expert and IBM's IT Service Management go-to market partner. In the past three months, TRM has begun to execute this strategy by achieving certifications and accreditations from IBM, appointing several key experts in the IT Service Management space, and expanding geographically. ` Currently, TRM is the only IBM business partner that is accredited across all ISM products built on the Tivoli Process Automation Engine (Maximo base services) and the only partner AAA Accredited in both: - Maximo Asset Management - Tivoli Asset Management for IT (TAMIT) TRM also has AA Accreditation in: - Tivoli Service Request Manager (TSRM) - Tivoli Usage and Accounting Manager (TUAM) - Tivoli Application Dependency Discovery Manager (TADDM) - Tivoli Change and Configuration Management Database (CCMDB) And A for: - Tivoli Provisioning Manager These accreditations along with satisfied customers have led IBM to move TRM from an Advanced Business Partner to a Premier Business Partner, which brings more visibility to TRM from the IBM Tivoli sales teams, prospective customers, and complementary partners.

According to Don Omura, TRM Chief Operations Officer, "We are stepping up our investment in our most important relationship and partnership. We predict that IBM will make significant inroads into the IT Service Management market as more and more clients address the convergence of operational and IT assets and see the strength of IBM's product offering. Our deep technical expertise in Maximo and ITIL and IBM's leadership position in Enterprise Asset Management and Service Management are combining to pay dividends for us and IBM."

TRM also announces the appointment of several key players at various levels within the organization to enable TRM to execute this new strategic vision. Rob Geier, former Director of Sales and North American Channel Sales for IBM's Tivoli software brand, has been appointed to establish TRM's IT Service Management practice, enable business development efforts across TRM, and manage the newly-created Central U.S. division.

Marie-Josee Ledoux joined TRM in the Pacific Northwest from Daticon Electronic Evidence Discovery as a Senior Tivoli Systems Engineer. With certifications across almost the entire Tivoli Automation product suite and implementations of TSRM, TAMIT, CCMDB, and TADDM, Marie brings a level of technical expertise not easily found. Marie is also ITIL Foundations certified and a certified AITP instructor for Tivoli.

The newest appointment is Dawn Allison from BAE Systems, where Dawn managed the implementation of TSRM and TAMIT for over 50,000 end users, effectively consolidating the management of BAE's diverse portfolio of IT assets and global service desks all on a single Tivoli platform for IT Asset and Service Management. With real-world experience in implementing ITIL practices along with ITIL Foundations and Practitioner certifications, Dawn brings a level of understanding to TRM's customers' complex IT service management needs that cannot be matched.

In addition to the more than 200 successful Maximo implementations, TRM has implemented the Tivoli Automation products to manage its internal IT service requirements, closed Tivoli Service Request Manager deals, completed several Maximo 7.1 upgrades with over half-dozen currently in process, and supported IBM on its Maximo 7.1 Asset Management for IT implementation for one of the world's largest financial institutions.

TRM recently expanded its presence in Dallas, Seattle and Denver, bringing additional sales, delivery and training resources closer to our existing and potential client base. TRM is one of the few IBM Authorized Independent Training Providers for Tivoli and offers courses in Maximo 6.x, Maximo 7.x, Tivoli Asset Management for IT (TAMIT), Tivoli Service Request Manager, Workflow and more at locations in Alexandria, Virginia; Denver, Seattle and at client sites.

TRM is also the creator of TRM RulesManager - the leading configuration add-on software to rapidly configure and deploy Maximo, TAMIT, and TSRM.

With all of these advantages, organizations who have multiple instances of service desks (sometimes from multiple vendors), must manage both operational and IT assets, or have IT asset management products that are difficult and costly to configure (as changes often require custom coding), should look to the IBM IT Service Management suite and TRM to help successfully deploy a better solution.

ABOUT TRM

TRM is focused on improving the performance of our clients' operations using Maximo Asset Management and IT Asset and Service Management with proven consulting and software solutions. Over the past fifteen years, Total Resource Management (TRM) has delivered successful implementations, integrations, consolidations, upgrades, mobile solutions and training for hundreds of satisfied clients across all asset-intensive industries. TRM is an authorized independent training provider (AITP) for IBM and an IBM Premier Business Partner.

Our consultants have: leading industry expertise in best practices combined over 400 man-years of Maximo experience Tivoli Enterprise Asset Management / Maximo 5.x, Maximo 6.x and Maximo 7.x certifications IBM Advanced Deployment in Services Management, Service Delivery and Process Automation IBM Tivoli certifications in Tivoli Asset Management for IT (TAMIT), Tivoli Service Request Manager (TSRM), Tivoli Application Dependency Discovery Manager (TADDM), and Tivoli Change & Configuration Management Database (CCMDB) TRM's solution portfolio includes TRM Software (add-on software modules for IBM Maximo Asset Management(R)): o TRM RulesManager SE (http://www.trmnet.com/software/soft_rulesmngr.html) (IBM/Tivoli-Approved) - Designed specifically for configuring IBM Maximo Asset Management to meet clients' unique business requirements. It features configuration, integration and data migration capabilities TRM Lockout Tagout Manager (http://www.trmnet.com/software/soft_loto.html) - The only safety clearance application, powered by RulesManager, and seamlessly integrated with IBM Maximo Asset Management TRM Safety Tagging System (http://www.trmnet.com/software/soft_sts.html) -- STS is a stand-alone software application that standardizes the lockout/tagout process for maximum worker safety and airtight audit traceability. TRM is headquarted in Alexandria, Virginia and has business centers across the U.S.

For more information, visit http://www.trmnet.com.

Ironside Group Announces Support for Mid-Market Business Analytics Solution

The Ironside Group, Inc. is pleased to announce the availability of sales, consulting and training for IBM Cognos Express, an all-in-one business intelligence and planning solution purpose-built and priced for the mid-market. With IBM Cognos Express, released on September 14, 2009, the power of business analytics is now within the reach of organizations that once considered a comprehensive solution too costly. Ironside leverages its vast experience from various industries to bring this solution to mid-size companies effectively and at a significantly lower cost.

In today's world, sophisticated data analysis is essential to gaining a competitive advantage, as well as for meeting compliance and audit requirements. IBM Cognos Express offers clients a low-cost and low-risk, integrated approach to planning, analyzing and reporting performance, identifying trends, and ultimately helping businesses make smarter decisions. Structured to evolve as the business continues to grow, IBM aims to continue to meet the analytical requirements of the midmarket with its newest IBM Cognos Express release.

"One of the most common pain points identified by the senior staff at mid-market organizations is the realization that while a BI solution would provide them with a significant competitive advantage, they have an inability to fund the technology and staff needed to build and support such an endeavor," said Dan Hess, Co-founder of The Ironside Group. "IBM Cognos Express will provide organizations of this size the capability to manage and use their information more efficiently."

As a Software Value Net partner of IBM, Ironside consultants are prepared and certified specifically in IBM Cognos Express. Please contact us at info@ironsidegroup.com or 781 860 8840 x201 to schedule a meeting to discuss.

About The Ironside Group, Inc.

The Ironside Group, Inc. is a premier consulting firm headquartered in Lexington, Massachusetts with offices in Stowe, Ohio, Montreal, Quebec and Long Island, NY. Ironside provides high-quality performance management, business intelligence and data warehousing solutions using best-of-breed technology. Ironside works with businesses and organizations of all sizes to help them to leverage information as a strategic asset. For more information, please visit www.ironsidegroup.com.