Wow, take a look at this blog by the legendary John Gruber:
" These don’t look like “enterprise” apps. They look like regular apps — really good ones, the sort of apps Apple would choose to feature in the App Store. This was a huge question I had about this deal. Great design is fundamental to what sets iOS apart, and what has enabled iOS to lead the post-PC disruption of the entire consumer computing industry. Would great UI design play a part in this IBM/Apple enterprise endeavor? Looks to me like the answer is yes."
One of the key initiatives of the IBM-Apple partnership is that Apple engineers will bring their legendary UI/UX design leadership to help IBM move one hundred enterprise apps into the iOS platform. That means, the new IBM apps on iOS platform will not only feature enterprise grade functionalities but it will also have Apple-grade user interface and experience! These are seriously great future to look forward to!
Look at the beautiful designed enterprise apps here:
I saw this in Bluemix Dashboard this morning - Wordpress templates! In Bluemix! Whaaaat? That is so cool! Wordpress is the popular website template that you see in those super cool, beautiful websites. Those Web 3.0 type with all the bells and whistles that are widely popular among true web designers. And now it's in Bluemix! That means, one day we will see all these cool website made by famous designers hosted in Bluemix. How cool can that be. Coolest! That's what my 5 year old will exclaim!
Just spent an hour with members of Malaysia Venture Capitalist Association, to share about our program for cloud startup. They seemed very interested in the program which grant a US$10K/month of IBM cloud services for 12 months to their portfolio. That means, if the VC sees a great potential in a startup and invested in them, these guys can have their infrastructure and technology worries taken care of by IBM cloud, well, at least for a year. And that's the point. We kickstart their aspiration and when they are successful, they continue to use IBM cloud. Hopefully, we can make a difference for a startup. Check it out: ibm.biz/CloudStartup
Gmail recently launched a new app. They called it Inbox. It is by invitation only at this moment as they are testing this app. Google wanted to reimagine the new way people will look at their mail. I tried this app. If you have use Mailbox app before, a company which was later acquired by Dropbox, Google's Inbox is just like Mailbox. The idea is that to treat your mailbox like a giant To-Do list. Mails that you have actioned on can be mark completed. Mails that you need to follow up can be swiped and set a future date so it will remind you. Very simplistic and very nice.
But, is this really imagining a new way to work? A new disruption to emails? Time will tell.
Today, IBM launched a new mail service. It was codename IBM Mail Next but now there is a new name. It is called IBM Verse!
What are we announcing?
IBM Verse is a cloud-based, analytics-driven approach to enterprise email designed for today's social, mobile and data-driven workplace. IBM Verse uses built-in analytics to intelligently surface an employee's most critical actions based on preferences and behavior, bringing together multiple collaboration tools including in-box, calendar, social networks, chats, online meetings and documents.
What's different about IBM Verse?
This is unique to competitive offerings that continue to take an in-box, document-centric view of the world. We're focused squarely on helping employees organize, prioritize and execute work quickly and effectively with deep social integration, lightning fast search, analytics and mobile availability for iOS and Android. IBM Verse is enterprise email redesigned for the new era of computing.
Forget the official mumbo jumbo worthy only as an official announcement.
IBM Verse brings a new, very clean, super compact interface. The objective is to remove your inbox clutter. Simplistic is the way to go. The other idea is that the email will learn your habit and help you get things done faster.
It is cloud base email and it sits on top of our popular public cloud, SoftLayer. What is cool is that when you look at your email and with a click of a button, you can find out details of people who sent you email. Very useful when you are going to meet a client and the client cc a few people to join the meeting, people you don't know - and using IBM Verse, you will be able to find more details through the analytics of social media, Linked In, twitter, etc.
You can instantly chat with people or share files - and through file sharing, you are actually sharing a link to the file stored in the cloud (ala Dropbox), not actually sending megabytes of files. And this helps reduce email size.
I think the best way is to view a video of IBM Verse
The IBM Appnovator Challenge is a contest that we run in University, to encourage students to build a solution to make the planet a better place - for example, a better water management system, traffic management system or to make our city a much pleasant place to live in. And this year, 5 students from various Universities, participated and built mobile solutions running on IBM Bluemix. Read on:
IBM and startup? IBM for entrepreneurs in Malaysia? Are you kidding me? Seriously? You guys? That's the type of reaction I had when I went to one of the premier entrepreneur association in Malaysia 4 years ago to speak about our program for startup. I still remember the incredulous look I received from the committee in the room. They just don't understand what an enterprise focus company like IBM can play in the entrepreneur space. One comment was that IBM software license would have already out priced the application price of the entrepreneur. At that time, my answer was that the cloud revolution would have made us relevant. They agreed but they still don't see it. Admittedly, 4 years ago, our cloud offerings were not as obvious to the start up space as of today. So, I don't blame them for their disbelief. But they were still supportive; they were willing to listen and support and provide linkages to their entrepreneur databases. Now, after a series of relentless activities and programs with the start up space, we have made a dent in the ecosystem. Since my last conversation with this committee, IBM have launched 3 IBM Smart Camps in this region, had a track in last year's Global Entrepreneur Summit (GES) in KLCC, made many collaborations with MDeC, MTDC, MaGIC, TeAM, startupmalaysia.org, Cradle, Angels Den , CREST, etc, I think we had a believer. In fact, in 2013, a Malaysia startup called TMC Sistem Sdn Bhd went to the finals in Silicon Valley with their solution that detect soil movement to prevent landslide. During this journey, they were featured in Fast Company, a premier startup magazine/website and more importantly, they had a call from a mining company in South Africa who are interested in how their solution can help safety in mining industry. On top of that, when they speak in one of our Malaysia events, they were also contacted by one of the government-linked agency to do a proposal of their solution. These type of opportunities can only be possible through IBM and we helped entrepreneur open doors to our enterprise clients. And this year, Ginni announced that IBM strategy moving forward is around Cloud, Data and System of Engagements. With the acquisition of SoftLayer last year and the launch of IBM Bluemix, it is an exciting days for entrepreneurs and startups indeed. And yesterday, we made another announcement. I will let this blurb said it all: "our new program dedicated to the growth and success of startups. The IBM Global Entrepreneur Program for Cloud Startups has the resources startups need, including free software, exposure to a worldwide technical community, and more. Please take a moment to check out this infographic to learn more about this program and how you can take part.
So I have been thinking. In the past one year, there's so many exciting things that IBM has announced. There's Softlayer acquisition (sure, more than one year, but bear with me). There's IBM Bluemix. There's partnership with Apple which I mentioned a couple of post back. We recently announced a partnership with Microsoft to support .Net runtime and MS SQL database in Bluemix. We also just launched Watson in Bluemix. We shed some baggages (System x sale to Lenovo and now the semi conductor sale). We created a partnership with SAP on making SAP Hana available on IBM cloud. And yesterday, the partnership with Twitter. All these in a year and a half! It's gonna be really exciting to see where this is going. Very, very exciting. As an employee, my mind is blown! Especially for someone who spent 18 years here. This is a very fast moving, super duper pace that is normally not associated with IBM. We are indeed charting a new course and is moving towards a new ERA at bullet train speed! I can't wait to see how the future unfolds!
What are we announcing? IBM and Twitter are announcing a strategic partnership to bring together the unique insights from Twitter’s engaged network of individuals with IBM’s Big Data & Analytics capabilities, consulting expertise and deep enterprise relationships around the world.
What IBM products will work with Twitter data? Twitter data will be available through Watson Analytics and IBM Social Media Analytics (SaaS), as well as through services in IBM Bluemix platform-as-a-service, and in the Watson Developer Cloud.
So, you have all read about IBM's Q3 result. There were many criticism and naysayers condemning the start of the fall of a great American icon. As our CEO, Ginni, said in her employee broadcast right after the result was out (not an exact quote): "make no mistake, we are a profitable business. Some $6B in net profit as well as lots of money in the bank" - so, don't believe what you read, really.
The Elephant Can Dance, Again! This is a company that continue to reinvent itself. It has been proven again and again, look at our past history. Who would have thought that the cool kid on the block (Apple) would even wanna play with the 'supposedly' old geezer? But they do! And the future of the partnership is very exciting for both parties. That means we are not that old.
I work in IBM. This is my 18 year in the company. It's my first job. I spent my whole life here. I have seen this 100 year old company gone through many transformation to be relevant and essential to the market and to our customers.
I decided to start this blog to share about my company, IBM.
My colleague called it the 100 year old startup because that is how we are now. Recent news have seen the company partnering with Apple, selling the intel servers line to Lenovo as well as selling off the microprocessor manufacturing plant to Global Foundries. And, many people also know that IBM is now focusing on software and services - we have solutions in cloud, analytics, mobile (yes, we do have a mobile solution for enterprise), security and social. We are the 100 year old startup, always reinventing and always innovating to make the world a better place.
Hopefully you will find interesting stuff about IBM here and we can discuss more about it in the comment section.
