Paris, France - 25 févr. 2014: Dans le cadre de Pulse, sa première conférence Cloud à Las Vegas, IBM annonce aujourd’hui un nouvel environnement de développement et des « Capacités as a Service » visant à aider les clients et les développeurs à adopter plus rapidement les Clouds « hybrides ». Dans le cadre de cette initiative, IBM a investi plus d’1 milliard de dollars en logiciels de développement Cloud et lance de nouvelles capacités disponibles sur Softlayer. 

IBM annonce 3 nouveautés en termes de capacités Cloud : 
 
1. IBM étend son large portefeuille de logiciels d’entreprise au Cloud et lance une nouvelle Plateforme as a Service ayant pour nom de code BlueMix™, qui associe la force des logiciels d’IBM et les technologies tiers et ouvertes. BlueMix met à disposition DevOps dans le Cloud, qui offre de formidables atouts pour planifier, développer, tester, déployer et gérer des applications dans le Cloud. Les services de DevOps aident les développeurs, les sociétés indépendantes et les équipes des grandes firmes à commencer à construire des applications d’entreprise plus rapidement et plus efficacement.
 
2. IBM porte son portefeuille middleware, tel que WebSphere, sur Softlayer à travers des « patterns » (modèles) logiciels pré-définis, permettant d'étendre les applications existantes au Cloud. Plus de 200 patterns d’application et de middleware sont disponibles auprès d’IBM ou de ses partenaires. Ils permettent la portabilité d’applications à travers un environnement Cloud hybride, offrant ainsi la flexibilité pour déployer les applications et le middleware sur site ou hors site, simplifiant ainsi le management IT hybride.
 
3. IBM continue à investir dans le Cloud et à développer ses services disponibles sur Softlayer : 
 
IBM porte ses services de management sur le Cloud à travers IBM Systems Management as a Service. En quelques clics, les professionnels de l’IT peuvent essayer et acheter des services de management en mode SaaS et ainsi optimiser leur façon de gérer les différentes workloads, à la fois dans le Cloud et sur site, ainsi que des objets connectés et des applications d’entreprise à travers n’importe quelle organisation donnée. Cette nouvelle offre est disponible à la fois en mode « as a Service » hébergée sur IBM Softlayer ou sous forme de logiciel installé sur site, offrant ainsi aux clients le choix et la flexibilité en termes de déploiement et de gestion. 
 
SoftLayer intègre IBM Power Systems dans son infrastructure Cloud pour tirer parti de ses avantages en termes d'optimisation des performances des données et de leur analyse. Les premières offres qui bénéficieront de Power Systems comprennent : 
-          Des solutions Watson : Watson Discovery Advisor, Watson Engagement Advisor et The Watson Development Cloud
-          Software as a Service qui comprendra un large éventail de services de données optimisés sur Power Systems, y compris DB2 BLU d'IBM et IBM Cognos
-          Infrastructure as a Service : des "bare metal" Power Systems seront offerts aux clients recherchant une plateforme d'infrastructure à la demande
 
IBM lance également IBM Wave pour z/VM, un outil de gestion de la virtualisation (avec l'automatisation, la visualisation intelligente, le contrôle simplifié et une administration unifiée) pour gérer l'hyperviseur IBM z/VM et des serveurs virtuels Linux sur System z. Il rend plus aisés les premiers déploiements de Clouds privés. Des tests internes ont démontré qu'il réduit le temps nécessaire pour effectuer des tâches courantes et administratives de plus de 50%. Avec 78 des 100 principaux clients System z sous Linux, cette capacité sera de plus en plus critique pour les clients d'IBM. En tant que composant d’IBM Enterprise Linux Server, IBM Wave permet aux nouveaux clients comme le MSP français Oceanet Technology de profiter plus aisément des qualités de service du mainframe.
 
Oceanet Technology (Groupe OT), entreprise française spécialisée dans le pilotage d’infrastructures Cloud et télécommunication, a fait récemment l’acquisition d’un mainframe IBM Enterprise Linux Server (ELS). Ceci permet à l’entreprise de poursuivre sa dynamique d’innovation en proposant à ses clients une solution Cloud s’appuyant sur le serveur le plus fiable et le plus sécurisé au monde. Premier MSP (fournisseur de services managés) à mettre en place ce type d’offre en Europe, Oceanet Technology permet ainsi à ses clients de faire d’importantes économies en virtualisant des bases de données Oracle et en disposant de serveurs Linux à très haute disponibilité et très haute fiabilité. 
 
« Aujourd’hui, Internet a besoin de la fiabilité du mainframe, notre projet est donc de proposer à nos clients une très haute disponibilité en mode Cloud basée sur cette plateforme» a déclaré Pierre Voillet, Dirigeant Associé d’Oceanet Technology. « Grâce à ce type de solution, nos clients bénéficient d’une grande souplesse d’utilisation tout en réduisant leurs coûts de production. »
 
IBM renforce également son leadership dans le Cloud ouvert (open Cloud) en travaillant avec des organisations spécialisées dans les technologies ouvertes telles que jQuery, Cloud Foundry, TOSCA ou encore OpenStack dont le principal objectif est de simplifier et d’accélérer le développement d’applications dans le Cloud.
 
A propos du Cloud d’IBM : http://www.ibm.com/cloud-computing/fr/fr/index.html
 
A propos d’Oceanet Technology : 
Créée en 1996, Oceanet Technology (Groupe OT) est spécialisée dans le pilotage d’infrastructures Cloud et télécommunication. L’entreprise implantée près de Nantes propose à ses clients une gamme de 8 centres d’hébergement : trois à Nantes (44), un à La Chapelle-sur-Erdre (44), un à Olonne S/Mer (85), un à Paris et deux en Suisse à Genève. 
 
 
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IBM Invests $1B to Deliver Unique Platform-as-a-Service Capabilities to Connect Enterprise Data and Applications to the Cloud
 
Delivers Enterprise Software Capabilities - Integration, Security, Analytics, Commerce to Accelerate New Era of Hybrid Clouds
 
ARMONK, N.Y. and LAS VEGAS - 25 Feb 2014: IBM (NYSE: IBM) today announced a unique new development environment and capabilities-as-a-service to help clients and developers speed the adoption of "hybrid" clouds, which have the potential to usher in a new era of innovation across the enterprise. As part of its initiative, IBM has invested more than $1 billion for software cloud development and is launching new capabilities running on SoftLayer.
 
With today’s news, IBM is addressing three fundamental issues to help speed the adoption of hybrid clouds.
 
1) Enabling enterprise developers for the cloud: According to Evans Data, there are more than 18 million software developers worldwide yet less than 25 percent are developing for the cloud today [1]. As the industry moves to the cloud era, millions of developers are looking to access tools and services that will enable them to leverage this fast-emerging opportunity. 
 
2) Integrating across enterprise environments: Enterprises are looking to innovate and drive significant value in a new era of hybrid clouds, which link systems of engagement -- built on mobile and social technologies and where consumers are engaging with organizations -- with systems of record where data and transactions are processed. 
 
3) An open ecosystem and platform for development that accelerates innovation and fosters growth: Developers are looking for a dynamic application development environment to support the cloud era. A new development platform should be open and flexible and make it easier for corporate developers and independent companies alike to create applications and connect them to existing computing systems. 
 
In response to these market dynamics, today IBM is announcing three new sets of cloud capabilities:
 
1) IBM is opening its extensive enterprise software portfolio to the cloud and launching an open beta codenamed BlueMix™, a new platform-as-service (PaaS) that combines the strength of IBM software, third-party and open technologies. BlueMix provides DevOps in the cloud -- an open, integrated development experience that scales. DevOps services help developers, independent firms and enterprise teams get started to build enterprise applications more quickly and effectively. DevOps services enable developers to focus on continuously delivering new functions by learning from their users. Today, IBM also announced a definitive agreement to acquire Boston, MA-based Cloudant, Inc., a privately held database-as-a-service (DBaaS) provider that enables developers to easily and quickly create next generation mobile and web apps.  Cloudant will extend IBM's Big Data and Analytics, Cloud Computing and Mobile offerings and become an essential component of BlueMix. 
 
2) IBM is bringing its middleware portfolio, such as WebSphere, to SoftLayer through pre-defined software "patterns" to easily extend existing applications to the cloud. With more than 200 application and middleware patterns available from IBM and IBM Business Partners, the IBM Software Patterns are differentiated in that they enable application portability across a hybrid cloud environment, providing the flexibility to deploy applications and middleware on-premise or off-premise, simplifying hybrid IT management. 
 
3) IBM continues to invest in and expand the services running on SoftLayer, including DevOps to provide essential capabilities to plan, develop, test, deploy and monitor applications, and systems management as a service, extending its industry leading solutions to the Cloud. And IBM today announced that it is integrating its Power Systems into its SoftLayer cloud infrastructure to deliver a level and breadth of infrastructure services beyond what has traditionally been available over the cloud.   
 
“IBM is ushering in a bold new era of innovation by partnering with developers in an open environment to accelerate the emerging world of hybrid cloud computing,” said Robert LeBlanc, IBM Senior Vice President, Software and Cloud Solutions. “We are combining the strength of our developer ecosystem with the depth of subject matter expertise in domains such as mobile, Big Data and DevOps, to build a scalable model that easily spans from a single developer to global teams. Today's announcement is another significant move in extending true cloud integration -- not just to existing data and transaction services but to a new class of emerging applications.” 
 
IBM Launches Open Beta of Codename: BlueMix, Redefining Cloud Development  
This new application development environment delivers the speed and flexibility of a platform-as-a-service (PaaS) to allow developers to more quickly compose and build enterprise-grade applications for the cloud era by providing access to IBM’s vast software portfolio as composable services. 
 
This PaaS/services combination, built on open standards and taking advantage of Cloud Foundry, enables developers to avoid vendor lock-in while leveraging their existing application development assets and skills, which is essential for building hybrid clouds. IBM is providing developers an open, flexible cloud environment connecting the enterprise and born-on-the-web developers using their choice of tools, whether IBM, third-party, or open technologies, in a scalable environment. 
 
Building on more than 20 years of commitment and leadership in driving open standards, IBM also announced it will serve as a founding member of the Cloud Foundry Foundation. The goal of this foundation is to create and develop open source platform-as-a-service ecosystems.  
 
As part of BlueMix, IBM is building a lineup of developer services focused on mobile, web apps, integration, DevOps and data management. In addition, IBM is continuing to make available to developers its suites of business applications (SaaS) as composable API-based services, such as Watson, commerce, security, analytics, marketing and others. As an example, using BlueMix, developers can leverage middleware services to build a new sales app that can provide retail associates with access to inventory management information from systems of record at the time of customer engagement.   
 
BlueMix DevOps services provide an integrated experience to help developers accelerate time to market and improve quality. DevOps includes services to store and manage code (using the popular Git repository), a built-in Web integrated development environment (IDE), and Eclipse and Visual Studio integrations to let developers use whichever environment they prefer.  DevOps Services enable agile planning and tracking to share work and collaborate across team members, as well as application deployment automation to streamline the delivery of new function, mobile quality, and performance monitoring to help learn and iterate more quickly. By integrating across the software delivery lifecycle, DevOps services help developers move faster from an idea to an application that meets users’ needs.
 
In the automotive industry connected vehicles will rely on a strong IT structure and the cloud has become increasingly important in this area. The international automotive supplier Continental is using the BlueMix platform to offer cloud-based connected solutions that will pave the way for Automated Driving.  
 
"The investment in IBM BlueMix addresses a much needed gap for Continental that allows us to move more quickly through the cloud in the development of our connected solutions. The automobile industry is following the same trajectory as other devices becoming connected and we see great opportunity for exciting connected features that will transform the future of mobility using the BlueMix platform to create value for motorists and make driving safer, more comfortable and efficient." said Brian Droessler, Vice President, Software and Connected Solutions, Continental Automotive Systems.  
 
IBM Brings Its Middleware to SoftLayer with IBM Software Patterns
IBM is bringing its extensive middleware portfolio to SoftLayer with IBM Software Patterns. Organizations can maximize existing application investments using these pre-defined patterns that are created to capture the many steps for deploying and managing an application.  
 
IBM Software Patterns are portable between on-premise and off-premise environments, providing the flexibility to deploy applications and middleware to meet dynamic business requirements. Available through the PureApplication Service on SoftLayer beta, IBM Software Patterns open up new possibilities to simplify common IT processes such as DevOps. IT teams can quickly create off-premise environments in the cloud to complete tasks such as application testing and quality assurance, then transfer the applications back to an on-premise production environment. Additionally developers can create their own patterns – writing them once and deploying them on-premise or off-premise – using IBM tools and services, or select from more than 200 Software Patterns provided by IBM and IBM Business Partners ranging from traditional ERP/CRM and Business Intelligence to Web and mobile applications. 
 
For example, independent software vendor (ISV) Exigen Insurance Solutions has created an application pattern for its insurance industry solution using the IBM Web Application middleware pattern.  With the PureApplication Service on SoftLayer, Exigen can now address new market segments offering clients the option to develop and run Exigen core systems across a hybrid cloud environment making it easier for clients to optimize total costs.  
 
Additional Services Running on SoftLayer  
IBM is making SoftLayer the foundation of its cloud portfolio.  Building on the company’s recent $1.2 billion investment to expand SoftLayer’s global footprint with new data centers worldwide, IBM is announcing additional new cloud services on SoftLayer.  
 
IBM Systems Management as a Service – IBM is addressing the critical needs of IT operations by extending its industry leading service management solutions to the Cloud. Built on decades of experience in managing some of the most scalable IT systems in the world, IBM is introducing a comprehensive set of IT management solutions. With just a few clicks, IT practitioners can try and buy systems management as-a-service solutions providing instant insights and value. With these new solutions, IBM provides IT practitioners with the ability to optimize how they manage mixed workloads -- both cloud and on-prem -- along with connected devices and business applications across any given organization. The new offerings are available both as-a-service hosted on IBM SoftLayer and as on-premise installed software, providing clients with deployment and management choice and flexibility.
 
Power on SoftLayer – Beginning next quarter and continuing over time, SoftLayer's first service built on Power Systems will be IBM Watson solutions, followed by additional offerings leveraging Power Systems' advantages of optimization for data and analytics performance. The preliminary set of planned offerings includes:
- Watson solutions  -- includes Watson Discovery Advisor, Watson Engagement Advisor and The Watson Development Cloud, a platform as a service that contains the technology, tools, SDKs and APIs that enable third parties to design, develop and deploy cognitive applications.
- Software as a Service -- includes a wide range of data services optimized on Power Systems including IBM DB2 BLU and IBM Cognos analytics solutions.
- Infrastructure as a Service -- bare metal Power Systems will be offered to clients as an on-demand infrastructure platform.
 
IBM Platform Computing Cloud Service on SoftLayer – IBM also announced Platform LSF and Platform Symphony software delivered as a service for technical computing and analytics workloads running on SoftLayer. 
 
About IBM Cloud Computing
IBM has helped more than 30,000 clients around the world with 40,000 industry experts around cloud engagements. Today, IBM has 100+ cloud SaaS solutions, thousands of experts with deep industry knowledge helping clients transform and a network of 40 data centers worldwide.  Since 2007, IBM has invested more than $7 billion in 16 acquisitions to accelerate its cloud initiatives and build a high value cloud portfolio. IBM holds 1,560 cloud patents focused on driving innovation. In fact, IBM for the 21st consecutive year topped the annual list of US patent leaders. IBM processes more the 5.5M client transactions daily through IBM's public cloud. For more information about cloud offerings from IBM, visit http://www.ibm.com/cloud. Follow us on Twitter at @IBMcloud and on our blog at http://www.thoughtsoncloud.com. Join the conversation #ibmcloud. To learn more about today's news please read Smarter Planet blog.
 
[1] Source: Evans Data Developer Population and Demographics Study, 2013.
 
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IBM to Infuse Power Systems into SoftLayer, Bolstering Big Data in the Cloud
 
IBM Introduces New Services and Tools for Hybrid and Private Clouds
 
Las Vegas - 25 Feb 2014: IBM (NYSE: IBM) today announced that SoftLayer is integrating IBM Power Systems into their cloud infrastructure that is expected to deliver a level and breadth of services beyond what has traditionally been available over the cloud.  IBM also announced new services and tools that will help organizations deploy hybrid and private cloud environments. 
 
Taking advantage of IBM's Power Systems line of servers built for Big Data demands, SoftLayer can help clients seeking cutting-edge technologies and tools to help them better capture, understand and leverage increasing volumes of data. 
 
Additionally, the IBM Platform Computing Cloud Service will deliver a simplified management and a seamless user experience for hybrid cloud deployments 
 
Further bolstering the IBM cloud portfolio, IBM Wave for z/VM will provide rapid insight into an organization’s virtualized infrastructure with intelligent visualization, simplified monitoring and unified management. 
 
Power brings SoftLayer to Watson 
Last month IBM publicly committed $1.2 billion to expand IBM's global cloud footprint.  In particular, IBM plans to deliver cloud services from 40 data centers worldwide in 15 countries and five continents globally, including North America, South America, Europe, Asia and Australia.  
 
Beginning next quarter and continuing over time, SoftLayer's first service built on Power Systems will be IBM Watson solutions followed by additional offerings leveraging Power Systems' advantages of optimization for data and analytics performance. The preliminary set of planned offerings includes:  
 
· Watson solutions  -- includes Watson Discovery Advisor, Watson Engagement Advisor and The Watson Development Cloud, a platform as a service that contains the technology, tools, SDKs and APIs that enable third parties to design, develop and deploy cognitive applications;
· Software as a Service -- includes a wide range of data services optimized on Power Systems including IBM's DB2 BLU with Acceleration and IBM Cognos analytics solutions; and
· Infrastructure as a Service -- bare metal Power Systems will be offered to clients as an on-demand infrastructure platform. 
Today's news comes less than a year after IBM acquired SoftLayer.  Shortly after the acquisition was complete, the IBM Power Systems and SoftLayer development teams came together to rapidly design and test Power Systems optimized for the SoftLayer environment. 
 
"Once our development teams began testing Power Systems in the SoftLayer environment, Power's competitive advantage immediately became clear," said Lance Crosby, IBM SoftLayer CEO.  "The performance and efficiencies inherent in Power Systems are a real game-changer -- particularly when it comes to building out modern, adaptable cloud environments that can handle the next level of Big Data coming our way.  The combination of SoftLayer and Power Systems will allow us to take cloud computing to a new level, providing customers with services they hadn't thought were possible."  
 
Hybrid Clouds for Compute Intensive Environments 
The second element of today’s announcement is the new IBM Platform Computing Cloud Service, a ready-to-run cluster in the cloud – complete with workload management, SoftLayer infrastructure and the support of a dedicated cloud operations team. With IBM Platform Computing Cloud Service organizations can rapidly extend resources to physical, non-shared infrastructure in the SoftLayer cloud to quickly accommodate peaks in demand without being concerned about performance. 
 
Advances in high performance applications are enabling analysts, researchers, scientists and engineers to run more complex and detailed simulations and analyses in a bid to gather game-changing insights and deliver new products to market. This is placing greater demand on existing IT infrastructures, driving a need for instant access to resources – compute, storage, and network – as well as high performing workload and resource management. With IBM Platform Computing Cloud Service, organizations can access SoftLayer’s cloud resources on a temporary basis without the need to acquire, install and configure the infrastructure in-house. IBM Platform LSF or Platform Symphony software is provisioned on SoftLayer and the on-premise infrastructure, expanding capacity as needed by seamlessly bursting jobs from on-premise to secure off-premise resources. With on-demand access to additional resources, organizations are able to quickly adapt to changing business needs and get their products or research out of the door faster. 
 
IBM Platform Computing Cloud Service will be provide an end-to-end hybrid cloud environment to organizations running compute-intensive analytics and technical computing applications. With the acquisition of SoftLayer and Platform Computing, IBM offers clients the benefit of providing both in one complete solution, with the addition of industry expertise to provide support.   
 
Virtual Clouds for the Mainframe 
IBM is also introducing IBM Wave for z/VM, a virtualization management tool for managing IBM z/VM and Linux virtual servers, which makes first-time private cloud deployments easier. IBM acquired the technology with the purchase of Israeli-based virtualization company CSL International. IBM Wave makes tasks in Linux on System z environments easier with automation, intelligent visualization, simplified monitoring and unified management. 
 
IBM Wave can help improve productivity and operational efficiency of managing complex server environments. It offers policy-based virtual server provisioning and scaling to handle the most complex installations. Internal tests conducted with IBM Wave demonstrated that it reduced time needed to conduct common and administrative tasks by more than 50 percent. 
 
The amount of complexity involved in technical computing and analytics today requires the right mix of computing models that can seamlessly meet unique business needs while improving the efficiency and ensuring service continuity and reliability. IBM Wave can help organizations transition effortlessly to a private cloud environment by simplifying and automating the administration and operations of z/VM and Linux virtual servers. 
 
As a component of the IBM Enterprise Linux Server, IBM Wave will also make it easier for new clients to take advantage of mainframe qualities of service. With 78 of the top 100 System z Customers running Linux on the mainframe [1], this ability will become increasingly critical for IBM clients. 
 
IBM Systems and Technology Group offers a full range of offerings supporting public, private and hybrid cloud implementations that integrate with IBM's cloud software and services. The portfolio includes IBM System x racks and BladeCenter, NeXtScale, PureFlex, Power Systems, System z servers, and IBM Storage solutions. 
 
For more information on IBM cloud computing, go to http://www.ibm.com/cloud. 
For more information on IBM Power Systems, go to http://www.ibm.com/power.
 
[1] Statistic based on client implementations as of 4Q 2013
[2] Statements regarding future direction and intent are subject to change or withdrawal without notice.  
IBM, the IBM logo, ibm.com, System z, SoftLayer, Smarter Planet and the planet icon are trademarks of International Business Machines Corporation, registered in many jurisdictions worldwide. Other product and service names might be trademarks of IBM or other companies. For a current list of IBM trademarks, please see www.ibm.com/legal/copytrade.shtml 

All other company, product or service names may be trademarks or registered trademarks of others. Statements concerning IBM's future development plans and schedules are made for planning purposes only, and are subject to change or withdrawal without notice. Reseller prices may vary.
 
 
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IBM Drives Cloud Adoption Through Ecosystem, Open Support
 
Support of jQuery, Cloud Foundry, TOSCA reinforces IBM’s open cloud leadership and provides its cloud community with greater resources to accelerate cloud growth
 
LAS VEGAS, NEV. - 25 Feb 2014: IBM (NYSE: IBM) today announced that it is accelerating the adoption of cloud computing through growth in the ecosystem that includes working with key open technology organizations that are focused on simplifying and speeding application deployment on the cloud. 
 
Specifically, IBM was just named as a founding member of jQuery, home to a JavaScript community committed simplifying coding tasks.  By joining the jQuery Foundation, IBM continues an ongoing commitment to contribute to open technology efforts critical to today's leading open cloud architectures. jQuery simplifies how the industry builds web applications. IBM uses jQuery broadly across its portfolio, including its popular IBM MobileFirst platform for Enterprise Mobile Solutions.  
 
In addition, IBM will join Pivotal and a number of other companies to establish the Cloud Foundry to help drive global collaboration with developers and cloud computing technologists. In doing so, they will seek to produce a ubiquitous Platform-as-a-Service open source cloud computing platform for public and private clouds. IBM will also be a platinum-level sponsor for Cloud Foundry and will become a member of its board of directors, taking an active role in developing and promoting the Cloud Foundry project.  
 
“Independent foundations like Cloud Foundry and jQuery are important steps toward building an industry-wide open cloud architecture and simplify how Web-based applications are built and deployed,” said Dr. Angel Diaz, IBM's Vice President Open Technology and Cloud Performance Solutions. “To support this, IBM will join these foundations and take an active role in developing and promoting both communities.” 
 
Additionally, IBM continues to drive industry adoption of the OASIS Topology & Orchestration Specification for Cloud Applications (TOSCA) standard to address the demand for portability of workloads. TOSCA, co-chaired by IBM, is now gaining traction within the growing OpenStack HOT project. As the community explores alignment with TOSCA, they will demonstrate how cloud applications can be modeled, shared, deployed and managed, seamlessly, amongst products and cloud platforms, from multiple vendors. 
 
IBM has also worked with Mirantis, pure-play OpenStack vendor, to demonstrate that SoftLayer® is an excellent platform to build scalable, available and reliable OpenStack clouds for enterprises, partners and developers. Through the benchmark, SoftLayer’s bare-metal infrastructure is a proven platform to run OpenStack at massive scale. 
 
IBM’s ongoing support of OpenStack as a founding and platinum sponsor and now Cloud Foundry, jQuery and TOSCA builds the company’s legacy of supporting open standards and open source initiatives to provide value to clients and create a stronger ecosystem to fuel innovation and drive success.  
 
To foster adoption for the cloud and other industry initiatives that IBM believes will speed growth, IBM's Ecosystem Development business unit (formerly known as IDR) works with a robust group of Business Partners, academics, entrepreneurs, and IT professionals to help them become “best of breed” on IBM platforms. 
 
The ecosystem, now more than ever, is playing an important role in IBM's strategy and ability to drive client success. IBM clients today are demanding a more simplified approach to sophisticated technologies, including cloud, in an effort to address complex challenges in a range of industries from healthcare to retail. 
 
By strengthening the ecosystem, IBM is encouraging collaboration with the breadth and depth designed to deliver skills and technologies to help bring innovative solutions to some of business and society’s great challenges. 
 
In fact, IBM continues to grow the ecosystem and is positioned to help business partners transform with Cloud by coordinating talent, acquisitions & R&D to build a comprehensive Cloud portfolio. 
 
IBM Business Partners and ecosystem participants who have benefited and can benefit from cloud include:
100+ referring and selling partners for IBM SaaS portfolio
Startups: 2000+ Members w/ Cloud Offerings
Commercial Developers: 1250+ Cloud Solution ISVs; 1.6M Cloud developerWorks Profiles
Individual Developers: 4800+ Cloud Communities on developerWorks
Born on Cloud Partners: 1000+ Cloud based MSPs
Business Partners: 1000+ Value-added Reseller and Distributors with an IBM Cloud mark
Influencers: 200+ Champions on Cloud and related areas: Mobile, Social, Big Data
Academia: 100 Universities, 200 Faculty, 2000+ Students in 20 Countries on Cloud 
 
The ecosystem will also benefit from a number of recent moves IBM has made to enhance its cloud initiatives. This includes the company’s $1.2 billion investment to expand its global cloud offerings. Now the ecosystem will have greater access to IBM cloud resources via a network of cloud centers that are designed to bring clients greater flexibility, transparency and control over how they manage their data, run their businesses and deploy their IT operations locally in the cloud.  
 
IBM’s acquisition of SoftLayer last year also accelerates the adoption of cloud and provides a faster and simpler “on ramp" for cloud for "born on the Web" businesses to adopt cloud services in a secure and open environment. 
 
About IBM Cloud Computing
IBM is the global leader in cloud with an unmatched portfolio of open cloud solutions that help clients to think, build or tap into it.   No other company has the ability to bring together unique industry knowledge and unmatched cloud capabilities, that have already helped more than 30,000 clients around the world with 40,000 industry experts. Today, IBM has 100+ cloud SaaS solutions, thousands of experts with deep industry knowledge helping clients transform and a network of 40 data centers worldwide.  Since 2007, IBM has invested more than $7 billion in 16 acquisitions to accelerate its cloud initiatives and build a high value cloud portfolio. IBM holds 1,560 cloud patents focused on driving innovation. In fact, IBM for the 21st consecutive year topped the annual list of US patent leaders. IBM processes more the 5.5M client transactions daily through IBM's public cloud.  IBM expects to achieve $7 billion in annual cloud revenue by 2015. For more information about cloud offerings from IBM, visit http://www.ibm.com/cloud. Follow us on Twitter at @IBMcloud and on our blog at http://www.thoughtsoncloud.com.  Join the conversation #ibmcloud. To learn more about today's news please read Smarter Planet blog.