2021 – Windy Haven Ltd

IBM and MuleSoft Announce Global Relationship to Help Accelerate Flexibility Across Public and Private Clouds

Joint customers will benefit from planned addition of MuleSoft’s API and integration deployment option on Red Hat OpenShift and IBM Z’s real-time integrations to drive innovation

SAN FRANCISCO and ARMONK, N.Y., December 9, 2021 – IBM and MuleSoft today announced a global relationship. MuleSoft plans to extend its Anypoint Runtime Fabric, a container service for multi-cloud and hybrid deployments, to run on Red Hat OpenShift, the industry’s leading enterprise Kubernetes platform. IBM and MuleSoft plan to deliver increased integrations and solutions around the IBM Z product family to support financial services and other mutual customers. In addition, IBM plans to significantly expand its overall investment in integration software and industry expertise, including increasing the number of MuleSoft-certified professionals in its consulting services organization.

According to the latest State of Salesforce report from IBM and Oxford Economics, nearly 30% of innovation activities and ecosystem, workforce, and customer engagement will be virtualized by 2023. The shift to digital-first customer and employee experiences has created more data from more systems than ever before – and delivering these connected digital experiences will require seamless integration of data, potentially across multiple siloed systems.

Empowering companies to deliver seamless digital experiences, faster

IBM and MuleSoft plan to make it easier to securely connect, compose, and automate business processes and modernize applications at scale:

In collaboration with Red Hat, MuleSoft will extend Anypoint Runtime Fabric to Red Hat OpenShift as a certified OpenShift application, unlocking increased flexibility for companies to deploy APIs, integrations, and automations across public and private clouds.
Today, 85 of the world’s top 100 banks run on IBM Z. MuleSoft supports IBM Z Digital Integration Hub, making it easier for joint financial services customers to integrate core business applications and share real-time, industry relevant information with MuleSoft.
- IBM Z Digital Integration Hub creates flexible, efficient real-time information flow between multiple systems of record on z/OS and cloud environments while also optimizing costs.
- MuleSoft complements IBM Z Digital Integration Hub by allowing customers to securely share current information stored in the Z Digital Integration Hub via reusable APIs and easily integrate it to external applications with clicks, not code. To provide even more options for clients, MuleSoft also provides a CICS connector via the IBM CICS Transaction Gateway.
- Together, IBM and MuleSoft plan to accelerate integration with core systems and faster development of hybrid cloud applications, as well as support for governance, risk and compliance requirements.
As a part of the IBM Z and Cloud Modernization Center, a digital front door to a vast array of tools, training, resources and ecosystem partners, MuleSoft will help joint customers accelerate the modernization of their applications, data and processes in an open hybrid cloud architecture.
As part of the commitment to its longstanding Salesforce practice, IBM Consulting is also significantly increasing the number of MuleSoft-certified professionals to support intelligent workflows, automation, and industry-focused use cases that accelerate digital transformation. IBM Consulting, a global Salesforce partner, harnesses the industry expertise of certified Salesforce and MuleSoft practitioners to help companies deliver key business outcomes and scale innovation faster.

Comments on the news:

Meir Amiel, chief product officer, MuleSoft: “The move to digitalization has accelerated, requiring companies to evolve and adapt to increasing customer needs and new technologies. With Anypoint Runtime Fabric, IT can be agile and flexible when change happens by easily deploying in any environment. MuleSoft is pleased to collaborate with IBM to help our joint customers securely integrate, automate, and manage their workflows across environments to respond to the needs of the market at scale.”

Bob Lord, senior vice president, IBM Worldwide Ecosystems: “As companies modernize their hybrid cloud strategy, they need the flexibility to run and manage their most critical workloads in any cloud environment or on premise. With this relationship and Red Hat OpenShift technologies, we’re further helping customers accelerate and automate their integrations with core systems which can lead to faster development of hybrid cloud applications.”

IBM Watson Health Introduces New Opportunities for Imaging AI Adoption

IBM Imaging AI Orchestrator and IBM Workflow Orchestrator with Watson Launching at RSNA 2021 Annual Meeting

Orchestration–of AI and of workflow–offers a new way to help imaging organizations improve radiologists’ reading experience while significantly reducing the impact on IT

CAMBRIDGE, Mass., Nov. 30, 2021 — IBM Watson Health is introducing a new AI orchestration offering to help imaging organizations experience the benefits of having AI applications work seamlessly together. IBM Watson Health will officially launch IBM Imaging AI Orchestrator at the Radiological Society of North America (RSNA) 2021 Annual Meeting in Chicago this week. In addition, IBM is announcing IBM Imaging Workflow Orchestrator with Watson, a new solution that modernizes the radiologist’s reading experience while reducing the demands on IT and imaging system administrators.

“We recognize that when it comes to applying AI in imaging, it’s hard to go it alone,” said David Gruen, MD, MBA, FACR, Chief Medical Officer, Imaging, Watson Health. “Because each AI application is developed in a unique way with a specific purpose, it can be challenging for organizations to review and assess each one, and then to deploy them in a way that’s beneficial to radiologists and their patients. That’s why, with the rapid proliferation of approved algorithms, staffing shortages, and complexity of disease, the IBM Imaging AI Orchestrator could not come at a better time.”

IBM Imaging AI Orchestrator is a cloud-based AI service that provides imaging organizations with scalable access to regulatory-cleared AI applications from leading AI solution providers that have been vetted to meet strict data security and privacy standards. It is designed to help radiologists control their access to AI insights within the context of reading workflow. It indicates the status of AI processing in the worklist and returns consolidated results from AI applications directly into the PACS. IT departments benefit by outsourcing the management of multiple applications from diverse suppliers to IBM. At launch, AI applications from several partners have been validated for interoperability with AI Orchestrator and are available today from IBM.

In addition to the availability through the Watson Health Imaging solutions, Life Image has also chosen to offer IBM Watson Health’s AI Orchestrator to their hospital and health system clients. Life Image, the world’s largest medical evidence network providing access to points of care and curated clinical and imaging data, has created a digital platform using industry-leading interoperability standards to connect 13,000 facilities with more than 160,000 U.S. providers and 58,000 global clinics.

“Working together with IBM Watson Health, Life Image will promote universal, enterprise-wide access to imaging AI results and imaging data,” said Matthew A. Michela, President and CEO of Life Image. “We are excited about this collaboration and the opportunity to advance interoperability and the potential to improve outcomes for providers, patients, and the healthcare system at large.”

To further support radiology practices, there is an opportunity to update and improve the clinician’s experience while streamlining workflows. IBM Imaging Workflow Orchestrator with Watson is a workflow solution that consolidates studies, patient data, and AI results into one insightful and modern interface to give physicians a head start in their reading activities. Built to support advanced hybrid environments, this cloud-native SaaS helps IT leaders to optimize the flow of studies, linking imaging data and tools that run on-premises and in the cloud, making them available to reading experts anywhere in the enterprise.

“These innovative offerings are designed to provide health systems and radiology practices with a smarter way to adopt AI for diagnostic imaging and to improve the reading experience. For health systems, they can help to deliver quality patient care. By supporting physicians and specialists to be more productive by using AI augmented tools, patients have more confidence. For radiology practices, orchestrating AI and workflows can expand their capacity to provide imaging services at a pace to meet today’s growing healthcare demands,” said Alok Gupta, Vice President and General Manager of IBM Watson Health Imaging at IBM.

“We are constantly striving to introduce cutting-edge technologies into our imaging environment to support our radiologists’ productivity and their confidence in diagnostic accuracy,” said Randy Hicks, MD, MBA, CEO at Regional Medical Imaging, Grand Blanc, Michigan. “For the future, AI orchestration sets a strategic foundation to allow us to scale up to using additional AI applications with the peace of mind that the applications are vetted for privacy and security and will lower the burden on our IT staff.”

IBM and Yonsei University Unveil Collaboration to Bring IBM Quantum System One to Korea

• Korea set to become the fourth country to have a co-located IBM Quantum System One

• The Yonsei – IBM Quantum Collaboration aims to grow the quantum workforce and foster economic opportunities in Korea, a critical step for building a quantum industry

SEOUL, November 16, 2021 — Today at the IBM Quantum Summit, IBM and Yonsei University announced that Korea is expected to become the fourth country in the world to have an on-premises IBM Quantum System One after the United States, Germany, and Japan.

Expected to be deployed at the Songdo International Campus, this milestone ushers in a new era of quantum workforce development in Korea, which is also driven by the Korea Ministry of Science and ICT to foster about 1,000 researchers and scientists by 2030 . According to the IBM Institute for Business Value’s “The Quantum Decade” report, “only about 3,000 skilled quantum workers exist today, and that base needs to be doubled or quadrupled.”

As part of the planned collaboration, Yonsei intends to work with IBM to advance quantum computing and grow the pool of quantum talent, with a goal to make quantum computing practical for the benefit of industry, science and society. IBM and Yonsei University plan to bring together industry, academic, and research institutions in Korea, establishing a local ecosystem to focus on strategically significant research and development activities, and fostering economic opportunities in Korea.

As part of this effort, a high priority will be placed on building quantum programming, application and technology development skills and expertise. This next-generation national quantum competency will follow Korea’s already established model in building previous competencies in the semiconductor, electronics, and automobile technology areas.

“IBM brings decades of research to advance quantum computing across three key areas: hardware, software and ecosystem development. We are committed to the growth of the global quantum ecosystem and fostering collaboration between research communities,” said Jay Gambetta, IBM Fellow and VP of Quantum Computing. “IBM is pleased to partner with Yonsei University in Korea to advance the local quantum workforce and we look forward to working closely with the University’s team and broader ecosystem.”

The announcement is also aligned with the initiative of the Korean Government to develop and grow national competency in quantum technology. The Korea Ministry of Science and ICT announced “The investment strategy on research and development of quantum technology” this year to increase investment in establishing foundation of quantum study, fostering talent and expanding global collaboration as well as promoting industry innovation based on quantum technology.

Yonsei University joins more than 170 members of the IBM Quantum Network, a global community of ‎Fortune 500 companies, start-ups, academic institutions and research labs working to advance ‎quantum computing and explore practical applications. In Korea, Yonsei will be the second Hub in the region, in addition to the first Hub at Sungkyunkwan University. Samsung Advanced Institute of Technology and Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST), among others, are also working with IBM Quantum to establish an important foundation for securing national competitiveness in quantum computing.

Seoung Hwan Suh, President of Yonsei University, said, “I believe that quantum computing is the next generation technology that can bring a breakthrough to the high-tech material and bio technology industries. IBM is truly the world leader with hardware and software technology, development roadmaps and clear vision for quantum computing. Yonsei University, which has the largest medical network and research manpower in Korea, expects to be able to create synergy in research and education based on quantum computing through collaboration with IBM. We look forward to partners joining us to help establish Yonsei University as Korea’s quantum computing hub.”

Sung Shik Won, GM of IBM Korea, continued, “IBM believes that building a global ecosystem and open adoption for quantum computing is key to advancing development and application of quantum computing in science and business. Korea already has outstanding capabilities across various industries and research fields – from bio technology and medical to manufacturing and financial services. This cooperation between IBM and Yonsei University to establish a Quantum computing ecosystem will only serve to further strengthen the country’s capabilities.”

The IBM Quantum System One at Yonsei is expected to be online in 2023.

Statements regarding IBM’s future direction and intent are subject to change or withdrawal without notice and represent goals and objectives only.

About IBM Quantum
IBM Quantum is an industry-first initiative to build universal quantum systems for business and science applications. For more information about IBM’s quantum computing efforts, please visit www.ibm.com/quantum-computing/

IBM Completes the Separation of Kyndryl

ARMONK, N.Y., November 3, 2021 – IBM (NYSE: IBM) announced today that it has completed the separation of its managed infrastructure services business to Kyndryl. Starting on November 4, 2021, Kyndryl will begin “regular way” trading on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol “KD.”

Each holder of IBM common stock will receive one share of Kyndryl common stock for every five shares of IBM common stock held on October 25, 2021, the record date for the distribution. For United States federal income tax purposes, the distribution has been conducted in a tax-efficient manner for IBM stockholders in the United States.

“The separation of Kyndryl is one of many actions we are taking to sharpen our focus on hybrid cloud and AI, leverage a portfolio clearly focused on technology and consulting, and achieve our growth objectives,” said Arvind Krishna, IBM chairman and chief executive officer. “We look forward to our partnership with Kyndryl as it moves forward as an independent company.”

As previously stated, IBM is retaining 19.9 percent of the shares of Kyndryl common stock, with the intention of exchanging those shares for IBM debt during the 12-month period following the distribution, subject to market considerations.

Forward-Looking and Cautionary Statements

Except for the historical information and discussions contained herein, statements contained in this release may constitute forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Forward-looking statements are based on the company’s current assumptions regarding future business and financial performance. These statements involve a number of risks, uncertainties and other factors that could cause actual results to differ materially, including, but not limited to, the following: a downturn in economic environment and client spending budgets; a failure of the company’s innovation initiatives; damage to the company’s reputation; risks from investing in growth opportunities; failure of the company’s intellectual property portfolio to prevent competitive offerings and the failure of the company to obtain necessary licenses; the possibility that the proposed separation of the managed infrastructure services unit of the company’s Global Technology Services segment will not be completed within the anticipated time period or at all, the possibility of disruption or unanticipated costs in connection with the proposed separation or the possibility that the separation will not achieve its intended benefits; the company’s ability to successfully manage acquisitions, alliances and dispositions, including integration challenges, failure to achieve objectives, the assumption of liabilities, and higher debt levels; fluctuations in financial results; impact of local legal, economic, political, health and other conditions; the company’s failure to meet growth and productivity objectives; ineffective internal controls; the company’s use of accounting estimates; impairment of the company’s goodwill or amortizable intangible assets; the company’s ability to attract and retain key employees and its reliance on critical skills; impacts of relationships with critical suppliers; product quality issues; impacts of business with government clients; reliance on third party distribution channels and ecosystems; cybersecurity and data privacy considerations; adverse effects from environmental matters, tax matters; legal proceedings and investigatory risks; the company’s pension plans; currency fluctuations and customer financing risks; impact of changes in market liquidity conditions and customer credit risk on receivables; risk factors related to IBM securities; and other risks, uncertainties and factors discussed in the company’s Form 10-Qs, Form 10-K and in the company’s other filings with the United States Securities and Exchange Commission or in materials incorporated therein by reference. Any forward-looking statement in this release speaks only as of the date on which it is made. Except as required by law, the company assumes no obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statements.

Fortune and IBM Watson Health Reveal Annual List of 50 Top-Performing U.S. Cardiovascular Hospitals

The Fortune/IBM Watson Health 50 Top Cardiovascular Hospitals winners demonstrate opportunities to potentially save thousands of additional lives and billions of dollars in costs

Cardiovascular caseloads drop due to pandemic, but hospitals continue to deliver quality care despite COVID-19 challenges

CAMBRIDGE, Mass., Nov. 16, 2021 — IBM Watson Health today announced its 2022 Fortune/IBM Watson Health 50 Top Cardiovascular Hospitals list, naming the top-performing U.S. hospitals for inpatient cardiovascular services. This year’s study included 951 U.S. hospitals with cardiovascular service lines. Based on comparisons between the study winners and a peer group of similar hospitals in the study, the winners delivered better outcomes while operating more efficiently and at a lower cost. The list of the top cardiovascular hospitals was published by Fortune today.

Based on the methodology used by Watson Health, the study concludes that if all United States hospitals’ cardiovascular service lines performed at the level of these study winners, some 6,400 additional lives and roughly $1.4 billion could be saved, and 5,000 additional bypass and angioplasty patients could be complication-free.

Compared to similar cardiovascular hospitals, this year’s 50 Top Cardiovascular Hospitals winners had better results on indicators intended to measure clinical outcomes, operational efficiency, financial performance, and patient experience. The measures evaluate inpatient and 30-day mortality, patient complications, 30-day readmission, average length of stay, 30-day episode-of-care payment, and adjusted cost per case, for acute myocardial infarction (AMI), coronary artery bypass graft (CABG), percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) and heart failure (HF) patients.

The study data also showed that there was an overall 13.5 percent decline in the volume of patients treated for these cardiovascular conditions from 2019 to 2020. This decline was most likely related to the COVID-19 pandemic that resulted in many patients delaying or avoiding care and hospitals focusing on treating only patients with urgent needs. For the heart patients who were treated, the outcomes were similar to previous years, indicating that quality of care was stable in the observed hospitals despite the pandemic.

New to the study this year is the inclusion of a patient experience measure based on the Hospital Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems (HCAHPS) survey as reported in the CMS Hospital Compare data set. Patient perception of care – or the patient “experience” – is crucial to the balanced scorecard concept and has a direct effect on a hospital’s ability to remain competitive in the market. As with other measures, winning hospitals outperformed their peers in the HCAHPS measure in all comparison groups.

Fortune/IBM Watson Health 50 Top Cardiovascular Hospitals List (by category)
* Hospitals are listed in alphabetical order. The order of hospitals reflected below is not to be construed as any indication of performance or recommendation.

Teaching hospitals with cardiovascular residency programs*
Ascension Borgess Hospital (Kalamazoo, MI)
Atrium Health Carolinas Medical Center (Charlotte, NC)
Baylor Scott & White Medical Center – Temple (Temple, TX)
Baylor Scott & White The Heart Hospital – Plano (Plano, TX)
Baylor University Medical Center (Dallas, TX)
Froedert Hospital (Milwaukee, WI)
Intermountain Medical Center (Murray, UT)
Kettering Medical Center (Kettering, OH)
Mayo Clinic Florida (Jacksonville, FL)
Mayo Clinic Rochester (Rochester, MN)
Mercy Medical Center (Cedar Rapids, IA)
Northwestern Medicine Central DuPage Hospital (Winfield, IL)
Northwestern Memorial Hospital (Chicago, IL)
Penn Presbyterian Medical Center (Philadelphia, PA)
Piedmont Atlanta Hospital (Atlanta, GA)
Riverside Methodist Hospital (Columbus, OH)
St. Luke’s University Hospital – Bethlehem (Bethlehem, PA)
Summa Health System – Akron Campus (Akron, OH)
UNC REX Hospital (Raleigh, NC)
University Hospital (Madison, WI)

Teaching hospitals without cardiovascular residency programs*
Ascension Sacred Heart Hospital Pensacola (Pensacola, FL)
Aspirus Wausau Hospital (Wausau, WI)
Atrium Health Pineville (Charlotte, NC)
Baton Rouge General – Bluebonnet (Baton Rouge, LA)
Baylor Scott & White Medical Center – Hillcrest (Waco, TX)
Beaumont Hospital, Troy (Troy, MI)
Bronson Methodist Hospital (Kalamazoo, MI)
Chester County Hospital (West Chester, PA)
Chippenham Hospital (Richmond, VA)
Eisenhower Medical Center (Rancho Mirage, CA)
Missouri Baptist Medical Center (Saint Louis, MO)
Overland Park Regional Medical Center (Overland Park, KS)
Providence St. Patrick Hospital (Missoula, MT)
Redmond Regional Medical Center (Rome, GA)
Sarasota Memorial Hospital (Sarasota, FL)
St. Joseph Mercy Ann Arbor Hospital (Ypsilanti, MI)
St. Joseph’s Hospital (Tampa, FL)
The Medical Center of Aurora (Aurora, CO)
The Moses H. Cone Memorial Hospital (Greensboro, NC)
TriStar Centennial Medical Center (Nashville, TN)

Community hospitals*
Asante Rogue Regional Medical Center (Medford, OR)
Ascension St. Vincent Heart Center (Indianapolis, IN)
Bellin Hospital (Green Bay, WI)
Harlingen Medical Center (Harlingen, TX)
McLaren Northern Michigan (Petoskey, MI)
Oklahoma Heart Hospital North (Oklahoma City, OK)
Oklahoma Heart Hospital South (Oklahoma City, OK)
Parkwest Medical Center (Knoxville, TN)
Saint Mary’s Regional Medical Center (Reno, NV)
UnityPoint Health – Allen Hospital (Waterloo, IA)

The Watson Health 50 Top Cardiovascular Hospitals study is based on quantitative research that uses a balanced scorecard approach, based on publicly available data, to identify the top cardiovascular hospitals in the U.S. To determine the cardiovascular hospitals included on the Fortune/IBM Watson Health 50 Top Cardiovascular Hospitals list, IBM Watson Health researchers evaluated 951 short-term, acute care, non-federal U.S. hospitals that treat a broad spectrum of cardiology patients. It includes patients requiring medical management, as well as those who receive invasive or surgical procedures. Because multiple measures are used, a hospital must provide all forms of cardiovascular care, including open heart surgery, to be included in the study.

All research was based on the following public data sets: Medicare cost reports, Medicare Provider Analysis and Review (MEDPAR) data, and Hospital Compare data from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) Hospital Compare website. Hospitals do not apply for awards, and winners do not pay to market this honor.

IBM Study: C-Suite Executives Declare One-Vendor Approach to Cloud is Dead

Industry-related regulatory compliance is a significant obstacle for 64 percent of respondents, resulting in an uptick of specialized cloud adoption

Despite escalating cyber-attacks, a third of respondents do not have security as their top priority

ARMONK, N.Y., Oct. 28, 2021 — According to the results of IBM’s new global study on cloud transformation there has been a drastic shift in business needs as only three percent of respondents reported using a single private or public cloud in 2021, down from 29 percent in 2019 – establishing hybrid cloud as the dominant IT architecture.

The global study, conducted by IBM Institute for Business Value (IBV) in cooperation with Oxford Economics, surveyed almost 7,200 C-suite executives across 28 industries and 47 countries. The findings indicate that the cloud market has entered the hybrid, multicloud era and concerns around vendor lock-in, security, compliance and interoperability remain paramount. The study found:

Cyber threats are at an all-time high

Infrastructure complexity is creating cracked doors that cybercriminals are exploiting.
Yet, surprisingly more than a third of respondents did not indicate improving cybersecurity and reducing security risks are among their largest business and IT investments.
At the same time, 80 percent said data security being embedded throughout the cloud architecture is important or extremely important, in most cases, to successful digital initiatives.

Companies are denouncing vendor lock-in

Nearly 79 percent of respondents said workloads being completely portable with no vendor lock-in is important or extremely important to the success of their digital initiatives.
Nearly 69 percent of respondents said vendor lock-in is a significant obstacle to improving business performance in most or all parts of their cloud estate.

Public cloud adoption is evolving towards industry clouds

Nearly 70 percent of respondents in the government and financial services sectors cited industry-related regulatory compliance as an obstacle to the business performance of their cloud estate.

“In the beginning of their cloud journey, many companies dabbled with several different clouds that created complexity and disconnected piece parts, potentially opening them up to major security threats,” said Howard Boville, Head of IBM Cloud Platform. “Today’s finding reiterate that security, governance and compliance tools must run across multiple clouds and be embedded throughout hybrid cloud architectures from the onset for digital transformations to be successful.”

The study revealed that enterprises need to assess how they use the cloud in terms of adoption, velocity, migration, speed, and cost savings opportunity. Other recommendations include:

Focus on security and privacy – determine where your critical workloads reside and scrutinize who and what has access to them. Regularly test that security controls and privacy policies are being adhered to, but also that improperly configured assets and software vulnerabilities are being promptly addressed.
Ask which workloads should move to the cloud – take inventory of the IT environment to successfully determine which workloads and applications will yield the most value in the cloud and which are better suited to stay on-premises.
Make data work for you – analyze workloads using AI driven tools and best practices to determine where and how to put them in the right place for the right reason.
Set a tactical approach – address the technology trade-offs, such as selecting the best approach to modernize specific applications and manage important issues like security, governance, and disaster recovery.
Determine the right team – put a cross-disciplinary team of people to work rethinking how your enterprise creates value for its customers.

Additional findings from the 2021 report

By industry: Respondents in regulated industries, government (85 percent) and financial services (80 percent), cited governance and compliance tools being able to run across multiple clouds as important to success of digital initiative.
By industry: Only 1 percent of respondents in the electronics, insurance, manufacturing, telco, transportation and travel industries, reported using a single private or public cloud in 2021.

IBM Announces Advances and New Collaborations in AI-Powered Automation, 5G Connectivity and Security at Mobile World Congress Los Angeles

IBM collaborates with Boston Dynamics, Cisco, Palo Alto Networks and Turnium Technology Group to help equip businesses in next phase of digital transformation

IBM AI-powered automation software, including IBM Cloud Pak for Network Automation, and services from IBM Consulting, to help drive industry innovation and 5G adoption

ARMONK, N.Y., Oct. 26, 2021 — Today IBM announced new collaborations and expanded partner relationships to further the company’s capabilities in hybrid cloud, AI, network automation and security at Mobile World Congress Los Angeles (MWC LA). These innovations highlight IBM’s role in helping the telecommunications industry evolve as 5G and Edge Computing redefine how business and consumers connect.

IBM continues to make major strides in helping CSPs adopt AI and automation on open hybrid cloud platforms, as well as standards to remain in control of where and how they deploy their network services, edge computing, and enterprise offerings. By leveraging IBM’s AI-powered automation software, such as IBM Cloud Pak for Network Automation, and services through IBM Consulting, IBM will help drive innovation for CSPs through its systems integration capabilities; the application of technology to create ever more intelligent workflows; and support modernizing applications so enterprises can deliver at scale in a world of hybrid cloud environments.

At MWC LA, IBM is announcing the following innovations, which are designed to equip businesses for the next stage of their digital journeys:

A new collaboration between Boston Dynamics and IBM is focused on delivering data analysis at the edge to help companies address worker safety, optimize field operations, and boost maintenance productivity in industrial environments such as manufacturing facilities, power plants and warehouses. Enabled by AI and hybrid cloud innovations from IBM Research, IBM Consulting will develop edge payloads that integrate with Spot, the agile, mobile robot from Boston Dynamics. Boston Dynamics and IBM will announce these new innovations during the joint keynote at Mobile World Congress LA. For more information, read the blog: https://newsroom.ibm.com/Boston-Dynamics-and-IBM-Join-Forces-to-Bring-Mobile-Edge-Analytics-to-Industrial-Operations
Cisco and IBM are expanding their relationship, and will integrate key offerings, including IBM Cloud Pak for Network Automation and Cisco Crosswork Network Automation software, to enable orchestration and management of virtual 5G networks. For more information, read the blog: https://newsroom.ibm.com/IBM-and-Cisco-Collaborate-to-Help-Enable-Orchestration-and-Management-of-5G-Networks
Palo Alto Networks and IBM are extending their relationship to help address the unique security requirements for telecom operators deploying 5G Networks and Edge services. The companies are working to deliver joint security solutions and services designed for 5G networks and ecosystems. The collaboration provides automation and orchestration to help create secure 5G network slices that are designed to enable new revenue streams for Network Operators. Leveraging Palo Alto Networks containerized NGFW (CN-Series), container security solution Prisma Cloud Compute Edition, IBM Cloud Pak for Network Automation and IBM Security Services, the joint solution is being designed to enable agility and optimal threat detection based on deep visibility of 5G traffic. IBM and Palo Alto Networks will demonstrate a 5G Network Slice with Validation, Security Orchestration & Response at Mobile World Congress LA.
Turnium Technology Group is announcing a commitment to bring Technology Assurance Group’s (TAG) network of managed technology service providers to IBM Cloud for Telecommunications. The collaboration between Turnium and IBM helps Technology Assurance Group (TAG) extend the reach of their managed technology solutions and partner network to new customers across the United States. For more information, read the press release: https://www.einnews.com/pr_news/554547851/turnium-announces-commitment-to-bring-technology-assurance-group-s-tag-network-to-ibm-cloud-for-telecommunications

“A recent study from the IBM Institute for Business Value on “The end of communications services as we know them” revealed that 59% of high performing CSPs surveyed agree they must become secure clouds infused with AI and automation. The study also says, that Communications Service Providers (CSPs) are thinking more strategically about 5G-enabled edge computing more for its ability to building more revenues as 5G and edge computing usher in a new reality for businesses,” said Andrew Coward, General Manager, Software Defined Networking, IBM. “We are continuing to help CSPs embrace secured technologies like automation, AI and hybrid cloud, and we believe IBM is uniquely positioned to provide the software and consulting needed to evolve their digital architecture.”

IBM will have a strong presence as the show’s Network Automation Partner, co-leading a keynote session with Boston Dynamics, speaking in breakout sessions on the New Age of Automation and IoT in Healthcare, and hosting live in-booth solution demonstrations.

Statements regarding IBM’s future direction and intent are subject to change or withdrawal without notice, and represent goals and objectives only.

IBM and Crédit Mutuel Accelerate Partnership with AmbitionS, a New Center of Technological Excellence in Strasbourg

STRASBOURG, France, Oct. 21, 2021 — IBM and Crédit Mutuel are announcing a new step in their strategic partnership initiated more than 50 years ago, with the signing of the AmbitionS contract between Euro-Information, the technological subsidiary of Crédit Mutuel, and IBM.

The objective is to pursue and strengthen their close collaboration over the next four years to continue to anticipate developments in the financial services sector by:

Accelerating and industrializing the use of data, artificial intelligence (AI) and automated document analysis to develop new services, improve business processes and protect customers and the bank (combat fraud, ensure compliance, etc.)

Transforming the information system into a unified private cloud platform leveraging Red Hat OpenShift, working in synergy with IBM Z^®. This private cloud, hosted in Crédit Mutuel datacenters located in France and fully operated by Euro-Information teams, will be based on an architecture meeting availability, performance and security requirements in accordance with the commitment of digital privacy and contributing to the improvement of time-to-market and operational efficiency. This comprehensive approach aims to give Crédit Mutuel sustainable autonomy and contributes to the commitments made in terms of reducing its environmental footprint and an IT resolutely focused on the new digital uses of client-members.

Creating an IBM technology and skills center in Strasbourg, dedicated to Crédit Mutuel, around artificial intelligence, data, cloud and infrastructure modernization.

“In face of the explosion in digital use cases, the AmbitionS plan will help accelerate the deployment of new offers and services for the 27 million customers of Crédit Mutuel and its subsidiaries,” said Frantz Rublé, President of Euro-Information.

Accelerate the bank and insurance’s transformation with the creation of a center of excellence dedicated to technological innovation, based in Strasbourg

The strengthening of this strategic partnership with IBM is reflected in the creation of a skills and technology center in Strasbourg, hosted in a structure dedicated to Crédit Mutuel. This hub will make it possible to accelerate the supply of services and technologies such as AI or the private cloud, in synergy with the IBM Z platform, for customers and members, partners and employees of all Crédit Mutuel federations, and their subsidiaries, as well as members of the Euro-Information IT System.

A co-creation approach is planned to accelerate exchanges and knowledge sharing between Euro-Information and IBM Research (including Paris-Saclay). This is expected to strengthen the IBM teams in Strasbourg as well as access to IBM Research, consulting, support and technology centers worldwide. Finally, an “Academy” approach to develop and perpetuate skills on IBM Z technologies, and to attract young talent, especially in Strasbourg, by relying on higher education institutions.

“The creation of the AmbitionS technology and skills center will strengthen our strategic partnership with Crédit Mutuel and its technological subsidiary Euro-Information, combining geographic proximity, skills excellence and the use of technology as accelerators of transformation,” said Jean-Philippe Desbiolles, IBM Managing Director. “After AI, Crédit Mutuel is once again paving the way for a new vision of the bank.”

About Euro-Information, a Crédit Mutuel group company
Euro-Information is the technology company of the Crédit Mutuel group. Euro-Information manages the information system of 16 Crédit Mutuel federations¹ as well as CIC and all the subsidiaries carrying out financial, insurance, real estate, consumer loans, private banking, financing, telephony and technology.

With nearly 3,700 employees, Euro-Information offers the best of technology to employees, members and customers associated with a high level of security and protection of personal data. Euro-Information masters all the technologies internally and carries out the necessary developments to serve the entities of the Crédit Mutuel group.

More information on e-i.com and creditmutuel.fr

¹Crédit Mutuel Alliance Fédérale (Center Est Europe (Strasbourg), South-East (Lyon), Ile-de-France (Paris), Savoie-Mont Blanc (Annecy), Midi-Atlantique (Toulouse), Loire-Atlantique and Center federations -West (Nantes), Center (Orléans), Normandy (Caen), Dauphiné-Vivarais (Valence), Mediterranean (Marseille), Anjou (Angers), Massif Central (Clermont-Ferrand) and Antilles-Guyane (Fort-de-France ), Crédit Mutuel Nord Europe (Lille), Crédit Mutuel Maine-Anjou, Basse Normandie (Laval) and Crédit Mutuel Océan (La Roche-sur-Yon).

Apptio and IBM Announce Collaboration to Help Accelerate Enterprise Transformation with IBM’s Open Hybrid Cloud Approach

Apptio’s SaaS solutions will be a decision engine to help clients migrate workloads and applications with Red Hat OpenShift

BELLEVUE, Wash., and ARMONK, N.Y., October 12, 2021 – Apptio, Inc., a leading provider of technology business management (TBM) SaaS applications, and IBM, today announced a collaboration to help clients improve hybrid cloud technology decision-making and drive adoption of Red Hat OpenShift and IBM’s open hybrid cloud approach.

According to analyst firm IDC, “there is a need to support the client journey to the cloud that can help map aligning the optimal portfolio of cloud capabilities (e.g., private, public, hybrid) needed to achieve business and IT objectives, offering different pathways to the cloud for migration and modernization of applications.”¹ To help inject flexibility and agility into their operations, enterprises must determine which applications and workloads should be migrated and how that may impact the business. The collaboration will combine data-driven insights from Apptio to help clients make informed migration decisions and capitalize on the capabilities of Red Hat OpenShift to run and manage applications in the computing environment that best suits their business goals, including on-premises infrastructure and across cloud destinations including IBM, AWS, Azure and others.

“Many enterprises are going hybrid by leveraging both on-premises and cloud services to satisfy their technology and business needs,” said Sunny Gupta, co-founder and CEO of Apptio. “IBM offers the only multi-cloud hybrid approach to its customers resulting in a comprehensive and compelling platform for managing their workloads in this hybrid world.”

As part of the relationship, Apptio, an IBM Business Partner (“partner”), and IBM will offer clients visibility, optimization and migration capabilities for IBM Cloud with Red Hat OpenShift through Apptio’s financial decision engine, which cuts across enterprise technology— from on-premises infrastructure and cloud services to digital products such as ApptioOne and Cloudability. Additionally, Apptio will use Red Hat OpenShift in its portfolio of products, starting with Targetprocess, which runs on IBM Cloud and is built to help enterprises accelerate business agility. The combination of Apptio products with IBM AI Ops and IBM Turbonomics Application Resource Management can also help to provide clients with financial and utilization analysis of workload placement.

“Apptio and IBM are united in our desire to help clients make data-driven decisions about running their workloads in the optimal hybrid cloud environment, whether in the cloud or on-premises,” said Bob Lord, Senior Vice President, Worldwide Ecosystems, IBM. “With the addition of Apptio to our growing ecosystem of partners, we’re able to combine Apptio’s financial analytics and decision support and IBM’s open hybrid cloud leadership to design an offering to deliver unprecedented value to clients at all stages of their cloud journeys.”

IBM Global Business Services (GBS) will advise clients on their hybrid cloud journey by providing end-to-end strategy, design, road mapping and architectural services for clients using Apptio’s products. IBM will use Apptio’s cloud financial management and optimization products such as ApptioOne to manage technology spend and consumption of internal IBM Cloud resources across its enterprise.

Apptio is part of IBM’s partner ecosystem, an initiative to support partners of all types – whether they build on, service or resell IBM technologies and platforms – to help clients manage and modernize workloads with Red Hat OpenShift for any cloud environment, including IBM Cloud.

IBM Signs Five-Year Agreement with Honda Motor Europe Ltd to Integrate and Manage Its Finance and Procurement Operations

IBM to lay the foundations for Honda’s end-to-end “Zero Touch” ambitions

LONDON, Oct. 6, 2021 — IBM and Honda Motor Europe today announced a five-year agreement under which IBM plans to manage and run Honda’s finance and procurement operations across Europe. The contract is designed to deliver integrated end-to-end service which can help Honda improve efficiency, reduce costs, standardise processes across its European operations and ultimately set it on course to a “Zero Touch” vision.

The contract extends an existing ten-year relationship by giving IBM Global Business Services additional responsibility for procurement operations. The fully integrated finance and procurement intelligent workflow is designed to help enable cost savings, productivity improvements and improved service levels to Honda’s suppliers and customers, on a resilient platform.

This agreement comes at a time when the automotive industry is embarking on a radical transformation to a connected, autonomous, shared, and electrified world. The transformation investments required put even greater demands on back-office functions to improve efficiencies and be flexible to support the changing business demands.

“We have a strategic need to transform our finance and procurement operations into the very best in the world and in so doing make Honda’s European operations a business that every dealer and supplier want to work with,” said Joe Crump, General Manager, Business Administration, Honda Motor Europe. “We have a proven excellent working relationship with IBM, which has become a trusted partner and I’m confident will bring enormous expertise to help us make the changes needed to respond to the industry’s challenges and emerging opportunities.”

Under the agreement IBM plans to manage the Source-to-Pay, Record-to-Report and Order-to-Cash processes. The standardisation and simplification of the processes is designed to enable the application of the latest advances in automation which can provide further cost and quality benefits. A new single helpdesk with an integrated view of the entire finance and procurement function can not only be more efficient but can also improve customer service.

“We look forward to bringing our business process experience, technology and transformation methodologies to help Honda Motor Europe bring its Zero Touch ambitions one step closer,” said Dave Miller, IBM Managing Director for Honda Global Account. “We plan to bring together people, processes and solutions into intelligent workflows through an optimised managed services approach that can enable Honda Motor Europe to enhance its finance and purchasing operations and become the partner of choice to its network of dealers and suppliers.”

IBM and Honda Motor Europe signed their Finance & Procurement Service agreement in 1Q 2021.

Statements regarding IBM’s future direction and intent are subject to change or withdrawal without notice and represent goals and objectives only.

Yearly Archives: 2021