IBM has today launched an new initiative to develop new software and services to bring business intelligence (BI) and mainframe data integration into the mobile world.
Big Blue said the new software includes products with BI, collaboration, social networking and business performance capabilities. Alongside which, it will make new tools, available to developers to make existing software applications run on mobile devices.
In talking up the its new mobile push, IBM said its technologies and service oriented architecture (SOA), standards-based software and services would be applicable to all the major mobile platforms, including BlackBerry, iPhone, Windows Mobile and Symbian.
The new software products include IBM Rational Business Developer software to help developers create web 2.0-style applications in IBM's latest business language, Enterprise Generation Language (EGL), to run on a mainframe or mobile devices.
IBM Rational Host Access Transformation Services (HATS) software has been designed to help developers port green screen applications into a mobile user interface and web services allowing end-users to access securely.
And WebSphere Business Monitor is business activity monitoring (BAM) software for role-based, secure BI dashboards and reporting on the go. IBM said the Monitor is now available on BlackBerry devices and will be available on iPhone in the fourth quarter of 2008.
IBM added that IBM Cognos 8 Go Mobile is one of its existing software components used to build out these new mobile capabilities. Its Tivoli product range has provided the service management software foundation, allowing for mobile network management , including devices and security.
For example, IBM said a combination of Tivoli Netcool/OMNIbus, Tivoli Monitoring, Tivoli Network Assure and Tivoli Storage Manager, along with Cognos Go Mobile, could provide the ability to create a mobile "executive dashboard" reporting on key management data about a mobile based service, providing responsible executives the data and backbone alerts, where and when they want them and on any device they want to receive them on.
In addition, IBM has announced new business consulting services to help companies manage a mobile work environment, called Mobility@Work. The vendor said the new consulting and implementation services could help employers increase productivity by as much as 30 per cent and cut real estate costs, which are the second largest corporate expense after salaries and benefits.
"The mobile web presents one of the largest emerging market opportunities we've seen in a decade as billions of people look to access a wide range of services both for business and personal use," said Drew Clark, director of strategy for IBM's venture capital group. "Using software assets from IBM Research combined with our services offerings provides unique opportunities to help companies quickly adapt to the mobile environment."
