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IBM Company Profile

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IBM
Company Profile

by Faulkner Staff

Docid: 00015025

Publication Date: 2109

Report Type: VENDOR

Preview

IBM remains a dominant player in the technology landscape. Founded in
1911, Big Blue has been known for its relentless product development at the
forefront of industry and science since before the dawn of the computer. IBM is
seeking to maintain its pivotal role in the IT sector as the company meets
global industry demands for supercomputing, cloud software, data analytics,
outsourced services, security, and smart projects to embed technology in
utilities, infrastructure, and healthcare systems.

Fast Facts

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Name: International Business Machines (IBM) Corp
Headquarters
1 New Orchard Road
Armonk, NY 10504-1722
(914) 499-1900
(800) 426-4968
Fax: (914) 765-7382
Web: http://www.ibm.com/
Type of Vendor: Computer and Communications Hardware, Software, and Services
Founded: 1911
Service Areas: Global
Stock Symbol: IBM (NYSE)

Profile

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IBM, based in Armonk, New York, is one of the world’s largest providers of
computing hardware, software, and professional services. IBM has been
perhaps the best known name in the technology field for a century. Through
research, vision, acquisitions, and alliances, IBM has grown to report revenues
of just under $80 billion USD per year.

IBM,
also referred to as Big Blue, is a catalyst at the forefront of technology
research and development in areas such as cloud computing, healthcare,
supercomputing, artificial intelligence, security, and smart planet
infrastructure.

From an operational and financial
reporting perspective, IBM is divided into five operating segments:

Cloud and Cognitive Software
Systems
Global Financing
Global Technology Services
Global Business Services

IBM Global Services. Although the company officially has
five
divisions, the pair of segments, Global
Technology Services and Global Business Services, are often referred to
collectively as IBM Global Services.

There is, however a noted difference in their missions:

Global Technology Services (GTS)
primarily provides IT infrastructure and business
process services, notably Strategic
Outsourcing Services,
Global Process Services, Integrated Technology
Services, and Technology Support Services.

Meanwhile, Global Business Services (GBS)
delivers business outcomes to
clients across two primary business areas: Consulting, including the application
of Smarter Analytics; and Application Management Services, including
maintenance and support services for packaged
software, as well as custom and legacy applications.

History & Milestone Events

1911 – IBM is founded by Thomas Watson. The driving force behind the success of the
company, however, is his son, Thomas Watson, Jr., who understood the potential of computers and
embraced new technologies. Under him, the System/360 was developed and became highly successful.
1956 – Thomas Watson, Jr., widely considered the father of the computing age, takes
over as CEO, remaining in charge until 1971. IBM’s success in the early eighties is undermined
later in the decade as the company loses its edge when competitors hone in on new technologies
and emerging markets.
1993 – In the worst year in its history, Big Blue reports a net loss of $8 billion USD.
Louis Gerstner is named CEO in an attempt to alleviate the company’s financial difficulties.
Gerstner restructures IBM, touting Market Driven Quality as its theme, and pushing a
strategy of customer satisfaction. With goals of increasing quality, excellence, and customer
satisfaction, IBM identifies three areas of focus: customer relationships, competitive products,
and company efficiency.
1995 – Underscoring IBM’s commitment to leadership in network-centric computing,
Gerstner creates an Internet division within the company.
1998 – IBM made a series of agreements with AT&T, selling its Global
Network corporate networking business for $5 billion in cash. As part of the deal, IBM
granted
AT&T a five-year, $5 billion contract to handle a large portion of the company’s networking
needs, while AT&T signed a $4 billion deal to outsource some of its applications
processing and data management work to IBM.
1999 – IBM acquires Sequent. The company also exited the networking hardware market,
selling related intellectual properties to Cisco Systems.
2000 – The head of IBM’s server business, Samuel Palmisano, is appointed president and
COO.
2001 – IBM acquires the database software unit of Informix for $1 billion.
2002 – IBM acquires PricewaterhouseCoopers’ PwC Consulting operations in a $3.5 billion
cash and stock deal. It joins IBM’s Global Services division, bringing with it several billion
dollars worth of contract work and 30,000 employees.
2003 – IBM faces a $3 billion lawsuit from the SCO Group, which
looked to stop IBM from selling UNIX. IBM also sells its hard drive business to Hitachi for $2.05
billion.
2004 – Wins a three-year contract to help the US Defense Department use RFID.
2004 – Agrees to sell its PC business to Lenovo.
2005 – Buys Systems Research and Development, integrating its identity resolution
assets into IBM’s Information Management
software. Streamlined and restructured its Global Services division.
2006 – Purchases Micromuse for $865 million, SOA software vendor Webify, asset
management software vendor MRO Software, content management vendor FileNet, and Internet Security Systems.
2007 – Agrees to a global venture through which Ricoh acquired a 51 percent stake in IBM’s printing unit,
renamed it as InfoPrint Solutions, and within three years, acquired the remaining
stake. Purchased DataMirror, Princeton Softech, WebDialogs,
Watchfire, Consul, Vallent, Solid Information Technology, and Softek Storage.
Agreed to acquire BI software leader Cognos as well as Arsenal Digital.
2008 – Buys Net Integration Technologies, XIV, FilesX,
InfoDyne, and Platform Solutions, and agreed to buy France-based ILOG,
NovusCG, and Transitive. Founded Center for Social Software and
several Cloud Centers of Competence.
2009 – IBM lays out an aggressive product strategy amid global
economic turmoil. The company moves its focus away from hardware to
higher-margin products such as software and IT consulting. It posts its
highest ever fiscal profit in 2009, despite the recession.
2010 – IBM reorganizes – divesting and merging hardware
lines into its software portfolio, and combining its Global Services arms.
Launches health data and social media analysis initiatives. String of IBM
acquisitions include 12 technology firms.
2011 – Demonstrating the power of intelligent computing on the Jeopardy!
game-show, IBM’s programming Watson supercomputer easily beats its
fellow human contestants in two televised days of play.
2012 – IBM is ranked the second largest global company in terms of
employees by Fortune magazine.
2013 – IBM acquires SoftLayer technologies in a deal valued
at approximately $2 billion.
2014 – IBM announces a major alliance with Apple dubbed MobileFirst.
The partnership would focus on mobile enterprise customers and would see the
duo jointly developing and releasing products across several categories.
2015 – IBM announces plans to buy Merge Healthcare for $1 billion.
2016 – IBM acquires video streaming company Ustream, integrating the
purchased assets into a new cloud video business.
2017 – IBM marks
its 24th consecutive year as the US company with the most new patent
acquisitions generated.
2018 – IBM is commissioned to apply its Watson AI platform
to the 2018 broadcast of the Wimbledon tennis event, as well as to Wimbledon.com.
In October, IBM announces a $34 billion deal to acquire Red Hat, maker of one of
the most popular Linux distributions at the time.
2019 – In June, IBM cuts a total of 2,000 jobs across the company.
Later, in July 2019, IBM closes its Red Hat acquisition, adding the company’s
software assets to its own.
2020 – IBM is commissioned to build Germany's first quantum
computer, a task which is designed to allow German data to remain domestically
processed in order to comply with EU data sovereignty laws.
2021 – In January, IBM announces plans to spin off its
Global Technology Services Managed Infrastructure Services unit into an
independent entity called Kyndryl. The new entity will focus on managed
infrastructure offerings and includes about 90,000 employees led by
former IBM CFO Martin Schroeter. Later in the year, IBM acquires Turbonomic, an
enterprise software company, for a purchase price of $1.5 billion.

Strategy

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Cloud Computing. In the late 1980s and early 90s, IBM
was late – almost critically late – to recognize the relatively rapid shift
from mainframe to client-server computing, ceding their computer industry
leadership to upstart Microsoft. Not a company to make the same mistake
twice, in the 1990s and into the new millennium, IBM recognized the need to
move from hardware and software into services (currently, the company’s
biggest segment).

IBM has made several cloud-focused acquisitions just within the past half
decade, including the 2013 acquisition of Softlayer, and its 2016 purchase of
Ustream. The New York Times reported that, according to Big
Blue executives, IBM’s strategy is to compete in the public cloud market
not with basic computing capabilities like processing and storage, but with
software for marketing, procurement, and customer service delivered as cloud
offerings. Since 2007, the company has spent more than $4.5 billion on more than
a dozen acquisitions to build up its cloud software and services offerings.¹"Weâ€™re
focusing on business services that
leverage the cloud model," said Ric
Telford, vice president for IBM cloud
services.²

This focus on cloud-centric advancement continued with the company’s 2018/19
acquisition of Red Hat. Although the software maker is traditionally thought of
as specializing in operating systems due to its eponymous Linux distribution,
IBM made it very clear at the time the acquisition was announced that it
intended to employ Red Hat’s assets to grow its open source cloud products.

Watson. An IBM project several years in the
making, Watson embodies both IBM’s R&D and branding strategy. Named for
IBM’s founder, Watson was originally a room-sized supercomputer IBM built by linking racks
of servers beside a wall of refrigerators. Watson was first built with
a single purpose in mind: to think faster than the best contestants in game-show Jeopardy’s
history, while still understanding the nuances of the game and human speech.
During the filming of Jeopardy! in February 2011, Watson easily defeated its
skilled opponents, but more importantly, IBM gained clout and renown the world
over for its advances in intelligent computing.

More than a stunt designed to gain media attention, Watson, according to
analyst Steve Lohr, was a triumph of Big Data computing, [which]
could improve decision-making in fields from business to medicine, allowing
decisions to be based increasingly on data and analysis rather than intuition
and experience.³

Today, Watson is being employed to advance medical research. As Lohr explains,
its machine intelligence has read through vast troves of medical
texts, research papers, and patient records to suggest diagnosis and treatment
options at institutions including the Cleveland Clinic, the Memorial
Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, and the M.D. Anderson Cancer Center, and for the
insurer WellPoint, among others.⁴

Moving forward, IBM is applying the technology to customer service.

Its subsequent offerings, such as IBM Watson Engagement Advisor, are being pitched as
smart assistants whose services can apply to almost any industry, but especially
those that receive many customer service calls, like retailing, banking,
insurance, and telecommunications.⁵

"Watson
has a new job – assisting brands," said Manoj Saxena, the IBM executive in
charge of the Watson business unit.⁶This fledgling role has seen the
artificial intelligence employed by everything from jewelry companies to the
Pebble Beach golf course as a replacement for live personnel, and its recent
stint as a production aide in the 2018 Wimbledon broadcast.

Smarter Planet Initiatives. IBM sees that the IT sector is at a
crossroads – facing market disruption with emerging mobile and Web technology,
as well as a need for direction in a weak economy. IBM’s Smarter Planet
initiative focuses on upgrading infrastructure with embedded systems. Initiatives that IBM is tackling include upgrading office
buildings, traffic systems, power grids, healthcare, food, financial
institutions, telecom, and oil production and distribution. IBM is also
increasing its present enterprise software areas such as data analytics,
data mining, cloud computing, and social media analytics. IBM is focused on
several priorities:

Keep focus on high value industries
Global integration to increase revenue
Use reserves to drive investment
Return capital to shareholders

Running Cities, Not Just Companies. As part of its Smarter
Cities initiative, IBM has built a citywide system in Rio de Janeiro that
integrates data from 30 agencies enabling centralized management of
city infrastructure. According to analyst Natasha Singer, Rio is a crucible
[for IBM]. By 2050, roughly

75 percent of the worldâ€™s population is expected to live in cities. Many
metropolitan areas already use data-collection systems like sensors, video
cameras and GPS devices. But advances in computing power and data analysis
now make it possible for companies like IBM to collate all this data and,
using computer algorithms, to identify patterns and trends.⁷ In the future, running big cities will be big business and IBM wants to get in
on the ground floor or, perhaps more appropriately, the ground city block.

Workforce Development. IBM is
pioneering a new workforce development model in which certain employees who are
considered under-skilled will surrender 10 percent of their salary for six
months while they spend up to one day a week in training. In analyzing this
mandatory program, Peter Cappelli, a professor at the Wharton School of Business
at the University of Pennsylvania, opined that If the skills they are learning are useful outside of IBM, it may
be a pretty good deal for the workers. If not, it just looks like
cost cutting.⁸

Strengths

People. IBM recruits
and retains some of the world’s most talented scientists, engineers, and
analysts to help solve problems and provide an edge for business,
government, and non-profit clients. The company seems to have a way with
recruiting rising talent, as it counts among its former employees such
high-profile individuals as Apple CEO Tim Cook, former AT&T CEO Michael
Armstrong, and former Lenovo CEO Steve Ward.

Computing Research. IBM researchers have developed a new chip, or
processor, named TrueNorth that mimics some human brain functions, uses no more power
than a hearing aid, and may eventually excel at calculations that frustrate todayâ€™s
supercomputers. Horst Simon, deputy director of the Lawrence Berkeley National
Laboratory, compared the new design to the advent of parallel supercomputers
in the 1980s.

Patent Portfolio. IBM holds the US record
for the most patents generated by a single business, and has held it for the
past 25 years.⁹This has provided the company with an impressively
diverse and comprehensive patent portfolio in a time when a business’ intellectual
property collection is more important than ever. Not only does it provide IBM
with a secure bankroll and revenue source, via licensing, but it serves as a safeguard
against the increasingly litigious technology sector, where being forearmed
against patent trolls and competitors’ legal sorties is almost mandatory.

Apple Alliance. IBM is partnering with Apple to
jointly develop smart software for
the business of the iPhone and iPad lines.¹⁰

Open Source Leader. With its acquisition of Red Hat, IBM immediately
joined the ranks of the most important creators of opens source software on the
planet. The long and diverse history of Red Hat’s contribution to the Linux
community and the open source community in general can now be joined to IBM’s
own historic, but comparatively proprietary product catalogue. This give the
company the flexibility to contribute to crowd-sourced development projects like
the Red Hat Linux distro, while also maintaining its customers-facing library of
software and cloud-based products.

Weaknesses

A Slight Tarnish to IBM’s Stellar Reputation. In March 2011, IBM,
without admitting or denying wrongdoing, agreed to pay $10 million to settle
claims that it gave cash and gifts to Chinese and South Korean officials in
connection with about $54 million in government contracts.¹¹

Licensing Revenue. In transitioning from the sale of
conventional hardware and software products to lower-cost, lower-margin cloud
services, IBM may lose valuable licensing revenue. Should IBM fail to
transition, however, the company risks losing an even more valuable asset: its
long-term corporate customers.¹²

Economic Downturn. In 2016, IBM reported at 14-year low in
quarterly sales for the first fiscal quarter of the year. The decline was blamed
on the company’s newer cloud-based businesses not having caught up to the loss
of business from its previous core revenue provider: its server business. While
this may seem worrisome, the company had experienced a sales peak in 2012,
powered by the same transitional businesses that it continues to expand.
Although it does not guarantee the cloud services revenue will be the next horse
IBM rides to the finish line, its FY 2016 results did show an overall
year-over-year growth of 35 percent to cloud revenues, which reached $13.7
billion. Thankfully for IBM, it has since shown signs of rebounding in 2018 with
revenues that came in ahead of predictions. However, some analysts were also
speculating that this bump could be a temporary one which might dry up by the
following year. Those predictions seemed to have had at least some basis in
reality, as the company reported total revenues of $77.86 billion, a 3.6 percent
decline over the previous year’s total. The following year saw the company's take
stabilize somewhat, with 2019 producing $77.1 billion in revenues, with 2020
producing another downturn at $73 billion.

Outlook

IBM Is Forever. There is, perhaps, no better predictor of a company’s future than its past,
and in 2011, IBM joined a select set of enterprises that have continuously
operated for 100 years.

Future. While most analysts are at least
relatively upbeat about IBM’s prospects, some observers are less sanguine
about the company’s continued ability to negotiate the path between on-premise systems and
services (IBM’s traditional market space) and the cloud. As Steve Lohr of
The New York Times observes, The technology giant has taken big steps.
It is investing in cloud computing and in software to help customers make sense
of the flood of digital data. But while the strategy looks promising, it has yet
to pay off. The companyâ€™s revenue has only just managed to meet or exceed
expectations,
while investors continue watching for signs of progress.^{13, 14} Its
recent $34 billion acquisition of Red Hat as a way of boosting its Open Source
presence and cloud-based technology assets may mean the company is finally ready
to take big steps into a market where it has, so far, been rather slow to expand.

This capability was further boosted in 2021 when IBM split off its Global
Technology Services Managed Infrastructure Services division to more tightly
focus on the software that is increasingly becoming its primary revenue driver.
It cemented this move with its acquisition of Turbonomic, a company that came
with a growing collection of cloud-based technology patents that allowed for
improved allocation of hardware resources for cloud and on-premise computing
deployments. It remains to be seen if these additional commitments will finally
result in real-world benefits from IBM's increased focused on cloud computing
products and services.

Making the Right Friends. Thankfully, IBM is already taking steps
to insure that, even if it cannot independently predict where it direct its
future assets, it will at least be allied with companies that have shown a
knack for doing just that. The corporation’s alliance with Apple came as a
surprise to many. The old enemies and competitors had typically been
reticent about forming alliances with other companies working in the same
space. However, as IBM and Apple’s product catalogues grew to focus on
different areas of the consumer and business market, the alliance became a
beneficial one for both sides. While the agreement will once again bring the
IBM name to the forefront for consumer and small business customers that
benefit from the jointly developed products, it will also help Apple by
giving it an extra layer of legitimacy among the largest corporations and
enterprises, some of which have literally been relying on IBM for products
and services for more than a century.

Product Lines

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IBM is continually updating its portfolio of IT software, systems, storage, and
other products, as detailed in Table 1.

Table 1. IBM Products
Product Type	Description	Major Competitors
Software	Business analytics (Cognos, SPSS) Enterprise content management Information management (DB2, Informix, InfoSphere) Lotus (collaboration) Rational (software and systems delivery) Tivoli (service management) WebSphere (integration and optimization) System z software	CA, Cisco, HP, Microsoft, Oracle, SAP
Systems	PureSystems Power Systems (AIX, IBM i, Linux) System z (Mainframe) System x (xSeries) IBM Flex System and BladeCenter UNIX servers Systems software System Networking	Dell, Fujitsu, Hitachi, HP
Storage	Disk systems Flash systems Tape systems Storage area networks Network attached storage	Dell, EMC, Fujitsu, Hitachi, HP, NetApp
Other	Certified used servers and storage Certified used personal computers Point of sale Security Semiconductors Upgrades, accessories, and parts	Dell, Fujitsu, Hitachi, HP
IBM Global Services	IBM’s Global Services unit delivers a variety of services to both commercial and public sector clients around the world. The largest services firm in the world, the Global Services unit operates through two core operating segments, business consulting and IT services.	Accenture, Capgemini, CSC, Dell, General Dynamics, HP, Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, Tata Consultancy Services, Unisys.

Major Competitors

Activity

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Mergers, Acquisitions, and Divestitures

IBM closed the purchase
ARM (application resource management) and NPM (network
performance management) firm Turbonomic. The
transaction complements IBM’s recent acquisition of Instana,
heading into the launch of Cloud Pak for Watson AIOps.
Turbonomic ARM will also continue to expand its support for
infrastructure and services for the major public clouds,
including IBM Cloud, and provide recommendations and automation
for a wider set of enterprise applications and PaaS
(Platform-as-a-Service) offerings. Terms of the acquisition were
not released.

(06/21/2021)

IBM announced its
intention to buy Waeg, a Salesforce consulting
partner, to extend its services portfolio and advance its hybrid
cloud and AI strategy. The transaction is subject to “customary
closing conditions” and should close “this quarter.” Terms were
not published.

(05/18/2021)

IBM reached a definitive
agreement to acquire Turbonomic, an ARM
(application resource management) and NPM (network performance
management) software provider. The transaction complements
IBM’s assets for APM and, subject to “customary closing
conditions,” is expected to be completed “in the second quarter
of 2021.” Terms were not released.

(04/29/2021)

IBM reached an
agreement to acquire Taos,
a cloud professional and managed services provider. The
transaction is expected to allow IBM to advance its cloud
migration and transformation capabilities. The transaction
remains subject to “customary closing conditions,” and is
expected to close in the first quarter of 2021. Financial details
were not disclosed.

(01/14/2021)

IBM purchased 7Summits, a leading
Salesforce consulting company. The acquisition is expected to
extend IBM’s portfolio of Salesforce services and
experience-design capabilities, in addition to advancing its
hybrid cloud and AI (artificial intelligence) strategy. 7Summits
will boost IBM’s strategy consulting, experience design, and
application development capabilities across the Salesforce
platform. Financial details were not disclosed.

(01/11/2021)

IBM purchased fintech
company Expertus
Technologies. The acquisition is expected to strengthen IBM’s
end-to-end digital payment solutions portfolio, advance its
hybrid cloud and AI (artificial intelligence) strategy, and
bolster its support for managing complex integrations and finance
industry depth. Expertus was added to IBM Global Business
Services. No terms were disclosed.

(12/15/2020)

IBM signed a definitive
agreement to acquire Instana, an APM (application
performance monitoring) and observability company. The
transaction is expected to allow IBM to better help businesses
manage modern application and hybrid cloud landscape
complexities, advances IBM’s Hybrid Cloud and AI (artificial
intelligence) strategy, and strengthens its AI-powered automation
capabilities. Financial details were not disclosed. The purchase
is subject to “customary closing conditions,” and is expected to
close “within several months.”

(11/18/2020)

IBM reached an
agreement to buy TruQua
Enterprises, an IT services and consulting SAP development partner. TruQua
specializes in delivering finance and analytics solutions. This
acquisition is expected to enhance IBM’s expertise for migrating
financial platforms to SAP. The transaction is subject to
“customary closing conditions,” and should close in Q4 2020.
Financial terms were not disclosed.

(11/16/2020)

Products and Services

IBM
Watson Advertising established a research initiative to apply
open-source AI (artificial intelligence) technology to identify
and mitigate biases in advertising. Areas of exploration include
bias prevalence and frequency, via performance data analysis;
role of signals in determining biases; and capabilities of AI in
addressing biases.

(06/28/2021)

IBM announced new
hybrid cloud AI (artificial intelligence)-powered automation
software – known as Cloud Pak for Network Automation – for
communications service providers. This rollout is designed to
support “zero-touch” operations and other innovative services to
more easily manage network capacity in a wide range of
environments.

(06/28/2021)

IBM has awarded a total of
$3 million in grants to six school districts to improve their
defenses against ransomware attacks. Each grant will sponsor IBM
Service Corps teams to deploy to the selected districts and
provide in-kind security services with a value of $500,000. The
school systems, selected from 250 US K-12 districts that applied
for the Education Security
Preparedness Grants, are the Brevard Public Schools of Viera,
Florida; Poughkeepsie (New York) City School District; the KIPP
Metro Atlanta (Georgia) Schools; Sheldon Independent School
District, Houston, Texas; Newhall School District of Valencia,
California; and the Denver (Colorado) Public Schools. IBM
selected the recipients based on their cybersecurity needs and
experiences, community resources, and potential risks. An
analysis of the applications found that more than 55 percent of
the districts that applied are operating without security
training, while 50 percent had less than $100,000 budgeted for
cybersecurity spending throughout the entire school district. In
addition, 40 percent of the applicants have already experienced a
ransomware attack. All applicants for the grant program were able
to take part in IBM cybersecurity preparedness events that
provided an opportunity to identify security pain points with IBM
Security experts and worked through simulations showing how to
respond to a cyberattack.

(06/02/2021)

IBM Watson
Health rolled out iConnect Access, a diagnostic viewer and
image exchange platform. This “zero-download” Web viewer is
designed to allow healthcare providers to aggregate, exchange,
and access medical imaging data to promote real-time
collaboration from any connected device. The software includes
support for folders, PDF generation for KO (key object) selection
and SR Document modalities, enhanced CT (computed
tomography) and MR (magnetic resonance) SOP (service-object
pair) class viewing, pre-configured e-mail addresses, view-only
e-mails, and enhanced clinical viewing for the universal viewer.

(05/24/2021)

IBM disclosed new
advances in AI (artificial intelligence), the hybrid cloud, and
quantum computing. The developments are designed to better
“bring data and AI together” and include Cloud Pak for Data
products to automate data access and management; Watson
Orchestrate interactive AI capabilities for automating work to
increase productivity; the Maximo Mobile platform; Project
CodeNet Dataset, for advancing AI-based code understanding and
translation; and Mono2Micro software for supporting cloud-based
migration.

(05/11/2021)

IBM unveiled what it is
calling a “breakthrough” in semiconductor design and process,
with the development of a 2nm nanosheet technology. The chip
tech is designed to advance semiconductors by achieving 45
percent improved performance and 75 percent lower energy use,
compared to more traditional, advanced 7-nm node chips. Potential
benefits include improved mobile battery life, reduced data
center carbon footprints, improved system performance, and
streamlined object detection and reaction times in autonomous
vehicles.

(05/06/2021)

IBM expanded its Watson
Advertising Accelerator for OTT (over-the-top) and other video
elements. This software is designed to help marketers to “move
beyond contextual relevance,” and offers features to leverage AI
(artificial intelligence) to dynamically optimize ad creative and
improve campaign outcomes at scale.

(04/29/2021)

IBM announced a series of
“major” innovations across its storage portfolio. The updates are
designed to improve access and management for complex hybrid
cloud-based environments in addition to improving data
availability and resilience. Pending releases include Spectrum
Fusion, a container-native SDS (software-defined storage)
product; as well as updates to its Elastic Storage System family
of high-performance offerings.

(04/27/2021)

IBM announced new
capabilities for Watson in order to help “build trustworthy AI.”
These capabilities further expand Watson tools for governing and
explaining AI (artificial intelligence)-led decisions, increase
insight accuracy, mitigate risk, and meet privacy and compliance
requirements. New capabilities include data privacy-management
options; enhanced explainability for planning forecasts;
federated learning capabilities; and time series elements.

(04/21/2021)

IBM rolled out a financial
services-ready cloud platform: IBM Cloud for Financial Services.
This release supports Red
Hat OpenShift and “other cloud-native services.” IBM Cloud
for Financial Services is designed to support mission-critical
workload and data protection efforts, offer compliance
capabilities, and extend security.

(04/07/2021)

IBM Security
introduced new and enhanced services to manage cloud-based
strategy, policy, and controls across a hybrid cloud environment.
The offerings include cloud-native IBM and third-party
technology, IBM consulting expertise, and other capabilities for
helping create a “unified security approach.” The releases –
which specifically manage native security controls across AWS, Google Cloud, IBM Cloud, and Microsoft Azure – leverage
AI (artificial intelligence) and automation to identify and
prioritize risk, respond to potential threats, and connect data
with broader security operations and on-premise systems.

(03/24/2021)

IBM announced a series of
new and updated capabilities for helping developers deliver
intelligent application analysis throughout the DevOps pipeline.
These features include expanded support for application discovery
and delivery intelligence within IBM Z v6, as well as a new
Analyze function for Wazi Developer v1.2. Additional info is available via the IBM Web site.

(03/16/2021)

IBM is extending Watson
Anywhere by adding a Cloud Pak for DaaS (Data-as-a-Service),
with Cloud Satellite. This release provides a flexible, secure
method for running AI (artificial intelligence) and analytics
workloads, as services, across any environment without having to
manage them.

(03/01/2021)

IBM announced that – via
the IBM Cloud Satellite – it is releasing new hybrid cloud-based
services for “any environment. The offering is part of a
collaboration with Lumen Technologies to migrate Cloud Satellite
and the Lumen edge platform, expand support, harness services in
near-real-time, and build solutions at the edge. IBM Cloud
Satellite offers a secure, unifying layer of cloud services,
regardless of where data resides.

(03/01/2021)

IBM was awarded the
second phase of the National Institutes of Health’s Digital
Health Solutions for COVID-19 contract. Under this agreement, IBM
will continue its work toward developing and implementing digital
health solutions to address the global pandemic and plan
reopening public places. The company was one of seven firms
awarded part of the contract’s first phase. Terms were not
announced. Additional info is available via the IBM
Web site.

(02/25/2021)

IBM introduced new Power
Systems hardware and Red
Hat software to support the collection. Releases include
expanded Red Hat OpenShift support on Power Virtual Server; a
Power Private Cloud Rack Solution; and extended dynamic
capacity for scaling compute capacity across a hybrid cloud-based
deployment.

(02/23/2021)

IBM renewed a contract
with the US Army to continue providing IT management services to
the Materiel Command Logistics Data Analysis Center (LDAC).
Over the next five years, IBM will work to enhance Army IT
readiness and resilience, providing cloud migration support;
analytics; software development and sustainment; database
management and analysis; application integration and
management; customer support; business case analysis;
enterprise design, integration, and consolidation; cybersecurity;
product end-user guides; and project management.

(02/10/2021)

IBM announced new
high-speed, entry Flash storage systems and hybrid cloud and
“container-centric” updates. Releases include the FlashSystem
5200, which has a 38TB data capacity that can be expanded to
1.7PB; enhanced FlashSystem, SAN Volume Controller, Elastic
Storage System, and Spectrum Scale support for IBM Cloud
Satellite; and an updated Spectrum Virtualize for Public Cloud
for replicating and migrating data to IBM Cloud or AWS.

(02/09/2021)

IBM updated its TRIRIGA,
an integrated WMS (workplace management system). This
software uses AI (artificial intelligence) and near-real-time
insight to help “create a safe, productive and efficient
workplace.” New capabilities include indoor mapping, dynamic
space planning, density heat mapping, and a TRIRIGA Assistant AI
(artificial intelligence) chatbot that can be embedded into
office messaging and collaboration tools.

(01/28/2021)

IBM Security rolled
out new Homomorphic Encryption Services to allow companies to
experiment with FHE (fully homomorphic encryption) technology.
FHE is designed to allow data to remain encrypted while being
processed or analyzed in a cloud-based or third-party
environment. The services provide education, expert support, and
testing environments for developing prototype applications.

(12/17/2020)

IBM announced new
capabilities for Watson that are designed to scale the use of AI
(artificial intelligence) by businesses. The capabilities are
developed by IBM
Research, and are designed to improve automation, provide
improved NLP (natural language processing) precision, and foster
more accurate AI predictions. Elements include Reading
Comprehension, FAQ Extraction, and an Intent Classification
model.

(12/09/2020)

The IBM Security X-Force
team that tracks coronavirus-related cyber threats says it
recently uncovered a global phishing
campaign targeting organizations associated with the
COVID-19 cold chain. Cold chain is a component of the vaccine
supply system that ensures the safe preservation of vaccines in
temperature-controlled environments during their storage and
transportation. The phishing campaign appears to have begun in
September and spans six countries. The spoofed e-mails are sent
in the name of a business executive at Haier Biomedical, a
Chinese company currently acting as a qualified supplier for the
distribution program. IBM says it is unclear if the campaign was
successful, although “The established role that Haier Biomedical
currently plays in vaccine transport, and their likely role in
COVID-19 vaccine distribution, increases the probability the
intended targets may engage with the inbound e-mails without
questioning the sender’s authenticity.” While the researchers
have yet to track down the perpetrators, “The precision targeting
and nature of the specific targeted organizations potentially
point to nation-state activity.”

(12/07/2020)

IBM announced new cloud-based services and technology to
help clients maintain the “highest available level of
cryptographic key encryption protection.” The “quantum-safe”
cryptography element supports key management and application
transactions within IBM Cloud, making it the industry’s “most
holistic quantum-safe cryptography approach to securing data.”
IBM also announced extended Cloud Hyper Protect Crypto
Services for enhancing data privacy in cloud applications.

(11/30/2020)

Cisco patched three
flaws in its Webex conferencing application that together could
allow an attendee to act as a “ghost” in the meeting and let them
to spy in on potentially sensitive company secrets. The
vulnerability was discovered by an IBM Security Intelligence team
who began examining Webex because it is IBM’s primary tool for
remote meetings. “Malicious actors could abuse these flaws to
become a ‘ghost’ joining a meeting without being detected,” the
research team’s report states. The flaws
would have allowed an attacker to join a Webex meeting without
being seen on the participant list but have full access to audio,
video, chat, and screen-sharing capabilities; stay in a Webex
meeting as a ghost after being expelled from it, maintaining
audio connection; and gain access to information on meeting
attendees, including full names, e-mail addresses, and IP
addresses, from the meeting room lobby even without being
admitted to the call. IBM says the flaws affected both scheduled
meetings with unique meeting URLs and Webex Personal Rooms.
Cisco said it
is not aware of any exploits in the wild, but that it “addressed
this vulnerability … in Cisco Webex Meetings sites, which are
cloud based. No user action is required.”

(11/18/2020)

IBM has announced a
series of data and automation updates to its hybrid cloud
software portfolio. The refreshes are designed to help drive
innovation and accelerate digital transformation. Specifically,
IBM is infusing Watson AI (artificial intelligence) within hybrid
cloud environments for Cloud Pak for Data and Cloud Pak for
Intelligence.

(11/10/2020)

IBM announced expanded
capabilities for workload deployment from on-premise or public
cloud-based environments, thus assisting hybrid cloud migration.
The containerized software is designed for use across IT
infrastructure, and promotes advancements in data storage for
containers; support for infusing AI (artificial intelligence);
consolidating databases; accelerating digital transformation;
connecting cloud-native applications; streamlining cloud-native
development; and increasing visibility, automation, and
governance across the hybrid multi-cloud, all using IBM Cloud Pak
for Data. Additionally, IBM Storage is bringing a series of
enhancements to its storage and data-protection solutions,
particularly those designed to support expanding containers and
the Kubernetes ecosystem, including RedHat OpenShift.

(10/27/2020)

IBM is working with Clark
County, Nevada, to deploy an AI (artificial intelligence)-enabled
Watson Health Citizen Engagement platform. The software is
designed to make “vital” social services available to residents
impacted by the shutdown of tourism, entertainment, and dining in
greater Las Vegas. The services rollout is designed to support
the county’s CARES Housing Assistance Program – or “CHAP” –
for allowing citizens to register, apply, and upload documents,
as well as to receive funds set aside for emergency housing
assistance. The Watson Health Citizen Engagement digital
services platform specifically promotes the development and
deployment of configurable, responsive, and secured Web-based
applications for public services.

(10/26/2020)

IBM has updated Maximo for Civil Infrastructure
with new enhancements to deploy on Red Hat OpenShift for hybrid
cloud environments. The rollout includes AI (artificial
intelligence) and 3D model annotation tools; provides “deep”
insight to support industry and task-specific needs; and is
designed to consolidate disparate data sources, including
maintenance and design details and near-real-time IoT (Internet
of Things) data from sensors, wearables, cameras, drones, and The Weather
Company devices.

(10/26/2020)

IBM has announced new products and services to
accelerate hybrid cloud migration. The rollout includes Rapid
Move for SAP, for deploying
S/4HANA; the Power Systems Virtual Server, for modernizing SAP
software workloads; and virtual private cloud servers that run on
Intel‘s 2nd Gen Xeon Scalable
processor set.

(10/21/2020)

IBM Security has
announced new and upcoming capabilities for Cloud Pak for
Security. This update – which is designed to help bolster its
ability to detect, respond to, and protect against threats to
sensitive, hybrid cloud-based data – includes new data sources,
integrations, and services to manage the threat lifecycle;
expanded threat-intelligence feeds; pre-built connections to IBM
and third-party data sources; and case-management integrations.

(10/14/2020)

IBM updated its Maximo
for Civil Infrastructure software set with features to help
prolong infrastructure lifespan. Enhancements include support for
deploying Red Hat
OpenShift for hybrid cloud environments; AI (artificial
intelligence) and 3D model annotation tools for enhanced insight;
and elements to facilitate off-site inspections, access advanced
analytics and predictive maintenance, and manage, monitor, and
maintain assets. Additional info is available via the IBM Web site.

(10/14/2020)

IBM has added
three new products to its suite of AI (artificial
intelligence) offerings. This Watson Advertising suite of
solutions leverages AI to help clients make informed,
“data-based” decisions. Releases include Extensions for Watson
Advertising Accelerator, for enhanced video and OTT
(over-the-top) capabilities that are expected to leverage Watson
Machine Learning; Watson Advertising Attribution, a beta release
that will leverage Watson Machine Learning to accurately quantify
efficacy for advertising spend; and Watson Advertising Predictive
Audiences, which uses Watson Studio to employ a
“privacy-forward” format to reach consumers.

(10/05/2020)

IBM has rolled out a new version of its
Financial Transaction Manager solution. This release is updated
and containerized to run on Red
Hat OpenShift, and is designed to help financial institutions
“take advantage of the flexibility of hybrid cloud.” The
integrated payments platform orchestrates and monitors financial
payments and transactions in real-time.

(09/23/2020)

IBM Security has unveiled a risk-based
service to help organizations apply analytics to cybersecurity
spending priorities. The Risk Quantification Services creates
risk assessments to identify, prioritize, and quantify security
threats when deploying new technology, making business
investments, or changing processes. The release specifically
calculates security event probability and loss projection.

(09/22/2020)

IBM is offering a free version of the Watson Assistant on the
public cloud to US states for the next 60 days. The deployment –
which is designed to “address citizens’ voting-related inquiries
online or by phone” – includes access to NLP (natural language
processing) technology for citizen-facing virtual agents; Watson
Discovery text analytics; and support for other services such as
finding polling locations, voting hours, procedures, and
deadlines.

(09/17/2020)

Alliances and Joint Ventures

IBM and Schlumberger introduced a
commercial hybrid cloud Enterprise Data Management Solution for
the OSDU Data Platform. The hybrid cloud offering works to expand
access to customers, even in locations where data residency
requirements and regulations may affect global public cloud use.
The release is also engineered to reduce analysis time,
accelerate decision-making, and make workflow data more
accessible..

(06/29/2021)

Intel and IBM‘s Red Hat showcased new joint
developments related to automated, cloud-native infrastructure
for 5G services. This collaboration is based on foundational
work, starting in January 2021, as well as new “Select Solutions”
for network transformation, including vRAN (virtual radio access
network) reference design. Additional info is available via the Intel Web site.

(06/23/2021)

IBM announced a
collaboration with 30 global organizations – including government
agencies, colleges, nonprofits, and employment agencies – in a
bid to improve employee skills and employability among
underserved portions of the population. The agreement spans 12
countries, and will see member organizations leverage the IBM
SkillsBuild online learning program, with ManpowerGroup to
specifically connect job seekers to “real career opportunities.”
The alliance support’s IBM’s initiative to skill 50,000,
worldwide, by the end of 2021. A list of partner organizations is available
via the IBM Web site.

(06/17/2021)

IBM announced plans to
integrate its Digital Health Pass with CLX Health‘s
TrustAssure network of over 15,000 labs in
82 countries. This integration is designed to help users access
“seamless” secure location and scheduling information for
COVID-19 testing, as well as to create a verifiable credential to
use when returning to physical locations. IBM’s Digital Health
Pass allows organizations to verify coronavirus test results and
vaccine administration for those entering a physical site.

(06/17/2021)

IBM and ProMare, an ocean research
nonprofit, announced the launch of the Mayflower Autonomous Ship
– or MAS400 – on its trans-Atlantic journey. The completely
unmanned vessel employs IBM automation, AI (artificial
intelligence), and edge computing technology to assess its
status, environment, and mission, and make navigation decisions.
The ship launched from Plymouth, UK on June 15th, and is
expected to take three weeks before landing in Provincetown,
Massachusetts.

(06/15/2021)

IBM signed a five-year,
GBP210 million (US$297 million) contract with the UK Science
Minister to promote research and adoption of “innovative”
technology. With this agreement, IBM will establish a joint
Hartree National Center for Digital Innovation program for
accelerating discovery, innovation, and access to infrastructure;
cultivating digital skills growth; and bolstering regional and
national economic growth. The center will focus specifically on
AI (artificial intelligence), HPC (high-performance computing),
data analytics, quantum computing, and cloud-based technology.

(06/07/2021)

IBM and GK Software
launched a collaboration to “drive next generation retail.” This
alliance is underpinned by hybrid cloud technology from IBM and
Red Hat, and will focus on
offering enhanced and connected omni-channel experiences. As
part of the partnership, GK’s CLOUD4RETAIL offering is now
accessible via IBM Cloud, and will adopt the Red Hat OpenShift
platform.

(06/03/2021)

IBM and The Grainger
College of Engineering at the University of Illinois
Urbana-Champaign are launching a large-scale collaboration to
increase access to technology education and skill development.
This partnership will focus on “rapidly growing” tech areas such
as hybrid cloud and AI (artificial intelligence), quantum
information science and technology, accelerated materials
discovery, and sustainability. Together, the parties plan to
create a new IBM-Illinois Discovery Accelerator Institute, housed
within Grainger, that is funded by a 10-year joint investment.

(05/26/2021)

IBM and Pitney Bowes signed
an agreement whereby IBM will deliver IT automation, ML
(machine-learning), and managed infrastructure services to help
upgrade its hybrid cloud computing infrastructure to support its
evolving global business plan and goals. IBM will manage core
infrastructure such as servers, storage systems, end-user
computing, and networking elements in order to keep critical
business systems more efficiently run.

(05/20/2021)

IBM Security is
collaborating with cloud and network security provider Zscaler. Together, the
parties are drafting a set of blueprints for common “zero trust”
use cases to support a new SaaS (Software-as-a-Service) version
of the Cloud Pak for Security. The agreement focuses on elements
such as preserving customer privacy, securing hybrid and remote
deployments, and protecting the hybrid cloud.

(05/05/2021)

IBM collaborated with HCL Technologies to develop
a SOC (security operation center) platform for unifying threat
management elements. HCL’s Cybersecurity Fusion Centers will
take advantage of IBM’s Cloud Pak for Security, for connecting
security teams, tools, and processes across the “threat
lifecycle.” The collaboration builds on HCL and IBM’s existing
alliance to aid digital transformation.

(04/27/2021)

IBM is working with IPwe to create a new infrastructure
for representing patents as NFTs (non-fungible tokens), or
“digital assets.” This tech will serve to tokenize and store
intellectual property records on a blockchain network to
facilitate selling, trading, commercialization, monetization, and
viewing as a balance sheet asset.

(04/20/2021)

IBM, Red Hat, and Celonis established a global
strategic partnership agreement to accelerate adoption of
Celonis’ Execution Management System. The collaboration will
specifically focus on delivering flexibility for applying process
mining, intelligence, and automation to “core” enterprise system
functions and processes. As part of the agreement, IBM Global
Business Services will implement Celonis software to bolster its
consulting approach, while Celonis plans to embrace an open
hybrid cloud strategy by re-platforming on Red Hat OpenShift.

(04/05/2021)

IBM established a 10-year
partnership agreement with Cleveland Clinic to
create the Discovery Accelerator. This joint center will focus on
“fundamentally advancing the pace of discovery in healthcare and
life sciences” using HPC (high-performance computing) on the
hybrid cloud, AI (artificial intelligence), and quantum computing
technology. The location will specifically feature “robust”
research and clinical infrastructure to “empower big data medical
research in ethical, privacy preserving ways.” As part of the
collaboration, IBM will install its first US-based,
private-sector, on-premise Quantum System One – housing its first
1,000-qubit quantum system – in Cleveland, Ohio, “in the coming
years.”

(03/30/2021)

IBM and “impact”
investment marketplace Raise Green established
a collaboration deal. This agreement will see the development of
Raise Green software using Red
Hat OpenShift on IBM Cloud. The development is intended to
empower users to launch community solar energy businesses.

(03/29/2021)

IBM and bofrost
implemented a new eCommerce and marketing automation
product. This implementation uses IBM hybrid cloud software –
including Cloud Pak for Data – to anticipate and meet changing
customer demand and unify customer experiences across Web
and mobile devices. The deployment is expected to allow bofrost
to infuse AI (artificial intelligence) to scale operations to
meet increased sales volume.

(03/16/2021)

IBM is working with
vaccine maker Moderna to explore technology to support COVID-19
vaccine management. The collaboration includes access to IBM AI
(artificial intelligence), blockchain, and hybrid cloud-based
technology. Together, the companies plan to pilot an open,
standardized, technology-enabled vaccine distribution approach
that improves supply chain visibility and fosters near-real-time
tracking.

(03/04/2021)

IBM launched GRAMMY
Debates with Watson. This digital fan experience for the
Recording Academy is powered by Watson NLP (natural language
processing) and cloud-based technology, and is part of the
group’s transition from the online GRAMMY Backstage platform to
a digital environment running on IBM Cloud. The offering will
host the GRAMMY Awards, its preshow, and other show-related
content. GRAMMY Debates will offer a multi-week, AI (artificial
intelligence)-curated music debate experience to allow fans to
contribute individual points-of-view regarding music-related
conversations.

(03/02/2021)

IBM announced that its The Weather
Company business began employing high-resolution Airbus satellite imagery. This
integration is specifically designed to help utility and energy
companies better understand vegetation states, reduce electrical
disruptions, and improve grid reliability. The 50cm satellite
imagery will be fed into the IBM Vegetation Management Platform,
which is part of the IBM Weather Operations Center.

(02/25/2021)

Siemens, IBM, and its Red Hat unit announced a new
collaboration agreement. Together, the companies plan to employ a
hybrid cloud to deliver an open, flexible, secure offering to
“drive real-time value from operational data.” The joint
initiative will see Siemens Digital Industries Software apply
IBM’s open hybrid cloud approach – built on OpenShift – to extend
MindSphere’s deployment flexibility.

(02/24/2021)

IBM forged a multi-year
agreement to provide cloud-based technology for Delta Air Lines.
This deal – which includes technology and “industry expertise” –
is designed to modernize and migrate Delta’s applications to the
public cloud.

(02/18/2021)

IBM added bp to the IBM Quantum Network as an “Industry Partner.” bp will gain
access to IBM quantum expertise, software, and cloud-based
technology, including a 65-qubit quantum computer. bp will
specifically work with IBM to explore using quantum computing to
solve business and engineering challenges and explore potential
applications for driving efficiency and reducing carbon
emissions.

(02/15/2021)

IBM Watson
Health and Humana
established a collaboration agreement to leverage IBM’s
conversational AI (artificial intelligence to provide Humana
Employer Group members with improved clarity and transparency
regarding benefits and other matters. Humana will deploy Watson
Assistant for Health Benefits – an AI-enabled virtual assistant
that is built on the Watson Health cloud -.to support a
conversational virtual assistant with member benefits, coverage,
claims, referrals, and healthcare cost resources.

(02/11/2021)

IBM sold more than 250 of
its patents to online grocery platform Instacart. The agreement
includes a mutual, patent cross-license arrangement that gives
Instacart freedom of action to “use IBM patents in the future
growth of its business.” Financial terms were not disclosed.

(02/09/2021)

IBM and Palantir Technologies forged
a partnership to deliver AI (artificial intelligence) services
for Palantir’s next-gen operations platform for building
applications. The product is expected to streamline the process
for building and deploying AI-infused applications with Watson,
in addition to helping access, analyze, and take action on the
vast amounts of data that is scattered across hybrid cloud
environments. A new joint product – dubbed Palantir for IBM Cloud
Pak for Data – will roll out in March of 2021. As part of the
agreement, IBM also noted that Palantir will adopt Red Hat OpenShift.

(02/08/2021)

IBM announced that the
DIA has
migrated its platform to IBM Cloud, and will leverage its Cloud
Hyper Protect Services to manage financial data sourcing,
storage, processing, and publication. DIA – which offers an
open-source financial information platform based out of
Switzerland – will employ the hybrid cloud-based offering to
deliver encryption to secure sensitive data and protect
applications from potential malicious attacks.

(01/26/2021)

IBM is collaborating with
OVHcloud and Atempo to develop a custom
Storage-as-a-Service offering. This release – which is based on
IBM’s Enterprise Tape technology and features an Atempo software
stack that is hosted at new OVHcloud data centers – is designed
to meet European enterprise and public institution security,
sovereignty, and resilience need for preserving sensitive data.
To address data localization, the companies noted that OVHcloud
will now host and operate the deployment out of four new
dedicated facilities in France.

(01/25/2021)

IBM and Atos expanded their strategic
global alliance. This partnership includes an intended focus on
developing joint offerings that are built on Atos’ vertical
decarbonized solution and IBM-powered service-delivery assets.
Expected areas of focus include ALM (asset lifecycle
management), asset monitoring and MRO (maintenance, repair,
and operations), and SMART waste / energy monitoring and
optimization.

(01/19/2021)

Samsung and IBM announced a new alliance
under which the duo will jointly develop solutions for the edge
computing, 5G, and hybrid cloud markets. According to the
companies, the goal of the collaboration is to “help businesses
across all industries modernize their operations and realize the
promise of Industry 4.0.” Samsung will be providing its Galaxy 5G
mobile devices and end-to-end enterprise network solutions, while
IBM will offer its network management, hybrid cloud, and edge
computing solutions, as well as AI-based industry products and
Red Hat architecture. Additional details on planned solutions and
the duo’s “Industry 4.0” plans can be found within their press release.

(12/16/2020)

IBM joined The Alliance to
End Plastic Waste as a “Supporting Member.” IBM will collaborate
with the nonprofit to design a data platform – hosted on the IBM Cloud – to track
plastic waste and recovery worldwide.

(12/15/2020)

IBM Security and
Amazon Web Services (AWS) announced a
series of new technology initiatives to leverage AWS to “simplify
and extend … security visibility across AWS and hybrid cloud
environments.” Projects include integration with AWS security
services, quick-start deployment for “key” IBM Security
technology, and expert consulting and managed security services
support.

(12/14/2020)

IBM signed a three-year,
$6.8 million agreement with the Port of Los Angeles to design and
operate a new Port Cyber Resilience Center. This multi-year deal
will focus on improving cybersecurity readiness, enhancing threat
sharing, and bolstering collaboration within its supply chain
ecosystem.

(12/07/2020)

IBM was contracted by global technology
company ABB
to support its procurement digitization efforts. In particular,
IBM will launch the SmartBuy end-to-end employee-purchasing
program. The solution will work to automate processes related to
finding, procuring, and managing ABB’s supplier network,
supporting services such as self-registration and contract
processes.

(12/03/2020)

IBM teamed with ASPI Tech and NextTech to introduce a
digital system for civil infrastructure monitoring. The platform
was developed by Autostrade Tech and is based on IBM Maximo.
The release employs AI (artificial intelligence), drone, IoT
(Internet of Things), and 3D digital modeling technology, and
delivers surveillance and monitoring for more than 4,500
structures managed by ASPI, including bridges, viaducts, flyovers
and tunnels, obtaining improved efficiency and transparency in
these processes. The collaboration is expected to become
available via as-a-service and on-premise options.

(11/25/2020)

IBM and AMD have signed a multi-year joint development agreement to enhance and extend
both companies’ security and AI (artificial Intelligence)
offerings. The partnership builds on open software, standards,
and system architecture, and will focus on collaborative
activities toward driving “confidential computing” in hybrid
cloud-based infrastructure; supporting accelerators across HPC
(high-performance computing) environments; and incorporating
virtualization, encryption, and other critical elements.

(11/11/2020)

IBM has entered into an
exclusive digital partnership with the Masters Tournament. With
this agreement, IBM will unveil My Group, a digital feature to
enable fan engagement and promote tournament viewership. The
feature will specifically allow patrons to create personalized
groups of players to track and watch matchups. My Group runs on
IBM Cloud, with Red Hat
OpenShift.

(11/11/2020)

IBM and Advanced Micro
Devices (AMD) have entered a
multi-year agreement focused on enhancing their security and
artificial intelligence offerings. The joint development
agreement will build on open-source software, open standards, and
open system architectures to drive Confidential Computing in
hybrid cloud environments. Confidential Computing allows the data
associated with a virtual machine to be encrypted, even while
workloads are running. This capability helps prevent would-be
attackers and bad actors from accessing information, even in the
event of a break-in. According to Gartner, Confidential Computing
potentially removes the remaining barrier to hybrid cloud
adoption for highly regulated businesses such as healthcare and
financial institutions as well as organizations concerned about
unauthorized third-party access to data in the public cloud.
Joint development activities between AMD and IBM researchers
under the agreement are currently underway.

(11/11/2020)

IBM plans to collaborate with ClearBlade, an industrial
IoT platform and edge computing software company. This
partnership is expected to result in the delivery of “edge” IoT
(Internet of Things) asset monitoring capability. Under the
agreement, the ClearBlade Edge Asset Monitor offering will be
integrated with IBM’s Edge Application Manager – running on Red Hat OpenShift – to offer a
secure bundle for managing containerized edge applications on any
hardware.

(11/02/2020)

IBM was selected by travel
company, Alpitour
Group to provide access to the Watson service. This
deployment, which is enabled by hybrid cloud-based solutions, is
expected to help “modernize” the firm’s digital applications and
accerate digital app development.

(11/02/2020)

IBM and Wipro have announced plans for the latter to expand its IBM
Hybrid Cloud Practice. This practice – which is supported by
technical experts from both organizations – helps Wipro customers
to modernize digital operations across hybrid cloud environments
by leveraging IBM Cloud Pak containerized software, running on Red Hat OpenShift.

(10/29/2020)

IBM and AT&T announced plans to work together to help enterprises manage applications
hosted in hybrid cloud environments. This partnership will
specifically see users gain access to the IBM Cloud Satellite
service – which leverages Red
Hat OpenShift – over AT&T networks. This integration will
allow businesses to more easily connect open hybrid cloud
computing using an AT&T MEC (Multi-access Edge Computing)
low-latency, private cellular network-edge environment.

(10/29/2020)

IBM is partnering with the
Australian NSW Department of Education, its STEM Industry
School Partnerships Program, and the NSW Cyber Security
Innovation Node in a bid to bolster cybersecurity and cloud
computing knowledge for students and instructors. This
collaboration is designed to prepare Australia’s up-and-coming
cybersecurity workforce. Additional info is available via the IBM Web site.

(10/28/2020)

IBM and software firm R3 established a collaboration
agreement to focus on helping “expand choice for clients scaling
blockchain technology.” The deal will see R3 open a new beta
program to bring its Corda Enterprise blockchain platform to
LinuxONE. The platform will be available across the hybrid cloud,
on both on-premise and IBM Cloud deployments, and delivered via
IBM Cloud Hyper Protect Services. Availability is expected in the
first quarter of 2021.

(10/22/2020)

IBM and ServiceNow have expanded their strategic partnership for helping apply AI
(artificial intelligence) to automate IT operations and reduce
risk. The companies will release a joint offering, “later this
year,” that combines IBM’s AI-powered hybrid cloud software and
professional services with ServiceNow’s workflow capabilities and
IT service and operations management products.

(10/15/2020)

IBM and ABB have entered into a
collaboration effort for connecting cybersecurity and OT
(operational technology). In particular, ABB developed a new OT
SEM (Security Event Monitoring) service that combines the
company’s own process-control system domain expertise with
IBM’s SEM portfolio. The offering is expected to allow security
events from ABB to be sent to IBM’s QRadar SIEM (security
information and event management) platform.

(10/15/2020)

IBM and Portugal’s Santa
Casa da Misericordia de Lisboa utility are collaborating to develop a new tele-consulting solution that
runs on the IBM public cloud. This service features contributions
from IBM Garage and
IBM Services, and is
designed to help prioritize health aims during COVID-19 by
allowing patients to schedule and access tele-consultation and
remote medical care directly on a mobile device.

(10/15/2020)

IBM has noted that global container
carriers CMA CGM and
MSC Mediterranean Shipping
Company have been integrated onto the TradeLens platform to
provide access to a “more fully integrated, timely, and
consistent view of logistics data” for containerized freight. The
digital platform was jointly developed by IBM and AP Moller – Maersk,
and runs on the IBM
Cloud and IBM
Blockchain.

(10/15/2020)

IBM and The Climate
Service (TCS)
announced an alliance to work
with financial institutions and corporations to “better measure
and quantify risks associated with climate change.” The
partnership will see the TCS Climanomics software platform
available via Red Hat‘s
OpenShift on IBM
Cloud; improve scalability, availability, security, and
interoperability for TCS’ advanced science; facilitate reporting
consistent with the Task Force on Climate-Related Financial
Disclosures framework; leverage IBM Services; and use the
Climanomics platform to provide climate risk analytics.

(10/14/2020)

IBM and the Overwatch
League have announced a multi-year deal to bring IBM’s cloud-based computing and AI
(artificial intelligence) technology to e-sports. The groups plan
to leverage IBM’s suite of advanced cloud and AI products, and,
starting in 2021, plan to develop technology solutions that
leverage IBM’s expertise in NLP (natural language processing) and
ML (machine-learning) to improve the league rankings system, as
well as to utilize Watson AI capabilities to create live and
in-broadcast predictive analysis.

(10/12/2020)

IBM has expanded its existing partnership with Ricoh USA to collaborate
on delivering Ricoh info-management services via the IBM hybrid
cloud. The partnership will see Ricoh utilize IBM Services to
design and implement a hybrid cloud-based environment to
increase productivity, enhance process transparency, and
streamline complexity. Additionally, Ricoh will be able to run
IBM POWER applications and VMWare services that are
co-located in the IBM Cloud, and tap the Red Hat OpenShift platform via
IBM Cloud to provide a bridge to deploy and manage applications
“across all cloud providers in its environment.”

(10/06/2020)

IBM and CLM (client
lifecycle management) solutions vendor Fenergo announced the rollout of new IBM Customer Lifecycle Management with Fenergo
services. The offering is designed to incorporate AI (artificial
intelligence) from IBM Watson and analytics on the IBM Cloud to
help financial institutions drive efficiency in customer
onboarding through improved personalization, risk assessment, and
regulatory compliance.

(10/05/2020)

IBM and HCL Technologies have established a new collaboration for helping clients accelerate
digital transformation. In particular, the companies will provide
expanded support for migrating enterprise mission-critical
workloads to the IBM public cloud. HCL’s IBM Ecosystem Unit
(IEU) will assist clients in developing digital and cloud-native
solutions that are built on the IBM public cloud and use IBM
Cloud Paks containerized software running on Red Hat OpenShift and
Watson-powered advanced data and analytics.

(10/01/2020)

IBM worked with
automobile manufacturer Groupe Renault to develop the XCEED (eXtended Compliance
End-to-End Distributed) blockchain project. The XCEED tool is
designed to certify vehicle component compliance, “from design to
production,” in addition to supporting the “growing demand for
transparency.” XCEED is based on Hyperledger Fabric blockchain
technology.

(09/14/2020)

IBM has teamed with
ESPN to introduce a new Trade Assistant with IBM Watson feature
for the ESPN Fantasy Football app. This function uses AI
(artificial intelligence) to help players make “informed, fair
trades.”

(09/14/2020)

IBM has joined the World Business Council for
Sustainable Development. This collection of 200
“forward-thinking” companies is expected to help IBM extend its
sustainable leadership and development for managing waste,
conserving energy, using renewable electricity, and reducing
carbon dioxide emissions, solving environmental problems based
on AI (artificial intelligence), automation, analytics, IoT
(Internet of Things), and blockchain.

(09/14/2020)

IBM has rolled out Watson Advertising Weather
Targeting. This suite is designed to help marketers to make the
connection between weather and product sales “actionable at
scale” without necessitating third-party cookies or identifiers.
The offering supports advertising targeting triggers powered by
Nielsen, facilitated
through the company’s Connect Partner Network, and leverages
Watson to aggregate and analyze large and complex data sets. As
part of this rollout, the companies also revealed plans to
collaborate to combine The Weather Company’s insight with
Nielsen Retail Measurement Services data.

(09/14/2020)

IBM, IBM’s Red Hat, and Schlumberger have established a collaboration agreement to
accelerate digital transformation for the oil and gas industry.
The initiative will provide global access to Schlumberger’s E&P
(exploration and production) cloud-based environment and
cognitive applications, and will leverage IBM hybrid cloud
technology built on the Red Hat’s OpenShift container platform.
Collaborative development will initially focus on deploying a
private, hybrid, or multi-cloud version of the DELFI cognitive
E&P environment, enabled by OpenShift; and delivering a hybrid
cloud implementation of the OSDU data platform.

(09/08/2020)

Personnel and Organizational

IBM announced a pair of
personnel appointments for Kyndryl, the independent
public company that will be created following the separation of
its Managed Infrastructure Services business. Of note, the
company named Antoine Shagoury as CTO. Shagoury is a venture
partner with Ridge-Lane, as well as a former executive with State
Street, the London Stock Exchange Group, and the American
Stock Exchange and New York Stock Exchange Alternext. The
new company also plans to establish an advisory practice of
senior experts, with Vic Bhagat serving as founding member.
Bhagat – who will serve as a Senior Partner – is a former exec
with Verizon Enterprise Solutions, EMC, and GE

(06/28/2021)

IBM is working with the
Indian Institute of Science to establish the IBM-IISc Hybrid
Cloud lab in Bengaluru. This facility will work to advance
research in hybrid cloud technology, in addition to driving
“breakthrough” innovations and promoting research by students,
faculty, and IBM Research scientists. Specific areas of study
include building autonomous, self-healing computer systems;
adopting microservices and optimizing cloud-native applications;
creating AI-based info management; and developing AI (artificial
intelligence) systems to analyze human and machine languages.

(06/23/2021)

IBM introduced the
Reigniting Small Business from IBM program. Reigniting Small
Business will focus on providing no-cost, education and coaching
to help small businesses run more effectively as COVID-19-related
restrictions are eased. The program was launched alongside
Huntington National Bank, Jones Day, The United way of New York
City, and Forward Cities, and will offer live and on-demand
tutorial sessions on topics such as HR, accounting, funding,
legal, digital branding, marketing, and customer relationship
strategy.

(06/22/2021)

IBM appointed Maryjo
Charbonnier as Chief HR Officer for Kyndryl, the independent
public company that will be created following the separation of
its Managed Infrastructure Services business. Charbonnier comes
to Kyndryl from Wolters Kluwer, where she served in a similar
capacity. The exec has also had stints with Broadridge Financial
Solutions and PepsiCo. An official spinoff is scheduled to occur
“by the end of 2021.”

(06/15/2021)

IBM is establishing the
IBM Center for Government Cybersecurity. This collaborative
environment will focus on helping federal agencies address
current and future cybersecurity threats. The center will
facilitate events and resources, drawing on IBM’s cybersecurity
expertise, internal experts and external advisors, and
technology. The IBM Center for Government Cybersecurity will be
housed at IBM’s offices in downtown Washington, DC, and will
feature a secured laboratory space to allow government customers
to collaborate on technology to advance security threats,
leverage insight from demos, access virtual sessions, and execute
on-site engagements at customer locations.

(06/02/2021)

IBM announced that Kyndryl, its soon-to-be
separated Managed Infrastructure Services business, named
Michael Bradshaw as CIO. Bradshaw is a former executive with NBC Universal and Lockheed Martin.

(05/18/2021)

IBM extended its Global
University Program with HBCUs (historically black colleges and
universities) to 40 new schools. IBM noted that it is now working
with the American Association of Blacks in Higher Education, 100
Black Men of America, Advancing Minorities’ Interest in
Engineering, and the United Negro College Fund to better prepare
HBCU students for “in-demand” jobs in the digital economy.

(05/10/2021)

IBM opened its first Cloud
Multizone Region in Brazil to service Latin America. This
expansion of its global cloud-based presence builds on an
existing presence in the country, and is expected to help clients
deploy mission-critical workloads with “high levels of security
and resilience.”

(03/18/2021)

IBM announced the “key”
members of the executive team tasked with leading its separated
Managed Infrastructure Services business. Executives for the
still-unnamed company – which is slated to spin off “by the end
of 2021” – include former Pitango Venture Capital and IBM exec
Elly Keinan, as President; and IBM Americas CMO, Maria
Bartolome Winans, in that same role.

(03/03/2021)

IBM introduced a
“highly-specialized” Hybrid Cloud Build Team. This group will
specifically support the migration and modernization of ecosystem
partner products, services, and “other offerings across open
hybrid cloud environments.” The engagement team includes 100
cloud architects, data scientists, cloud developers, security
specialists, and developer advocates who will work on agile
technology co-creation, advise partners regarding product and
service transitions, and facilitate opening hybrid cloud
environments.

(02/04/2021)

IBM‘s Board of Directors elected company CEO, Arvind Krishna as Chairman, effective January 1, 2021. Krishna succeeds the retiring Virginia Rometty.

(12/16/2020)

IBM‘s Red Hat has introduced the
Red Hat
Marketplace. This “one-stop-shop” offers a resource for
helping to “find, try, buy, deploy and manage enterprise
applications” across one’s hybrid IT infrastructure. The
IBM-operated Marketplace will include an ecosystem of ISV
(independent software vendor) software options that are built on
Red Hat OpenShift to support mission-critical workloads across
secure hybrid cloud-based environments.

(09/08/2020)

Financials

IBM recorded a 20 percent
Y2Y decline in company earnings for the 2021 first quarter. The
three-month period ended March 31st included a net income of
$955 million, or $1.06 per share, compared to fiscal 20Q1 profits
of $1.2 billion, or $1.31 per share. At the same time, revenues
were $17.7 billion, which is up 1 percent from year-ago quarterly
sales of $17.6 billion. In terms of revenue by segment, Cloud &
Cognitive Services improved 4 percent year-on-year to $5.4
billion; Global Business Services grew 2 percent to $4.2 billion;
Global Technology Services fell 2 percent to $6.4 billion;
Systems increased 2 percent to $1.4 billion; and Global Financing
declined 20 percent to $240 million.

(04/19/2021)

IBM‘s fourth quarter and
full year 2020, ended December 31st, marked large Y2Y declines in
company profits. Q4 earnings totaled $1.4 billion, or $1.51 per
share, reflecting a 62 percent year-on-year dropoff from a 19Q4
net income of $3.7 billion, or $4.11 per share. Revenues,
meanwhile, were $20.4 billion, an amount that is down by 7
percent when compared to 2019 fourth quarter sales of $22
billion. In terms of revenue by segment, Cloud & Cognitive
Solutions fell 6 percent Y2Y to $6.8 billion, Global Business
Services dropped off 2 percent to $4.2 billion, and Global
Technology Services declined 4 percent to $6.6 billion. At the
same time, Systems revenue fell 17 percent to $2.5 billion, and
Global Financing revenue decreased 5 percent to $286 million.
Over the full-year period, company earnings were $5.6 billion, or
$6.23 per share, an amount that is down by 40 percent when
compared to 2019 profits of $9.4 billion, or $10.56 per share.
Twelve-month sales were $74 billion, marking a 4 percent Y2Y
decline from 2019 revenues of $77 billion. By segment, Cloud &
Cognitive Solutions revenue increased 2 percent year to year to
$23.4 billion, Global Business Services sales fell 6 percent to
$16 billion, and Global Technology Services revenue was down 4
percent to $26 billion. Additionally, IBM’s Systems revenue fell
8 percent to $7 billion, while Global Financing sales decreased
21 percent to $1.1 billion.

(01/21/2021)

IBM logged modest
revenue growth among flat income, year to year, for the 2020
third quarter ended September 30, 2020. Company sales were
$17.6 billion, an amount that is up by 2 percent when compared to
19Q3 revenues of $18 billion. By segment, Cloud & Cognitive
Software revenue grew 6 percent Y2Y to $5.5 billion, Global
Business Services revenue fell 5 percent to $4 billion, and
Global Technology Services sales declined 3 percent to $6.5
billion. Additionally, Systems revenue dropped off 13 percent, to
$1.3 billion, while Global Financing sales were down 20 percent
to $273 million. IBM also noted that Red Hat pulled in a 17 percent
Y2Y increase in revenues, albeit “normalized for historical
comparability.” Company profits were $1.7 billion, or $1.89 per
share.

(10/19/2020)

IBM disclosed plans to
accelerate its hybrid cloud growth strategy by separating its
Managed Infrastructure Services unit into a new public company.
This group – which falls under the auspices of IBM Global Technology Services – is expected to be
spun off to IBM shareholders “by the end of 2021.” Terms were not
disclosed.

(10/08/2020)

References

¹ Steve Lohr. "IBM Buys SoftLayer, a Cloud Computing Firm."
The New York Times. June 4, 2013.

² Ibid.

³ Steve Lohr. "How Big Data Became So Big."
The New York Times. August 11, 2012.

⁴ Steve Lohr. "IBM Puts
Watson to Work in Business." The New York Times. May 21, 2013.

⁵ Ibid.

⁶ Ibid.

⁷
Natasha Singer. "Mission Control, Built for Cities." The New York Times. March 3, 2012.

⁸ Steve Lohr. "IBM Offers
Workers Training and Pay Cuts." The New York Times. September 17, 2014.

⁹
"25 Years of IBM Patent Leadership." IBM Blog.
Retrieved September 2018.

¹⁰ Steve Lohr. "IBM in Tug
of War Between Legacy and the Leading Edge." The New York Times. July 17, 2014.

¹¹ "IBM to Settle Bribery Charges for
$10 Million." Bloomberg News. March 18, 2011.

¹² Steve Lohr. "Cloud Revenue
Jumps, Led by Microsoft and IBM." The New York Times. August 3, 2014.

¹³ Steve Lohr. "IBM in Tug
of War Between Legacy and the Leading Edge." The New York Times. July 17, 2014.

¹⁴ Wallace Witkowski. "IBM Earnings Beat Fueled by Mainframe
Sales, But That Strength May Not Last Long." MarketWatch. July 2018.

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IBM Company Profile

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Report Contents:

Fast Facts

Profile

History & Milestone Events

Strategy

Strengths

Weaknesses

Outlook

Product Lines

Major Competitors

Activity

Mergers, Acquisitions, and Divestitures

Products and Services

Alliances and Joint Ventures

Personnel and Organizational

Financials

References

IBM
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