IBM’s MobileFirst “Customer Cloud” Strategy

Will Enterprise IT Execs Entrust Their Customer Data to IBM’s Cloud & Mobile Tools?

March 28, 2014

How will IBM gain marketshare in cloud computing against the entrenched incumbent: Amazon? Many enterprise IT developers already use Amazon’s public cloud to enable them to prototype and develop applications. In February 2014, IBM announced a new cloud “Platform as a Service” offering designed to appeal to enterprise developers who are building Web applications and mobile apps that need to be integrated into IBM back-end services. IBM’s MobileFirst portolio supports development of mobile apps. How do IBM’s MobileFirst and CodeName: BlueMix PaaS initiatives help corporate information technology executives and developers? Consider using these services to develop your company’s “Customer Cloud.”

NETTING IT OUT

IBM is playing catch up with Amazon as a provider of cloud computing services. What does IBM have to offer besides its brand promise for enterprise IT?

IBM is embracing and rebranding an open source cloud platform that enables software developers to write “cloud-ready” applications that connect easily to most, and soon all, of IBM’s software, security, and business processes, as callable services.

IBM is positioning its Cloud Development Platform, Code Name: BlueMix, as a “MobileFirst” development environment. That’s because customers’ and employees’ use of mobile devices for anywhere, anytime access to data and applications is driving the requirement for cloud.

What intrigues us about IBM’s late-to-the-party enterprise cloud strategy is that it lends itself well to what we believe to be the “killer app” for mobile+cloud: Customer Clouds.

IBM’s Twin Strategies: Cloud & MOBILE

What’s Cloud Computing and Why Is It Important to IBM?

Cloud computing is on-demand access to computers, storage and networking that are hosted by a trusted third-party, like Amazon, Rackspace, HP, Google, or IBM. You don’t own, manage, or worry about the actual computers, disk drives, air conditioning, electricity, or the physical premises. You simply buy compute cycles and deploy your own “Virtual Machines” running your company’s software in these hosted data centers that are deployed around the world.

There are three types of cloud computing: public clouds, private clouds, and hybrid clouds...(more)