Polycom and IBM gives You the Social Business Experience

Want to experience how social networks are changing the way people connect and communicate? Then register for a complimentary event ” The Social Business Experience” by Polycom and IBM.

• Learn how to schedule high definition video calls from within email and social business interfaces via IBM Sametime^® and the Polycom^® RealPresence™ Platform
• See how companies are using social networking tools to communicate with people internally and externally via messaging, video and social media
• Understand the time and cost savings as demonstrated by industry experts

Helsinki, Oslo, Stockholm & Brøndby, 18th April 2012

More info and registration here!

Ginny Rometty visited my home office!

After her first day in her new role, IBM’s CEO Ginny Rometty, visited my home office!

She actually looked me into my eyes and told me about her dreams and visions for IBM in the time ahead. Good old Sam Palmisano never did that. He was a good boss, but he only sent me an email where I were only one of more than 400.000 receivers. Nothing wrong with that, but Ginny looked me into my eyes. And that means a lot more to me. It creates trust!

What Ginny did was establishing a community called THINKtogether in our internal social network IBM Connections and published a video where she spoke about her thoughts and visions for the future. This was a very personal way to do it and made me feel like she talked to me only.

I call this good communication. She did it the way an excellent communicator should. Engaged, confident, friendly and trustworthy.

And the community she established gave the community members an opportunity to comment on her message. She let the door open for dialogue with her fellow IBM’ers.

This tells me that Ginny Rometty is already showing leadership by using the new way of working – via social collaboration tools – not by using the old and boring email technique.

This tells me that Ginny ( I always use the first name of people who have visited me at home) is a true social collaborator and understands fully what a Social Business is.

Is social business the reason for IBM’s success?

Yes! That is my short answer to the title of the post.

A year ago I traveled around Norway on a Lotus Roadshow presenting Social Business as a concept for transforming businesses into a new age.

One of my foils showed the value growth of IBM shares vs. Microsoft shares from 2005 to 2011. Why I chose 2005? Because that was the year IBM wrote the first business guidelines for the use of social media and started with our first steps within a new way of collaboration.

One of the most imperative reasons for IBM’s success is the fact that the use of social collaborate tools has made it possible for the company’s 400.000 employees to increase their personal productivity, get access to relevant information faster and build a sharing culture.

Of course it is not the social collaboration tools only that is the reason for this success, but it is a main part of it.

IBM Connections and IBM LotusLive are now the main tools I use for collaboration both internally and externally in my daily work for IBM. At the end of each work day there are only five emails I have not dealt with. These maximum five emails are flagged and is the first actions I do on the following workday.

I move more and more of my collaboration both with colleagues and customers into IBM Connections (internally) and IBM LotusLive (externally). I use Communities and Activities heavily and thus have full control of everything (documents, presentations, emails, files, todo’s, plans, links, deadlines etc.) on every matter I deal with.

And it has changed my life from having my head and brain capacity totally occupied by my email inbox – to having structure and better brain bandwidth for creative thinking.

Mark Fidelman has written an interesting article in Business Insider sharing some of the same thoughts I have myself. He also take a look at the share value asking if the use of social collaboration tools is the reason for the growth.

Read his article here!

IBM-aksjen vokser mer enn både Google og Apple

IBM-aksjen er den som vokser raskest i markedet. Er det annet å vente enn at verdens største kapitalist, Warren Buffet, plutselig kjøpte seg opp til 5,5 % av IT-giganten? Tross at han aldri tidligere har satset på IT.

Det er nå seks år siden IBM solgte sin siste PC og derved forlot den delen av bransjen. Nå begrenser IBM seg til å utvikle og selge servere på hardware-siden. Men på tjeneste- og programvaresiden går det rett til værs. Dette utgjør å over 83 % av omsetningen.

Spesielt i de nye fremadstormende økonomiene som Kina, Brasil og India gjør IBM det bra. Bare i Kina har man nå over 20.000 IBM-ansatte konsulenter!

Les mer og hør mer på NPR (National Public Radio) – her!

Ingen bruker sosiale verktøy mer enn IBM

IBM tar egen medisin. De snakker ikke bare om å være en Social Business – de er selve supereksemplet på det å være en moderne sosial forretning. Hele organisasjonen er gjennomsyret av sosial samhandling, både i tanker ord og gjerninger. Her er litt statistikk fra 2011.

Gartner: IBM leder innen e-Commerce

Gartner har nå plassert IBM som ledende leverandør av e-commerce-løsninger i sitt Magic Quadrant.

IBM slo den tidligere lederen Oracle i begge kategorier “completeness of vision” og “ability to execute”. Gartners definisjon av e-commerce-markedet fortsetter å utvides og omfatter ikke lengre bare leverandører som tilbyr B2B og B2C-løsninger. Definisjonen omfatter nå hele kundeopplevelsen gjennom hele salgsprosessen.

Her er noen av momentene ved IBM’s løsning som slo ut for Gartners analyse:

A complete set of core e-commerce capabilities and a vision to deliver a seamless customer experience across channels which validates our Smarter Commerce initiative.

A client reference base using social capabilities through IBM WebSphere Commerce, and driving online sales across social networks such as Facebook.

Enterprise mobile applications based on the IBM Global Services roadmap and the introduction of a new set of handheld devices in 2011.

Deployment flexibility made available through ‘Smarter Commerce on Cloud’offerings (starting with CPQ on Cloud in 4Q11) for mid-market organizations.

 

Selvfølgelig kan du integrere IBM samhandling i Microsofts løsninger!

Har du Microsoft så kan du kun bruke annen programvare fra Microsoft! Det forsøker ihvertfall Microsoft å overbevise sine kunder om. Men det er feil.

Selv om Microsoft forsøker å binde kundene til seg ved at du må kjøpe flere produkter fra dem for å få fullt utbytte av løsningene deres, så er det ikke alltid slik. IBM har selvfølgelig laget sine moderne samhandlingsløsninger slik at du kan integrere dem i din MS Office-løsning. Bare se videoene her!

IBM åpner for fritt valg av utstyr for de ansatte

IBM åpner nå for at de ansatte kan benytte eget foretrukket utstyr når det gjelder laptops, nettbrett og smart-telefoner.

Også i Norge ser du nå stadig flere IBM-ere med en Mac eller en iPad under armen og en iPhone i lomma. Og andre foretrekker Linux som OS på sine tradisjonelle, svarte ThinkPads fra Lenovo. Selv er jeg totalt på MacOS og iOS plattformene.

Les mer her!

Forrester: IBM ledende på markedet for Web Analytics

IBM er den klare lederen når det gjelder Web Analytics, i følge analysefirmaet Forrester. I sin rapport “The Forrester Wave: Web Analytics, Q4 2011″ utpeker de IBM som suveren leder.

I den omfattende analysen som bygger på hele 80 vurderingskriterier er også Adobe, comScore og Webtrends med i toppsjiktet.

Du kan laste ned hele rapporten her!

IBM programvare vokste kraftig i 3. kvartal

Programvaredivisjonen til IBM vokser stadig både i omsetning og lønnsomhet. Og gode gamle Lotus vokste med 6 % år over år.

Revenues from the Software segment were $5.8 billion, an increase of 13 percent (8 percent, adjusting for currency). Software pre-tax income of $2.2 billion was up 12 percent year over year.

Revenues from IBM’s key middleware products, which include WebSphere, Information Management, Tivoli, Lotus and Rational products, were $3.6 billion, an increase of 17 percent (12 percent, adjusting for currency) versus the third quarter of 2010. Operating systems revenues of $598 million increased 9 percent (4 percent, adjusting for currency) compared with the prior-year quarter.

Revenues from the WebSphere family of software products increased 52 percent year over year. Information Management software revenues increased 12 percent. Revenues from Tivoli software increased 8 percent. Revenues from Lotus software increased 6 percent, and Rational software increased 7 percent.