IN one of Cairo's most fascinating attractions, the Citadel, IBM has unveiled its new complete cloud computing solution. The new software and services were launched to help clients build collaborative and connected business environments to harness the rapid marketplace shifts that are transforming how they work. The new offerings are designed to help clients across industries embrace rather than resist the unprecedented changes in today's marketplace and use them to their advantage, say the corporation's officials. They address three critical challenges faced by business leaders around the world: making business processes more responsive and easier to change; improving collaboration within and beyond their organisations; and using technology to meet business needs quickly. Cloud computing can give end-users easy access to the critical information they need remotely, from various devices, virtually anywhere. IBM helps organisations benefit from this model with desktop services that are designed to enable end-users with network-attached PCs and certain other devices the ability to access applications and data through a centrally managed computing environment. "Today more than ever, enterprises need an optimised IT infrastructure, and efficients," explained Amr Talaat, the territory manager for IBM Egypt. "The public desktop cloud service is designed to help bring cost savings, flexibility, scalability and data security to clients like never before," added Talaat. The new Smart Business Desktop on the IBM Cloud subscription service helps clients virtualise desktop computing resources, and provide a logical, rather than a physical, method of access to data, computing power, storage capacity and other resources. This service requires no upfront capital or one time expense and is designed to provide enhanced levels of security, resiliency, reliability and quality for virtual desktops. The service offers flexible delivery models, including three standard cloud-based offerings, dedicated infrastructure, and customer premise solutions, while helping to streamline data backup and recovery, and reduce unauthorised access. During the event, IBM announced new offerings that are designed to help businesses make their processes more agile, responsive and easier to change while supporting increased collaboration between workers and those processes. New industry frameworks initially targeted at four industries ��" banking, chemical/ petroleum, energy and government ��" help customers benefit from decades of IBM industry experience and include a configurable software platform, industry assets and best practices. The frameworks, designed to be turnkey software modules that match specific industry needs are: enabling faster business solution deployment with lower project cost risk, expanding choice through a validated ecosystem of partners and accelerating adoption of business IT standards. The corporation also launched LotusLive iNotes, a new e-mail service that delivers the benefits of cloud computing with a focus on reliability, privacy and data security, to millions of mainstream business users. The new LotusLive iNotes cloud service allows overburdened IT departments to take advantage of IBM's leadership in enterprise collaboration for a range of on- or off-premise messaging capabilities, including mail that works with Lotus Notes and Microsoft Exchange or operates as a standalone solution to reduce overall IT costs and complexity. It is quick and simple to deploy, making it well-suited for companies of all sizes. LotusLive iNotes is designed for companies that want to confidently move some or all of their e-mail to the cloud by working with an enterprise leader in collaboration software that is used by more than half of global Fortune 100 companies. In fact, the LotusLive cloud mail platform supporting this service already has more than 18 million e-mail accounts under management. With decades of experience serving the business market, IBM's products include Lotus Notes, one of the world's most widely used e mail programmes. The new IBM cloud service can accommodate gradual or dramatic migrations to the cloud, while also supporting a client's existing on premise collaboration system, say officials. It is also ideal for employee segments of large enterprises which do not require all the capabilities of fullfeatured e-mail and collaboration software, or for e-mployees that currently have no access to company e-mail. LotusLive iNotes is equally well-suited for small- and medium-sized businesses, many of whom have discovered the convenience and savings of free or low-cost Web-based e-mail services but have grown weary of service outages, distracting advertisements or data security and privacy concerns that can impact employee operational productivity and confidence. While these companies realise they need business-grade email, many do not have the budget or in-house technical resources to deploy an on-premise solution.
