IBM Information on Demand Conference, October 27, 2008 -Today IBM (NYSE: IBM) announced enhancements to its InfoSphere software portfolio, a unified platform for delivering timely and accurate information on demand to the people, processes and applications that rely on it. The company is introducing new software for the rapid advancement of master data management projects, data warehousing capabilities for the mainframe, software to improve data integration, and tools for creating an information agenda.
Speeding Master Data Management Initiatives IBM is offering new functionality within InfoSphere Master Data Management Server to help customers reap a return on their master data management investments more quickly. Master data is the information upon which organizations' operations and critical business decisions are based. Many businesses struggle with data that is distributed across multiple front and back-office systems and cannot be shared enterprise-wide. This problem, which costs businesses millions of dollars in missed revenues and operational inefficiencies, is driving companies to seek more flexibility in how they maintain and use master data as a means of competing and capitalizing on emerging business opportunities.
To address this challenge, IBM offers software that supports the variety of ways in which businesses define, create, and use master data in their daily operations. Earlier this year, the company introduced InfoSphere MDM Server, the first product to provide out-of-the-box capabilities for managing master data on customers, products, accounts, suppliers, citizens, employees, prospects, guests, agents, items, product bundles, parts, agreements, and more.
The new functionality combines InfoSphere MDM Server with key components of IBM InfoSphere Information Server, which provide pre-defined data integration and cleansing logic to allow organizations to cleanse and combine data from heterogeneous systems into a single high-quality view that can be managed within InfoSphere MDM Server. The package allows organizations to get an operational master data management solution up and running within a dramatically reduced timeframe, at a fraction of the price of alternative approaches.
Expanded Data Integration Capabilities A new version of IBM InfoSphere Information Server extends the capabilities of the product's DataStage module, helping companies to integrate and sort through massive amounts of information stored in databases. Rather than taking data from source systems and processing it in a separate engine, balanced optimization selectively pushes processing into the database based on optimization algorithms and design preferences, boosting information integration performance and delivering information to end users as quickly as possible.
Closer Integration with Cognos The IBM InfoSphere portfolio has been more tightly aligned with the Cognos 8 platform to provide improved confidence in the information driving performance management. For example, the recently announced Cognos 8 Business Viewpoint helps organizations maintain, govern and share data models used in decision-making process across business intelligence (BI) and performance management. Business Viewpoint can be deployed as part of a broader master data management initiative with InfoSphere MDM Server so performance management is aligned with the operational master data.
The InfoSphere Warehouse 9.5 now provides customers with the ability to synchronize data in the warehouse with business intelligence applications or desktop software such as Microsoft Excel. As a result, the product delivers more intelligence more rapidly to more users, as well as tighter integration with IBM Cognos 8 BI. The InfoSphere Balanced Warehouse C3000 and C4000 now include Cognos 8 BI, providing a valuable and cost-effective solution for small and midsized companies, who need to ensure that their data warehousing capabilities can be easily expanded as their businesses grow.
In addition, InfoSphere Information Analyzer provides metrics on conformance, validity and completeness of information as a data source to Cognos 8 BI. This enables business users to gain insight into the quality of data alongside their regular BI reports. Business users also gain immediate access to the capabilities of InfoSphere Business Glossary 8.1 from within Cognos 8 BI with the click of a mouse. Rational Data Architect is now integrated with InfoSphere Information Server, InfoSphere Warehouse, Industry Models and Cognos 8 BI so models can be reused to simplify the lifecycle deployment of projects from design and development to deployment.
About InfoSphere Software InfoSphere software products provide all the capabilities needed for accelerating the delivery of trusted information for business optimization. InfoSphere software is comprised of industry leading warehousing, information integration and master data management products. Through InfoSphere software products, clients can achieve trusted business information by transforming, reconciling and maintaining information, and delivering it in real time to the people, processes and applications that need it. InfoSphere software provides for the end to end management and delivery of trusted business information to ensure competitive success.
IBM InfoSphere software is available worldwide through IBM and IBM Business Partners.
IBM Software Helps Clients Achieve Greater Business Agility
LAS VEGAS, IBM Information on Demand Conference, October 27, 2008 - IBM today announced new Enterprise Content Management (ECM) solutions that are designed to help organizations achieve greater business agility and workplace effectiveness. Recognizing the need for more nimble, adaptable technology, IBM's agile ECM portfolio provides improved flexibility to help empower business users and respond faster to changing business requirements.
Unifying content, process and compliance capabilities in a new composite application framework, IBM's agile ECM helps enable clients to quickly solve increasingly complex business problems. Using a flexible, services oriented environment, clients can now deploy solution applications within days instead of months. With this new offering, IBM is help clients to accelerate time to value, end user approachability and is putting the power in the hands of the business professional.
IBM's agile ECM portfolio is a further advancement to help clients enhance content, process and compliance management to realize IBM's Information On Demand vision. IBM's ECM software helps make it easier for business users to connect content in context of their business processes and communicate those requirements to their IT counterparts faster and more accurately, resulting in faster time to value for clients who need to improve their business processes, quickly respond to market needs and rapidly identify new business opportunities.
"Organizations need information to innovate and optimize their businesses, but struggle with how to manage all the information that they have," said Ken Bisconti, vice president, products and strategy, IBM Enterprise Content Management. "IBM's focus on agility with ECM software helps clients address many important challenges, such as how to globally integrate solutions with immense volumes of information, optimize their processes while managing all the regulatory requirements."
For example, construction field personnel have heavy interaction with multiple contractors, inspecting their work and documenting the progress on various projects. Many documents are necessary for the accurate record keeping and reporting of construction activity. Information captured on paper forms, which are then filed in a project book or transcribed into an online data storage system, can be flawed by delays in data entry, damaged paper forms and errors during transcription. With an agile, end-to-end automation business process, information such as maps and equipment inventory can now be electronically delivered to the contractors in the field instantly, improving speed, reducing errors as well as reducing overall project costs.
IBM Agile ECM Software Portfolio The volume of information, the different information types and the multi-channel world an organization deals with continue to grow dramatically. With globalization and changing market conditions, businesses need to access information instantly more than ever before. IBM's agile ECM portfolio is designed to address these growing market needs.
Key enhancements in IBM ECM portfolio include:
IBM FileNet P8 4.5 is a unified ECM platform that combines content with Business Process Management (BPM) and compliance capabilities. FileNet P8 4.5 has been significantly enhanced across all of its core modules.
- IBM FileNet Business Process Manager 4.5 is a comprehensive, enterprise-class offering for managing content-centric business processes. It supports business user-oriented and standards-based process modeling and simulation, promotes business user and IT collaboration, and provides tools for agile application development, utilizing Smart SOA and Web 2.0 technologies such as mashups. This new offering enables users to launch FileNet P8 BPM processes for content in multiple repositories including IBM CM8. This seamless integration to IBM CM8 allows a FileNet P8 BPM process to make changes to IBM CM8 content thru IBM CM8-specific content operations.
- IBM FileNet Content Manager 4.5 is designed to provide clients with a scalable, single catalog model that embeds IBM's content-centric BPM and compliance capabilities into a single ECM platform operating on content in multiple repositories. The enhanced FileNet Content Manager enables intuitive integration with Lotus Quickr, Microsoft Office 2007, and Microsoft SharePoint allowing users choice while interacting with and benefiting from ECM capabilities. FileNet Content Manager has also implemented a component-based content model leveraging the DITA XML standard now broadly adopted in the industry for advanced document management applications. DITA supports agility through the reuse of document components in support of diverse authoring and publishing requirements.
- IBM Content Manager 8.4.1 manages all types of digitized content across multiple platforms, databases and applications. The new offering provides active support for IBM FileNet BPM 4.5 and also integrates with Lotus Quickr. IBM Content Manager includes new Web Interface (WEBi) enhancements that are designed as an out-of-the box, interactive Web Client that employs open standards and supports Web 2.0 and AJAX technology.
- IBM Content Manager on Demand (CMOD) 8.4.1 provides enterprise report management and is designed to help clients gain a return on their investment. The latest CMOD offering includes and enhanced retention management feature and also integrates with IBM FileNet BPM.
In addition, the new IBM ECM products use the same technology as our recently released compliance and discovery offerings:
- IBM Content Collection and Archiving family is based on a modular, extensible architecture that helps enable organizations to take back control and unlock business value of content, while enforcing compliance and operational policies.
- IBM's records management offerings are a prescriptive set of deployment and management practices, tools and best practices to eliminate deployment complexity, mitigate risks associated with lack of best practices and industry skill/knowledge shortages.
- IBM's eDiscovery products help clients take the cost out of electronic discovery management. The offerings provide an integrated, in-house approach that helps control stored information and litigation response across the enterprise.
- IBM FileNet P8 integration with IBM Content Analyzer enables organizations to increase the return on their enterprise content investment by analyzing unstructured content together with structured data to gain valuable, even business-changing insight from all information.
IBM also announced that it has extended the IBM Lotus Quickr collaboration software line to include IBM ECM Services for Lotus Quickr, further helping businesses of all sizes manage, share and collaborate on important information. IBM Lotus Quickr version 8.1.1 will be the first software of its kind to integrate with documents, spreadsheets and other files that reside in IBM content management systems. This new integration between IBM Lotus Quickr and IBM ECM portfolio will allow Lotus Quickr 8.1.1 and IBM ECM users - both FileNet P8 and IBM Content Manager 8 users - to collaborate on business content via Quickr while leveraging IBM's comprehensive content management infrastructure.
This technology advancement will allow employees to unlock enterprise content so it can be easily accessed across the organization. This content includes every day business applications like e-mail, presentations and spreadsheets and complicated records management and business process management programs. The new software will allow organization with a variety of IT applications to standardize on Lotus Quickr for team collaboration and social networking needs without the hassle of complex data migration and social networking needs without the hassle of complex data migration. Competitive offerings do not integrate with another content management system at this level.
For more information on IBM's agile Enterprise Content Management offerings, visit: www.ibm.com/...
Speeding Master Data Management Initiatives IBM is offering new functionality within InfoSphere Master Data Management Server to help customers reap a return on their master data management investments more quickly. Master data is the information upon which organizations' operations and critical business decisions are based. Many businesses struggle with data that is distributed across multiple front and back-office systems and cannot be shared enterprise-wide. This problem, which costs businesses millions of dollars in missed revenues and operational inefficiencies, is driving companies to seek more flexibility in how they maintain and use master data as a means of competing and capitalizing on emerging business opportunities.
To address this challenge, IBM offers software that supports the variety of ways in which businesses define, create, and use master data in their daily operations. Earlier this year, the company introduced InfoSphere MDM Server, the first product to provide out-of-the-box capabilities for managing master data on customers, products, accounts, suppliers, citizens, employees, prospects, guests, agents, items, product bundles, parts, agreements, and more.
The new functionality combines InfoSphere MDM Server with key components of IBM InfoSphere Information Server, which provide pre-defined data integration and cleansing logic to allow organizations to cleanse and combine data from heterogeneous systems into a single high-quality view that can be managed within InfoSphere MDM Server. The package allows organizations to get an operational master data management solution up and running within a dramatically reduced timeframe, at a fraction of the price of alternative approaches.
Expanded Data Integration Capabilities A new version of IBM InfoSphere Information Server extends the capabilities of the product's DataStage module, helping companies to integrate and sort through massive amounts of information stored in databases. Rather than taking data from source systems and processing it in a separate engine, balanced optimization selectively pushes processing into the database based on optimization algorithms and design preferences, boosting information integration performance and delivering information to end users as quickly as possible.
Closer Integration with Cognos The IBM InfoSphere portfolio has been more tightly aligned with the Cognos 8 platform to provide improved confidence in the information driving performance management. For example, the recently announced Cognos 8 Business Viewpoint helps organizations maintain, govern and share data models used in decision-making process across business intelligence (BI) and performance management. Business Viewpoint can be deployed as part of a broader master data management initiative with InfoSphere MDM Server so performance management is aligned with the operational master data.
The InfoSphere Warehouse 9.5 now provides customers with the ability to synchronize data in the warehouse with business intelligence applications or desktop software such as Microsoft Excel. As a result, the product delivers more intelligence more rapidly to more users, as well as tighter integration with IBM Cognos 8 BI. The InfoSphere Balanced Warehouse C3000 and C4000 now include Cognos 8 BI, providing a valuable and cost-effective solution for small and midsized companies, who need to ensure that their data warehousing capabilities can be easily expanded as their businesses grow.
In addition, InfoSphere Information Analyzer provides metrics on conformance, validity and completeness of information as a data source to Cognos 8 BI. This enables business users to gain insight into the quality of data alongside their regular BI reports. Business users also gain immediate access to the capabilities of InfoSphere Business Glossary 8.1 from within Cognos 8 BI with the click of a mouse. Rational Data Architect is now integrated with InfoSphere Information Server, InfoSphere Warehouse, Industry Models and Cognos 8 BI so models can be reused to simplify the lifecycle deployment of projects from design and development to deployment.
About InfoSphere Software InfoSphere software products provide all the capabilities needed for accelerating the delivery of trusted information for business optimization. InfoSphere software is comprised of industry leading warehousing, information integration and master data management products. Through InfoSphere software products, clients can achieve trusted business information by transforming, reconciling and maintaining information, and delivering it in real time to the people, processes and applications that need it. InfoSphere software provides for the end to end management and delivery of trusted business information to ensure competitive success.
IBM InfoSphere software is available worldwide through IBM and IBM Business Partners.
IBM Software Helps Clients Achieve Greater Business Agility
LAS VEGAS, IBM Information on Demand Conference, October 27, 2008 - IBM today announced new Enterprise Content Management (ECM) solutions that are designed to help organizations achieve greater business agility and workplace effectiveness. Recognizing the need for more nimble, adaptable technology, IBM's agile ECM portfolio provides improved flexibility to help empower business users and respond faster to changing business requirements.
Unifying content, process and compliance capabilities in a new composite application framework, IBM's agile ECM helps enable clients to quickly solve increasingly complex business problems. Using a flexible, services oriented environment, clients can now deploy solution applications within days instead of months. With this new offering, IBM is help clients to accelerate time to value, end user approachability and is putting the power in the hands of the business professional.
IBM's agile ECM portfolio is a further advancement to help clients enhance content, process and compliance management to realize IBM's Information On Demand vision. IBM's ECM software helps make it easier for business users to connect content in context of their business processes and communicate those requirements to their IT counterparts faster and more accurately, resulting in faster time to value for clients who need to improve their business processes, quickly respond to market needs and rapidly identify new business opportunities.
"Organizations need information to innovate and optimize their businesses, but struggle with how to manage all the information that they have," said Ken Bisconti, vice president, products and strategy, IBM Enterprise Content Management. "IBM's focus on agility with ECM software helps clients address many important challenges, such as how to globally integrate solutions with immense volumes of information, optimize their processes while managing all the regulatory requirements."
For example, construction field personnel have heavy interaction with multiple contractors, inspecting their work and documenting the progress on various projects. Many documents are necessary for the accurate record keeping and reporting of construction activity. Information captured on paper forms, which are then filed in a project book or transcribed into an online data storage system, can be flawed by delays in data entry, damaged paper forms and errors during transcription. With an agile, end-to-end automation business process, information such as maps and equipment inventory can now be electronically delivered to the contractors in the field instantly, improving speed, reducing errors as well as reducing overall project costs.
IBM Agile ECM Software Portfolio The volume of information, the different information types and the multi-channel world an organization deals with continue to grow dramatically. With globalization and changing market conditions, businesses need to access information instantly more than ever before. IBM's agile ECM portfolio is designed to address these growing market needs.
Key enhancements in IBM ECM portfolio include:
IBM FileNet P8 4.5 is a unified ECM platform that combines content with Business Process Management (BPM) and compliance capabilities. FileNet P8 4.5 has been significantly enhanced across all of its core modules.
- IBM FileNet Business Process Manager 4.5 is a comprehensive, enterprise-class offering for managing content-centric business processes. It supports business user-oriented and standards-based process modeling and simulation, promotes business user and IT collaboration, and provides tools for agile application development, utilizing Smart SOA and Web 2.0 technologies such as mashups. This new offering enables users to launch FileNet P8 BPM processes for content in multiple repositories including IBM CM8. This seamless integration to IBM CM8 allows a FileNet P8 BPM process to make changes to IBM CM8 content thru IBM CM8-specific content operations.
- IBM FileNet Content Manager 4.5 is designed to provide clients with a scalable, single catalog model that embeds IBM's content-centric BPM and compliance capabilities into a single ECM platform operating on content in multiple repositories. The enhanced FileNet Content Manager enables intuitive integration with Lotus Quickr, Microsoft Office 2007, and Microsoft SharePoint allowing users choice while interacting with and benefiting from ECM capabilities. FileNet Content Manager has also implemented a component-based content model leveraging the DITA XML standard now broadly adopted in the industry for advanced document management applications. DITA supports agility through the reuse of document components in support of diverse authoring and publishing requirements.
- IBM Content Manager 8.4.1 manages all types of digitized content across multiple platforms, databases and applications. The new offering provides active support for IBM FileNet BPM 4.5 and also integrates with Lotus Quickr. IBM Content Manager includes new Web Interface (WEBi) enhancements that are designed as an out-of-the box, interactive Web Client that employs open standards and supports Web 2.0 and AJAX technology.
- IBM Content Manager on Demand (CMOD) 8.4.1 provides enterprise report management and is designed to help clients gain a return on their investment. The latest CMOD offering includes and enhanced retention management feature and also integrates with IBM FileNet BPM.
In addition, the new IBM ECM products use the same technology as our recently released compliance and discovery offerings:
- IBM Content Collection and Archiving family is based on a modular, extensible architecture that helps enable organizations to take back control and unlock business value of content, while enforcing compliance and operational policies.
- IBM's records management offerings are a prescriptive set of deployment and management practices, tools and best practices to eliminate deployment complexity, mitigate risks associated with lack of best practices and industry skill/knowledge shortages.
- IBM's eDiscovery products help clients take the cost out of electronic discovery management. The offerings provide an integrated, in-house approach that helps control stored information and litigation response across the enterprise.
- IBM FileNet P8 integration with IBM Content Analyzer enables organizations to increase the return on their enterprise content investment by analyzing unstructured content together with structured data to gain valuable, even business-changing insight from all information.
IBM also announced that it has extended the IBM Lotus Quickr collaboration software line to include IBM ECM Services for Lotus Quickr, further helping businesses of all sizes manage, share and collaborate on important information. IBM Lotus Quickr version 8.1.1 will be the first software of its kind to integrate with documents, spreadsheets and other files that reside in IBM content management systems. This new integration between IBM Lotus Quickr and IBM ECM portfolio will allow Lotus Quickr 8.1.1 and IBM ECM users - both FileNet P8 and IBM Content Manager 8 users - to collaborate on business content via Quickr while leveraging IBM's comprehensive content management infrastructure.
This technology advancement will allow employees to unlock enterprise content so it can be easily accessed across the organization. This content includes every day business applications like e-mail, presentations and spreadsheets and complicated records management and business process management programs. The new software will allow organization with a variety of IT applications to standardize on Lotus Quickr for team collaboration and social networking needs without the hassle of complex data migration and social networking needs without the hassle of complex data migration. Competitive offerings do not integrate with another content management system at this level.
For more information on IBM's agile Enterprise Content Management offerings, visit: www.ibm.com/...
