Enterprise Cloud FEATURED ARTICLE

IBM (News - Alert) has spent the last couple of weeks shoring up its enterprise cloud offerings with a number of major announcements. From rolling out the newest version of its MobileFirst Foundation mobile application development platform to opening its latest IBM Blue Mix Garage in New York City’s SoHo neighborhood, the company is making strategic global strides to capture the enterprise cloud market.

The latest version of MobileFirst Foundation is available through IBM cloud, and is designed to foster speed and productivity for mobile application development while meeting the unique needs of the cloud. The platform supports both backend services for cloud deployments as well as front-end tools for mobile app development and offers a number of unique features like live updates, mobile analytics and multi-channel API creation and management.

The new mobile analytics component is significant as it gathers real-time data on app usage metrics and lets developers build their own custom metrics. Developers may use IBM API Connect to add automated, visual and coding options for creating new APIs. IBM has also released a new version of its database software, IBM DB2 V11.1 in tandem with the mobile platform. The solution is designed specifically to move data and workloads from data centers to the cloud, and includes security features geared toward hybrid cloud deployments.

IBM’s new Bluemix Garage is also meant to foster enterprise cloud development, serving as a hub for developers, product managers and designers to innovate on the Bluemix public cloud platform. The New York location joins a global network of Bluemix Garages in Tokyo, San Francisco, London, Toronto, Nice and Singapore.

"Ramping up more companies on Bluemix will be a significant addition to New York City's tech economy, as it enables financial tech companies like us to innovate with APIs such as Watson," said Prashant Bhuyan, cofounder and CEO of Alpha Modus, an investment tech firm. "Using Bluemix, we've been able to roll out transformational apps that leverage cognitive analytics with unbelievable time and efficiency –helping to shake up the way our clients invest in the markets."

The IBM Garages are also facilitating new Blockchain technology projects in an effort to drive innovation in financial services, mobile banking and wealth management applications. According to a recent study from the IBM Institute for Business Value, blockchain is set to have a significant impact on financial services, supply chains, IoT, healthcare, risk management and digital rights management.