Brocade Convenes Federal Agencies, Partners and Luminaries to Discuss the Most Critical IT Challenges

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Brocade Convenes Federal Agencies, Partners and Luminaries to Discuss the Most Critical IT Challenges

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Cloud Computing, Data Center Consolidation and Alternative Acquisition Models Top Discussion Topics at the First Brocade Federal Forum

WASHINGTON, DC--(Marketwire - Aug 21, 2012) - Today marks the first day of the 2012 Brocade Federal Forum, which will provide an opportunity for Federal IT professionals, technology partners, systems integrators and industry luminaries to further explore and discuss key IT challenges and opportunities for the US Federal government. The two-day event is being hosted by Brocade (NASDAQ: BRCD), a leading provider of innovative solutions for the world's most demanding service provider, data center and campus networks. 

The forum is designed to help Federal agencies that are facing significant IT challenges and opportunities, including new mandates to increase efficiencies, maximize existing resources, modernize infrastructure and adopt cloud computing while simultaneously eliminating redundant technologies and processes.

In response to these challenges top-level Brocade executives will share their perspectives on how the government can navigate this new era in networking and leverage the many benefits that result from the changing IT infrastructure.

Specific topics of discussion will include:

• Network transformation
• Cloud mandates
• Data center consolidation
• Evolving acquisition models

"With uncertain budgets, a CIO office focused on modernization and unfunded mandates, US Federal IT professionals are facing one of the most complex IT environments ever," said Anthony Robbins, vice president of federal sales, Brocade. "They need as much support as possible to help make the best decisions for their agency."

The objective of the 2012 Brocade Federal Forum is to extend the discussion from stated challenges to specific implementation examples, complete with common pitfalls and projected cost models. During the forum, speakers will outline state-of-the-art solutions and how they complement the legacy environments in which most Federal IT professionals currently work.

immixGroup is the Platinum Sponsor of the 2012 Brocade Federal Forum. Since 1997, immixGroup has helped hundreds of large and emerging companies grow and manage their public sector business while providing its government customers with reliable access to leading commercial technologies through the contract vehicles and partners they prefer.

Other sponsors include: Arrow, Avnet, Tech Data, Westcon, HDS, NetApp, PacStar and CDW-G.

Speakers at this forum will include:

• Ron Broersma, Chief Engineer, Defense Research and Engineering Network (DREN)
• Shawn McCarthy, Government Insights Research Director, IDC
• Charles McClam, Deputy CIO, USDA
• Jason Miller, Executive Editor, WFED Federal News Radio
• Tim Schmidt, CIO, Department of Transportation
• Rick Howard, Research Director, Gartner
• Simon Szykman, CIO, Department of Commerce

Additional Resources and Forum Content

• http://brocadefederalforum.com
• Visit the Agenda page for a full list of sessions.
• Follow Brocade on Twitter at @BRCDcomm or Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/brocade or join the LinkedIn Group: Brocade Federal.
• Follow the conversation at #BrocadeFederal

Social Media Tags: Brocade, Federal Forum, #BrocadeFederal, cloud computing, virtualization, data center

About BrocadeBrocade (NASDAQ: BRCD) networking solutions help the world's leading organizations transition smoothly to a world where applications and information reside anywhere. (www.brocade.com)

Oracle Announces Oracle OpenWorld 2012 and JavaOne 2012 Calls for Papers

Oracle OpenWorld and JavaOne Registration Now Open

Redwood Shores, Calif. – March 28, 2012

News Facts

The Oracle OpenWorld 2012 and JavaOne 2012 calls for papers are now open. Customers, partners, developers and community members are encouraged to submit proposals to present at this year’s Oracle OpenWorld and JavaOne.

Oracle OpenWorld will be held September 30 - October 4, 2012 at the Moscone Center in San Francisco. JavaOne will be held September 30 - October 4, 2012 at the Zone (Hilton Union Square, Hotel Nikko, and Parc 55 Wyndham) in San Francisco.

Oracle welcomes proposals for presentations on a wide variety of topics, with content targeted at all levels of attendees, from beginner to expert. Thousands of attendees come to the conferences from around the world, representing Oracle customers, partners and developers, looking to learn from their peers.

Details and submission guidelines are available on the Oracle OpenWorld Call for Papersand the JavaOne Call for Papers websites.

Oracle OpenWorld 2012 registration and JavaOne 2012 registration are now available. Super Saver Registration, which offers the deepest discount on the regular conference price for each event, ends March 30, 2012.

Supporting Quote

“Oracle OpenWorld and JavaOne are venues for customers, partners and developers to share their ideas and experiences, and to learn from one another,” said Tania Weidick, vice president, Oracle Corporate Event Marketing. “Each year we issue a call for papers to help secure content from our customers and partners showcasing their case studies, best practices and experiences because Oracle OpenWorld and JavaOne attendees want to hear from their peers. We once again welcome and look forward to receiving presentations from our diverse community so we can deliver an unparalleled conference experience to our wide range of attendees.”

Supporting Resources

Oracle OpenWorld 2012

Oracle OpenWorld 2012 Call for Papers

Oracle OpenWorld Blog

Oracle OpenWorld on Oracle Mix

Oracle OpenWorld on Twitter

Oracle OpenWorld on Facebook

Oracle OpenWorld on LinkedIn

JavaOne 2012

JavaOne 2012 Call for Papers

Java Source Blog

JavaOne on Twitter

Java on Twitter

I love Java on Facebook

JavaOne on Facebook

JavaOne on LinkedIn

About Oracle

Oracle engineers hardware and software to work together in the cloud and in your data center. For more information about Oracle (NASDAQ:ORCL), visit www.oracle.com.

IBM Increases Presence in Poland with New Branch Offices

New offices in cities of Katowice and Wroclaw to increase support for regional clients and partners

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KATOWICE and WROCLAW - 28 Mar 2012: IBM (NYSE: IBM) has announced the opening of two new offices in the Polish cities of Katowice and Wroclaw as part of the company's geographic expansion program to strengthen its presence in the fastest growing markets in the world.

Anna Sieńko, Country General Manager, IBM Poland & Baltics (center) with Dr Maciej Bluj, Vice-Mayor of Wroclaw (left) and Aleksander Skorupa, Lower Silesian Governor (right)

"IBM has been present in Poland for the past 20 years and we have established operations across the country. In recognition of the continued importance of Poland to IBM and to ensure the highest levels of support for our clients and partners, we are strengthening our branch network in a number of strategic locations," said Anna Sienko, Country General Manager, IBM Poland & Baltics.

The new offices are in Poland's Upper and Lower Silesia regions which have seen some of the country's strongest economic growth in recent years. Traditionally known for mining and heavy industry, today these regions have seen an increase in high-tech and other innovative economic activity, as well as growth in the small and medium sized business sector which currently generates about 50 per cent of Poland's Gross Domestic Product.

Katowice

Katowice is the largest city in the Upper Silesia region. With established mining, iron and steel industries, in recent years Katowice's economic growth has come from the development of the scientific, business and transportation sectors.

One of IBM's existing clients in Katowice is the Center of Mining Technology (COIG S.A.), one of Poland's oldest IT firms, which provides computing services to the coal mining industry. IBM has helped COIG S.A. to build a data center and develop cloud computing services for its clients in the region. "For the mining industry in Poland to remain competitive on the global stage it needs to turn to the latest technologies and approaches. IBM is helping us to develop innovative solutions and services for our clients in the region and with the opening of its new office in Katowice we look forward to strengthening this relationship," said Zbigniew Koszowski, President of COIG.S.A.

IBM has also recently deployed one of its Executive Service Corps teams to work with local government on transforming Katowice and the Upper Silesia Metropolis into a smarter city.

Wrocław

Wroclaw is the largest city in the Lower Silesia region traditionally known for manufacturing and electronics. Recently the city has experienced rapid growth in the IT services sector and in 2009 IBM opened a service delivery center in Wroclaw serving clients around the world.

One of IBM's existing customers in Wroclaw is Spolem PSS Polnoc, a midsize supermarket chain which turned to IBM to streamline its checkout process. With the help of Jantar, a local IBM business partner, IBM provided Spolem PSS Polnoc with one of Poland's first self- service checkout systems.

"While speeding up the checkout process and cutting operating costs, the intelligent system from IBM also helps us to gain insight into buying trends so that we can best meet the needs of our customers," said Lech Stefanski, Vice President, Chief Financial Officer of Spolem PSS Polnoc.

IBM is also investing in skills in both regions. For example, IBM is collaborating with Katowice's School of Economics (KSE) to support students on research projects and provide an opportunity for IBM internships. As part of nurturing local talent, IBM has also established a University Competence Center in Gliwice near Katowice which specializes in developing solutions based on IBM systems. In Wroclaw, IBM and the University of Technology have agreed to collaborate on a cloud internship program which gives students the chance to gain experience in tackling some the most challenging IT tasks in a virtual environment.

IBM established its first operations in Poland in 1991 with its headquarters in the country's capital Warsaw. Today IBM also has a number of key facilities across Poland serving clients around the world such as IBM's Delivery Center in Wroclaw, IBM's Global Process Services Center in Krakow, the IBM Software Laboratory in Krakow and the IBM Competence Implementation Center in Gdansk.

The opening of the Polish branch offices was recognized this week at two ceremonies attended by government officials, customers, and business partners in Katowice and Wroclaw.

ABOUT IBM

For more information on IBM, please visit: http://www-03.ibm.com/press/us/en/index.wss 

For more information on IBM Growth Markets please visit: https://twitter.com/#IBMGrowthMkts

Client Success in the Cloud

IBM and Business Partners Drive Client Success in the Cloud

IBM Launches New Programs to Help Partners Continue Growth

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ARMONK. NY - 28 Feb 2012: IBM (NYSE: IBM) today rolled out a set of offerings geared towards helping its Business Partners more tightly integrate with the IBM SmartCloud by helping to connect them with customers, create new applications and improve their cloud computing skills. Expected to grow to more than $214 billion by 2020,* cloud computing has become a catalyst for capturing new business value through innovation, stronger customer relationships, and faster time to market while reducing cost and complexity.

IBM unveiled new resources for its 121,000 Business Partners, including:

·    Ready for IBM SmartCloud Services: This new program makes it easier for clients to quickly find technology from Business Partners that is certified for the IBM SmartCloud. In the new online directory, certified Business Partner technologies are divided into categories such as business applications, collaboration, development and test tools, infrastructure services, and security and monitoring. This is enabling IBM Business Partners to quickly ramp up and participate in the industry shift to cloud computing. More information is available at:http://ibm.co/xhoNsr.

·    Tech Talk for Cloud Computing: IBM Business Partners can now enhance their technical skills in cloud computing, with a monthly virtual learning series by IBM developerWorks. The IBM Tech Talk for Cloud Computing series will be taught by IBM and industry experts and is available at: http://ibm.co/yJH2Ms.

·    Social Business Tool Kit: This new tool kit allows Business Partners to integrate custom applications that interface with IBM SmartCloud for Social Business services. Developers can use OpenSocial APIs to get access to SmartCloud for Social Business profiles contacts, meetings, files and communities data. Companies can add their own custom actions to the SmartCloud for Social Business web experience. The tool kit is available now at:http://ibm.co/zNqIYO.

·    SmartCloud Entry on IBM System x: IBM Business Partners can now help small businesses experience cloud computing benefits with the new lower-cost (~$60K USD list) reference configuration of SmartCloud Entry on IBM System x. SmartCloud Entry is an easy to deploy, simple to use offering that features a self-service portal for workload provisioning, virtualized image management, and monitoring. This new configuration provides a template for Business Partners to help clients deploy a private cloud with a faster time-to-value. 

IBM Business Partners Driving Client Success in the Cloud

These new resources come as IBM Business Partners are winning with cloud and are driving innovations for clients globally. IBM is also announcing two new collaborations with clients including the Swiss LINK Institute and Tele Ticket Service.

The Swiss LINK Institute, a leading market research firm is working with IBM Business PartnernViso to better understand consumer sentiment. nViso software uses video to capture the visible emotional responses people have while watching an advertisement online. Using the IBM SmartCloud and IBM analytics software, the images are analyzed for seven basic emotions. The results give the Swiss LINK Institute's clients a rich scientific insight into how people respond to brands and messages. For example, an insurance company could quickly understand how people in their target demographic respond to their brand as compared to that of their competitors. The results can also be divided by demographic or compared to competitors campaigns. Prior to this solution, businesses were only able to capture basic anecdotal impressions that relied on people's ability to recall emotional reactions. 

Tele Ticket Service, a leader in online ticket sales, is working with IBM Business PartnerNumius to better understand consumer buying patterns. Numius teamed with IBM Business Partners I.R.I.S. ICT and Ondit to develop an analytics solution in the cloud.

With this new system, Numius analyzes consumer buying trends in real-time, enabling Tele Ticket Service to offer event organizers the insight they need to improve sales. Now, instead of scheduling an event and predetermining venue, ticket prices and ticket volume based on best guesses, event organizers can plan and promote events based on real data - who is buying the tickets, at what price, what type of seat and historical buying patterns.

The combination of IBM and Numius technology is driving improved sales and customer satisfaction for Tele Ticket Service. For example, when selling tickets for a recent U2 tour, Tele Ticket Service used the real time analysis of sales to successfully make a case for a second concert to be added, doubling their revenue.

“Cloud computing is changing the very fabric of the enterprise.  The cost effectiveness, security and simplicity it can bring to clients will make it easy for organizations to try new things and identify new growth opportunities,” said Mark Hennessy, general manager of global business partners, IBM. "As greater adoption of cloud by the channel continues to build in 2012, there will be a number of things for Business Partners to consider, from choosing cloud services to offer as well as decisions around branding, training, and customer pricing models. IBM provides a simplified approach to help Business Partners make these decisions, and in turn, provide the solid foundation to adopt innovative cloud business models and generate new revenue streams."

More than 1,000 Business Partners are working with IBM on cloud computing projects.  With the IBM Cloud Computing Specialty as the centerpiece of our partner programs, partners from all back grounds are re-inventing their businesses by aligning with one of the five cloud business models: Cloud Application Providers, Cloud Builders, Cloud Infrastructure Providers, Cloud Services Solution Providers and Cloud Technology Providers.

Follow the conversation on Twitter by searching #IBMPWLC 

For more information on IBM Cloud: www.ibm.com/smartcloud

For more information: http://www.ibm.com/press/us/en/presskit/36796.wss 

IBM Unveils New Financial Incentives

IBM Unveils New Financial Incentives to Drive Growth with Business Partners

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ARMONK, NY - 28 Feb 2012: IBM (NYSE: IBM) today announced new incentives for its Business Partners to help them deliver the latest technology to their clients and drive growth in key markets such as smarter cities, smarter commerce and social business.

Advances in technology such as analytics and cloud computing are changing how businesses operate, consumers interact with companies and cities deliver services to their citizens. As businesses and cities look for new ways to improve quality of life and productivity there is a significant opportunity for IBM and its Business Partners to provide new solutions that combine advanced technology with industry expertise. 

"Commerce, social business, cloud computing and analytics are all multi-billion dollar industries and we want to ensure that our Business Partners have the resources, skills and support they need to succeed in these markets," said Mark Register, vice president of software business partners, IBM. "These new incentives are designed to help our Business Partners grow their businesses and continue to work with us to deliver simplified approaches to the complex challenges our clients are facing." 

The IBM Solution Accelerator incentive is a new channel incentive for selling combined software and systems and/or business solutions. The incentive has two elements:

·   Software and Systems Reward: A 5 percent incremental rebate for selling eligible IBM systems and a 15 percent incremental rebate for selling eligible software together to a single client.

·   Business Solutions Reward: An additional 10 percent rebate for selling a solution aimed at a particular IT challenge on the eligible software content of the solution. The eligible solutions cover client needs such as turning information into insights, managing risk, security and compliance and social business. 

In addition, approximately 1 percent in fees can be earned when clients finance their solution through IBM Global Financing. 

“Our clients want solutions not piece-parts,” said Ernie Yenke, president of Lighthouse Computing Services, an IBM Business Partner. "This new incentive from IBM will help grow our business while delivering solutions that combine hardware, software and business-specific solutions that help address client needs.” 

Smarter Cities Incentives

Helping cities solve key challenges in urban planning, environmental compliance, energy and water, transportation, education, social welfare and health, public safety, government and agency administration represents a $57 billion market opportunity.* IBM is turning to its Business Partner community to help make integrated solutions accessible to cities globally. To quickly respond to rising citizen demand, IBM is launching incentives for Business Partners including:

·   SaaS Referral: Business Partners can take advantage of the new SaaS referral incentive for the Intelligent Operations Center Cloud offering and will be rewarded 15 percent of the annual contract value of the sale.  

·   Global Financing: Business Partners working on smarter cities projects that are part of IBM’s Software Value Plus Program, can access zero percent, 12-month, interest-free financing from IBM Global Financing.  

·   Government & Industry Expertise: Business Partners can take advantage of additional earning opportunities through IBM’s Industry and Capability authorization incentives for on premise use of the Intelligent Operations Center. 

Smarter Commerce and Social Business Incentives  

IBM’s Smarter Commerce initiative is redefining the way businesses are engaging with today's empowered consumer. At an estimated $20 billion opportunity** for software alone, IBM is enabling eligible Business Partners to sell SaaS solutions for Smarter Commerce to their clients with IBM and obtain 15 percent of the annual contract value. The goal of the Smarter Commerce Saas Incentive Program is to accelerate cloud adoption by encouraging new business models, such as cloud services solution providers, to incorporate SaaS capabilities for Smarter Commerce into their solutions.  

Products offered through this incentive include Smarter Commerce Industry solutions SaaS products such as IBM Coremetrics, Sterling Commerce and Unica. The Smarter Commerce Saas Incentive Program will be available to eligible IBM Business Partners including partners of recently acquired companies such as DemandTec. 

Additionally, IBM is announcing new incentives to help Business Partners capitalize on the growing social business market opportunity. According to Forrester Research, the market for social enterprise apps and related services will grow at a compound annual growth rate of 61 percent to become a $6.4 billion market in 2016.*** Now, qualified IBM Business Partners selling SaaS offerings to small or mid-sized companies can earn a 28 percent rebate when they sell IBM SmartCloud for Social Business. 

The IBM Solution Accelerator incentive and Social Business incentives are available now. The Smarter Commerce and Smarter Cities incentives are expected to be available in the Second Quarter of this year.  

Some incentive components are not available in certain countries. Other restrictions may apply. Offerings are subject to change, extension or withdrawal without notice. 

For more information: www.ibm.com/PartnerWorld

For more information: http://www.ibm.com

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