IBM has announced new software designed to help organizations embrace social networking using the broadest range of mobile devices.
With the news, IBM is delivering its Connections social networking software for mobile devices. Customers can download the software from all major app stores including Android, Apple, and BlackBerry, and gain immediate access to blogs, employee data, status updates, wikis, as well as share files, videos and photos. As part of the news, IBM also is helping IT administrators simplify the management of corporate and personal data on employee devices, the company says.
With more companies allowing employees to use their own devices for work, the time and management of securing personal data was becoming a burden to IT administrators, according to IBM. A new IBM collaboration software "partial wipe" capability for Apple iOS devices allows IT administrators to wipe only the confidential company data from the device while preserving a worker’s personal email, photos, videos, and games.
A shift is occurring in the enterprise. The adoption of mobile devices and social software is rapidly becoming a vital business tool, enabling organizations to transform virtually every part of their business operations from marketing, customer service, and sales, to product development and human resources.
According a recent report from the Renegade firm, 86 percent of business people now use social media to help them make business decisions. With more than one billion mobile users combined with rise of social networking in the workplace, companies are looking for ways to better integrate these industry forces to help organizations accelerate collaboration, deepen customer relationships, generate new ideas faster, and enable a more effective workforce.
No matter how applications are accessed, social businesses of all sizes need to communicate and collaborate on the fly across a global network of clients, partners and employees. To fully enable a social business, IBM is announcing these new mobile apps:
- New social networking app: Available at no charge, the new IBM Connections app works just like the industry-leading IBM social software with added functionality for Google Android smartphones and tablets, Apple iOS devices and BlackBerry smartphones. In addition to the popular file share application, profiles, and activities, blogs and generate-and-vote-on-ideas features, workers can now take photos with their smartphones and upload them directly to Connections. All three apps are available now in the respective apps stores.
- Partial wipe for Apple iOS devices: New IBM software provides "partial wipe" capability for Apple iOS devices allowing an IT administrator to wipe only the company data from the device while preserving a worker’s personal data, such as personal email, photos, videos and games. Administrators can still initiate a full reset wipe if circumstances warrant it, as an alternative to this new partial wipe option. Traveler enables IBM email, contacts and calendar information to be accessible from the most popular mobile devices.
- Click-to-call from Android OS device calendar: Available in beta now, Lotus Notes Traveler will allow IBM email users to call people listed in their calendar views with just one click.
- Unified Communications for Android devices: IBM’s Sametime software for Android extends presence awareness and instant messaging with new features including text-to-speech which can read incoming messages when the users cannot stop to look at the device, for example, when driving; send photos taken with the device through Sametime chats; and automatically update location status. Workers who also have Sametime Unified Telephony software reduce phone use costs by initiating calls to whatever phone happens to be nearby.
- Online meeting support for BlackBerry: IBM Sametime meetings support allows BlackBerry users to participate in online meetings using their mobile devices.
- Cloud-based meeting support for Android: LotusLive Meetings support for the Android OS is planned to be available later this year.
In an embrace of social business transformation in the enterprise, thousands of clients are adopting IBM social software on tablets and smart phones including Amway, Bekins Van Lines, University of Zurich, Virginia Commonwealth University and Cummins Inc.
Cummins Inc (NYSE: CMI) is a global leader that designs, manufactures, sells and services diesel engines, power generation systems and related products and technologies. A Fortune 500 company with 2010 revenues of $13.2 billion, Cummins has approximately 40,000 employees in 353 locations in 190 countries. Cummins is the largest independent maker of diesel engines and related products in the world.
The ability to collaborate from a smart, mobile device enables Cummins employees to be more productive in more places because they can access mail, calendar, contacts, and to do lists anywhere in the world. In the future, the promise of mobile computing expands “true” business capability enabling new business paradigms ranging from performing diagnostic tests while working on top of large engines to taking parts inventory and finalizing parts distribution logistics to having instant access to comprehensive business analytics that reflect a business unit’s growth in a key market segment.
“Cummins’ workers have benefited from the use of IBM Lotus Notes Traveler and its functions have been well integrated into our model of how we work and help to increase the productivity of our workforce overall. We look forward to expanding our use of IBM mobile collaboration applications in order to enhance the flexibility and on demand features that allow workers to work where they want to work,” said Eric Christian, Director, Global Architecture and Security, Cummins.
For a video about how IBM has helped General Motors become a social business, visit http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fsP_m8f4krQ
Here are links to the mobile apps that support IBM Connections:
Android: market.android.com/details
Apple iOS itunes.apple.com/app/ibm-connections/id450533489
BlackBerry: appworld.blackberry.com/webstore/content/52232
For information about additional mobile platforms supported by IBM including Nokia Symbian, visit www.ibm.com/software/lotus/category/mobile-wireless/
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