IBM, Twitter to partner on business data analytics

Monday, 3 November 2014 00:00 - - {{hitsCtrl.values.hits}}

Reuters: International Business Machines Corp last week announced a partnership with Twitter to help shape business decisions using data collected from tweets worldwide. IBM will help businesses predict trends in the marketplace and consumer sentiment about products and brands and will train 10,000 employees to consult businesses on the best use of Twitter data.

IBM chief executive Ginni Rometty has been trying to shift the 100-year-old company’s focus away from commoditised hardware to higher-value cloud and data analytics products. In July, IBM announced a partnership with Apple Inc to offer iPads and iPhones loaded with applications geared towards enterprise clients. “Here we are seeing an alignment of old tech and new tech companies. It is the second such deal that IBM has announced in the last couple months. They realise they don’t have all the answers and a lot of other companies have asset offerings that can be matched well,” said Scott Kessler, analyst at S&P Capital IQ in New York. In April, Twitter acquired social data provider Gnip to burrow into the 500 million tweets sent daily on its network. Enterprise clients will now be able to filter the data based on geography, public biographical information and the emotion expressed in the tweet. The company previously allowed third-party companies such as Gnip, Datasift and Dataminr to buy access to tweets and re-sell that data to corporate clients. Reuters’ parent company, Thomson Reuters, also sells sentiment analysis of Twitter data, which monitors the emotional sentiment behind tweets towards topics and companies. While other data analysis software for businesses exists, Twitter hopes the partnership with IBM’s established businesses will draw in customers. IBM plans to offer Twitter data as part of its analytics services delivered through cloud computing, including cognitive computing. Software developers will also be able to use Twitter data in applications they are building using IBM’s Bluemix and Watson Developer Cloud offering.

Tencent teams up with IBM to offer business software over the cloud

Reuters: Tencent Holdings Ltd. said on Friday it would collaborate with International Business Machines Corp (IBM) on a new cloud software business for corporate customers, a marked departure for one of the dominant forces in China’s consumer Internet industry. Best known for its popular WeChat messaging app and its online games rather than business software, Tencent said its cloud unit would now target small and medium enterprises in the healthcare and “smart city” industries. Many technology firms are jockeying for a slice of China’s enterprise software market, which promises to grow sharply in coming years as businesses modernise their IT operations and move data onto the cloud. Tencent’s alliance with IBM, which has deep experience providing computing and consulting services to corporate clients, provides the Shenzhen company a competitive answer to its Chinese rival Alibaba Group Holding Ltd’s nascent cloud efforts. An e-commerce giant, Alibaba has been slowly building its cloud unit, which recorded just $ 38 million in revenue in the three months ended June 30. Tencent said it would tap IBM for its “industry expertise and enterprise reach” but did not disclose financial terms of the deal. For IBM, the Tencent deal is just the latest in a recent spate of new software partnerships in China, where its hardware sales have been sliding. IBM announced a deal earlier this year to install its cutting-edge DB2 database software on Chinese rival Inspur International Ltd’s machines. Big Blue also agreed to license its database and big data technology to Chinese software vendor Yonyou Software Co Ltd.