IBM says its Cloud services are increasingly being adopted by businesses across the world, including the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) and Zoo and Aquarium Association of Australia.
Following recent IDC research showing worldwide spending on Cloud services will grow almost threefold, reaching $44.2 billion by 2013.1, IBM announced two new partnerships for its LotusLive email, Web conferencing, social networking and collaboration cloud service.
The company is to work with Ariba and SugarCRM to help its clients take advantage of social commerce and customer relationship management (CRM) in the Cloud.
As well as the ABS and Zoo and Aquarium Association of Australia, new clients include C&D Foods, Crawford & Company, FIDM/Fashion Institute of Design & Merchandising, General Milling Corporation and General Motors Components Holdings.
“With the increased interest and adoption, businesses across the world are embracing IBM’s public Cloud services for easy-to-use collaboration tools to connect with colleagues, partners and suppliers quickly,” the company said in a statement.
Additionally, according to a recent IBM survey of more than 2,000 midsize companies, there’s growing adoption of Cloud computing among midsize firms, with two-thirds either planning or currently deploying cloud-based technologies to improve IT systems management while lowering costs.
Organisations including the Australian Bureau of Statistics and the Zoo and Aquarium Association of Australia have adopted LotusLive Engage to drive increased collaboration across geographically distributed teams.
The ABS adopted LotusLive across its 3,200 person organisation for increased project collaboration with other international statistical agencies.
LotusLive Engage allows its international project teams to quickly share skills and intellectual property and assets, design and co-develop statistical standards and applications — all within a secure, cost-effective environment that LotusLive provides.
Additionally, the Zoo and Aquarium Association of Australia integrates more than 90 zoos and aquariums across Australia, New Zealand and the South Pacific in a network for wildlife conservation, environmental education and wildlife research.
Its main activity is the Australasian Species Management Program (ASMP) which has a mission “to plan and manage animal collections cooperatively, in ways that promote sustainability and contribute to species conservation.”
The Association has adopted LotusLive Engage as its collaboration platform to support more than a 100 species programs that involve teams implementing best practice policy across the region.
The Association says it has found the platform to be secure and easy to use and a good way of disseminating current information and collecting feedback.
