IBM WebSphere to Make New Mobile Apps

Tech company IBM has unveiled new software that will allow clients to develop, deploy and manage applications spanning all major platforms from the mainframe to mobile devices.

The ability to expand the reach of their applications will allow businesses to grow revenue and increase their customer base by taking advantage of new and developing markets such as mobile and cloud, the company believes.

Key among the offerings is WebSphere Application Server (WAS) 8, new software that is designed to speed the development of applications and services. The new version of WAS increases a client’s security and control, and delivers automated enhancements for the installation, maintenance, testing and problem resolution of business applications.

Complimenting these capabilities are new features that extend the reach of WAS to support applications from the desktop to mobile devices through support for popular smart phones and tablets such as iPad, iPhone, Droid, BlackBerry and others. 

According to IBM, support for these devices is critical to businesses as mobile applications constitute one of the today’s largest growth areas with one recent report estimating that the global mobile applications market should grow to $25 billion by 2015 (up from $6.8 billion in 2010).

Among its other offerings, IBM has recently introduced a new, cloud-based software designed to help marketers gain real-time, actionable insight from data available across social media channels. (Read: IBM Offers Cloud-Based Social Media Analytics)

Moreover, the company says its new offerings combine social networking and collaboration capabilities for the burgeoning mobile workforce, expected to reach more than 1.19 billion by 2013. (Read: How IBM Plans to Help Mobile Workforce)

Now, IBM is introducing more than 50 new products and services to its WebSphere portfolio, including:

IBM Workload Deployer – allows companies to assemble customized cloud services with templates based on IBM best practices and features a wide range of IBM software, services and management capabilities;

IBM WebSphere Virtual Enterprise – provides the ability to consolidate servers and enhance the utilization of existing infrastructure;

IBM WebSphere DataPower XC10 Appliance – improves response time and lowers the risk of data loss via automatic replication, delivering high availability;

IBM CICS Transaction Server for z/OS – delivers a reliable environment for high value/high volume business transactions;

IBM WebSphere Extended Deployment Compute Grid – collaboratively shares resources between batch and on-line transactions, lowering IT costs;

IBM WebSphere Application Accelerator – gives global reach for critical application by utilizing the internet to speed applications to customers anywhere/anytime and provides application optimization service at the “edge of the network.”

“We are seeing sea changes in the way people demand access to their information and applications,” said Marie Wieck, general manager, application and integration middleware, IBM. 

“With today’s announcement, we are helping our clients to extend key business applications beyond their traditional networks to mobile, social, cloud and other new market opportunities.”

The announcement was made Monday, April 11.