Adam Gartenberg’s Blog

Smarter Food News - improving freshness and safety of seafood exports

Adam Gartenberg — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 09:53:19 -0400

In Smarter Food news, IBM has announced a collaboration with the government of Vietnam to improve the traceability, freshness and safety of seafood exported to retailers in the United States, Japan and Europe. At a time when food contamination issues and food borne illnesses are coming to the forefront of consumer concerns, the news underscores IBM's efforts to create 'smarter', safer food supply for consumers around the world.

The traceability technologies will be tested at selected Vietnamese farms producing seafood destined for retailers in Japan, the US and Europe. The FXA technology will collect data such as farm of origin, results of spawning grounds inspections, where the food was processed, its current location and its temperature.

IBM Smart Food’s contribution will be to make this data accessible to wholesalers, shippers, retailers and other involved parties through the provision of serial numbers for each product. These will allow the products to be traced individually and enable retailers and other authorities to locate products quickly in case of a recall.

"In collaboration with retailers and government agencies, we are increasing consumer confidence by providing innovative technologies for tracing not only the origins and ingredients in food but the path they've travelled before arriving at stores." --Girish Vasudevan, territory exec, IBM Viet Nam. Smarter Food Safety

The importance of customer loyalty (and how to take advantage of it)

Adam Gartenberg — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 09:48:35 -0400

The June issue of STORES Magazine features an article by Patricia Waldron, worldwide distribution industry executive for Cognos. The piece details how business analytics can help retailers drive greater customer loyalty and shopper advocacy in today's turbulent economy.

Smarter retailers are going one step further, preparing themselves to be in the strongest position when the economy improves. These retailers are focusing on their customers - understanding what appeals most to their loyal advocates, attracting new shoppers and determining what is important to consumers looking to shift their loyalties. These chains will be the ones that capture the lion’s share of the diminishing consumer wallet.

A recent IBM Institute for Business Value (IBV) survey of 30,000 U.S. consumers revealed that shoppers anxious due to economic conditions rely on retailers they trust. These “advocates” have nearly doubled from 21 percent in 2007 to 38 percent in 2008. Advocates are more likely to recommend preferred retailers to friends and family, and remain loyal even if other retailers offer competitive value. In fact, 31 percent of advocates even increased spend with their primary retailer over the past year.

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Reminder: Webinar tomorrow (6/11) - How the Information you have can get you the results you need

Adam Gartenberg — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 12:18:42 -0400

A friendly reminder that we have a webcast coming up tomorrow (6/11 - 1:00pm ET) on New Intelligence and how, as the title states, "the information you have can get you the results you need." Having been personally involved in the creation and review of the material for the presentation, I can assure you it will be interesting and informative.

Discover A New Kind of Intelligence. . .how the information you have can get you the results you need
Web Seminar Center, June 11, 2009, 01:00PM ET
REGISTER

The world we live in today is increasingly instrumented, interconnected, and intelligent. We are experiencing a revolution, and information is at the heart of it. Businesses that are taking advantage of this new wealth of information are able to make more intelligent decisions and are rising to the top. They’re managing large volumes of information in real-time, incorporating analytics and predictive modeling, pervasively collecting and sharing information across the entire value chain, and speeding time to value by delivering trusted, accurate and timely information to the right decision makers. In short, they’re discovering a new kind of intelligence.

Capitalizing on its unrivaled technology leadership and end-to-end solution capabilities, IBM has developed a comprehensive program to help customers address their most complex, information-intensive business challenges. Our speakers will share customer success stories, frameworks and methodologies that will demonstrate how new intelligence is not only changing the competitive landscape, but literally changing the way the world works. You’ll learn how you can build an information agenda, create a roadmap for becoming a smarter company, and establish the flexible information infrastructure you need to deepen your competitive advantage.

Presenter: Eric S. Sall, IBM Software Group, Information Management Director,
New Intelligence Market Mgmt
Strategy & Planning Marketing Manager
REGISTEr

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Video: Break Free with DB2 9.7

Adam Gartenberg — Fri, 5 Jun 2009 12:17:47 -0400

Here's a short but impactful video of DB2 customers and partners talking about the new DB2 9.7 and the impact it's having for them and their clients. Examples cited include specific cases of savings on storage (e.g. 80% reduction in HW space requirements) and ease of migration (e.g., an Oracle migration that took 3 weeks in the past was done in 2 days with DB2 9.7 beta).

See here for many other videos on DB2.

News from IOD EMEA 2009

Adam Gartenberg — Wed, 3 Jun 2009 09:19:19 -0400

The IOD EMEA conference is taking place this week in Berlin, and we're starting to see the announcements and news that are coming out of the conference. IBM issued a string of press releases earlier today, highlighting a number of initiatives and detailing specific examples of organizations seeing the benefits of applying analytics, managing streams of data, performing faster development and migrations, and seeing the benefits of IBM's "No Paper Weight" drive. (See further down for highlights and links).

In addition to the formal news, it's been great to see the activity taking place online. The event organizers have really kicked up the social media involvement this year. If you're at the event, you can leave comments about specific sessions over on the IOD 2009 blog (or if you're not there, you can read up on it), and the @IOD2009 Twitter account has been very active, providing updates from the conference and retweeting relevant posts. They have also set up a common hashtag nomenclature (for example #TSB1909 - no dash 3 characters + session number) for each session to make it easy to post and follow discussions for a given session.

There was a bunch of buzz online yesterday about the pokens that were given out to all attendees. I'll be interested in seeing the feedback afterwards; it seems like a great idea for a conference, and hopefully will help make the task of networking or finding information from exhibitors easier.

Anyway... back to the news.

In addition to advancements and new products around business intelligence, integrated data management, stream computing, and enterprise content management (more on each of these below), we announced continued momentum in companies looking to IBM for help in creating and adopting an information agenda. IBM also announced new industry and analytics models for the Financial Services, Healthcare, Life Sciences and Government sectors, which will help organizations make better use of their information while minimizing the time and risk involved in the rollouts of new solutions and applications.

Since the launch of Information Agenda less than eight months ago, IBM has already engaged with more than 400 clients, helping them put information at the center of their business processes. Meanwhile, IBM has also conducted some 350 industry-specific Information Agenda workshops this year to help clients define their information strategy.

The announcement last month of InfoSphere Streams included a number of cases where organizations were pushing beyond the limits of what has been possible in terms of analyzing data in real time. The announcement today with Uppsala University and the Swedish Institute of Space Physics follows along similar lines, as they look to analyze 6 gigabytes of data per second to better understand "space weather."

IBM (NYSE: IBM) and Uppsala University and the Swedish Institute of Space Physics announced today a major new Stream Computing project to analyze massive volumes of information in real time to better understand "space weather." By using IBM InfoSphere Streams to analyze data from sensors that track high frequency radio waves, endless amounts of data can be captured and analyzed on the fly. Over the next year, this project is expected to perform analytics on at least 6 gigabytes per second or 21,600 gigabytes per hour - the equivalent of all the Web pages on the Internet.

DHL Worldwide is seeing some dramatic results from their use of Cognos; see the full press release for more detailed examples of all the different ways they are using the product and the benefits they are realizing.

IBM (NYSE: IBM) today announced that DHL Worldwide, the market leader in the global air and ground express industry, is using IBM analytics software to help transform its global business operations and drive customer relationship profitability at its DHL Express Germany and DHL Call Forwarding North America divisions. The new intelligence system from IBM allows DHL to analyze more than 30 million customer records in just seconds vs. hours while drastically reducing its system maintenance costs.

One of the updated products announced today, Optim Development Studio, provides a common environment for Oracle Database users to simply drag and drop data between Oracle Database and DB2. There were several other products and tool announcements today (including Optim Query Tuner for DB2 - a new product, and updates to InfoSphere Data Architect, Optim Development Studio, Optim pureQuery Runtime, and Optim Database Administrator (the last three were formerly Data Studio Developer, Data Studio pureQuery Runtime, and Data StudioAdministrator). Be sure to read more about all of these announcements over on the Data Studio blog and in the press release.

Israel-based ExactCost, an Healthcare IT solutions provider, recently migrated to DB2 9.7 from Oracle Database eighty percent faster than original estimates, saving two and a half months with Optim Development Studio. As a result, ExactCost was able to focus on their business objectives of improving performance and patient healthcare. In addition, ExactCost used Optim Development Studio for both Oracle Database and DB2 data-driven applications development, allowing a seamless integration across different platforms.

We also shared details of organizations seeing the benefits of IBM's "No Paper Weight" initiative, which is aimed at helping organizations "cut costs caused by the paper burden, reduce risks by relying on paper less, rescue information trapped in paper processes and eliminate unnecessary waste." One such example is financial services company VR Kreditwerk:

Using IBM technology, VR Kreditwerk, a German-headquartered financial services company, was able decrease their paper consumption by automating businesses processes and more efficiently managing and transmitting approximately 20,000 documents per day. With a new automated process in place, they were able to cut the time to process a loan document from one day to one hour, increase the security of their information and maintain high standards for client satisfaction and quality of service, while continuing to meet regulatory compliance demands.

I'll look to post additional links and coverage over the course of the conference, and in the mean time would love to hear feedback from anyone who may be in attendance (I wasn't able to make the trip over for the conference myself this year).

Links:

Photo via @HoratioNelson

Free 2 Day IDS Workshops

Adam Gartenberg — Mon, 1 Jun 2009 14:33:02 -0400

Guy Bowerman writes about a series of free IDS 11.50 workshops planned in a number of cities over the next two months:

A series of free IDS 11.50 workshops are planned over the next few weeks, in Washington (June 10,11), Atlanta (June 16,17), Raleigh (June 16,17), Dallas (June 23,24) and Chicago (July 14,15). Here are details of the Atlanta event. I'll post more information or a link to the other events when I find it.

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Upcoming Webinar (6/11): Discover A New Kind of Intelligence

Adam Gartenberg — Tue, 26 May 2009 10:58:25 -0400

Please join us on June 11 for another Webinar on New Intelligence. I know the last one was very well attended, and for any of you looking to learn more about how you can not only get control of your information, but put it to use to make faster, more informed, more accurate decisions, I'd highly recommend joining us.

Discover A New Kind of Intelligence. . .how the information you have can get you the results you need
Web Seminar Center, June 11, 2009, 01:00PM ET
Register

The world we live in today is increasingly instrumented, interconnected, and intelligent. We are experiencing a revolution, and information is at the heart of it. Businesses that are taking advantage of this new wealth of information are able to make more intelligent decisions and are rising to the top. They’re managing large volumes of information in real-time, incorporating analytics and predictive modeling, pervasively collecting and sharing information across the entire value chain, and speeding time to value by delivering trusted, accurate and timely information to the right decision makers. In short, they’re discovering a new kind of intelligence.

Capitalizing on its unrivaled technology leadership and end-to-end solution capabilities, IBM has developed a comprehensive program to help customers address their most complex, information-intensive business challenges. Our speakers will share customer success stories, frameworks and methodologies that will demonstrate how new intelligence is not only changing the competitive landscape, but literally changing the way the world works. You’ll learn how you can build an information agenda, create a roadmap for becoming a smarter company, and establish the flexible information infrastructure you need to deepen your competitive advantage.

Presenter: Eric S. Sall, IBM Software Group, Information Management Director,
New Intelligence Market Mgmt
Strategy & Planning Marketing Manager
Register

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Business Analytics and Optimization in 60 seconds

Adam Gartenberg — Wed, 20 May 2009 14:47:50 -0400

From the Smarter Planet Blog:

More of a :60 second primer than an ad, this new video hits home on the new intelligence aspect of IBM’s new consulting service, business analytics. For more on this see the Smarter Enterprise channel on our Smarter Planet site on Tumblr. Also, you can add this new Analytics Album widget to your blog, site, page or network to stay on top of this fast developing front.

I've got the widget he mentions over on my blog sidebar (for those reading in RSS), should you be interested.

IBM Announces "InfoSphere Streams" Stream Computing Software

Adam Gartenberg — Thu, 14 May 2009 10:48:58 -0400

From Time: "Steve Mills, SVP of IBM Software (left), and Dr. John Kelly, SVP of IBM Research, view Stream Computing technology."

At its annual investor briefing yesterday, IBM announced the availability of a unique "stream computing" software solution that will allow organizations to analyze massive amounts of data in real time. The IBM InfoSphere Streams software is based on the System S IBM Research initiative that involved over 5 years of development and has garnered 200 patents along the way.

The press release describes what InfoSphere Streams (referred to here still as System S) can do in more detail:

System S is built for perpetual analytics - utilizing a new streaming architecture and breakthrough mathematical algorithms, to create a forward-looking analysis of data from any source - narrowing down precisely what people are looking for and continuously refining the answer as additional data is made available.

For example, System S can analyze hundreds or thousands of simultaneous data streams - stock prices, retail sales, weather reports, etc. - and deliver nearly instantaneous analysis to business leaders who need to make split-second decisions. The software can help all organizations that need to react to changing conditions in real time, such as government and law enforcement agencies, financial institutions, retailers, transportation companies, healthcare organizations, and more.

In an article titled "The Reasons Behind Google and IBM Being Ahead of the Competition," TIME magazine covers why this is such a major announcement:

IBM released "stream computing" applications that allow businesses to look at and analyze huge amounts of data in real time. Describing the product, IBM said "System S is built for perpetual analytics — utilizing a new streaming architecture and breakthrough mathematical algorithms, to create a forward-looking analysis of data from any source — narrowing down precisely what people are looking for and continuously refining the answer as additional data is made available." The ability to have access to that kind of information will undoubtedly be valuable to governments, the financial industry, and large multinationals with thousands of retail outlets. The new software is unique and does not appear to have any direct competition.

While it hadn't officially been announced until yesterday, this stream computing technology has been the underpinning of several of the Smarter Planet references that we have discussed over the past year or two. It has already demonstrated great success across a spectrum of industries that include financial services, law enforcement, healthcare, manufacturing, environment monitoring, traffic control and others. Some of the applications already published in the press include the real-time monitoring of premature infants, marine monitoring in Galway Bay, and automated options trading. (And yesterday's press release has additional examples.)

IBM also announced yesterday the opening of the IBM European Stream Computing Center, headquartered in Dublin, Ireland, that will serve as a hub of research, customer support and advanced testing for what is expected to be a growing base of European clients who wish to apply stream computing to their most challenging business problems.

Congratulations to all of the researchers, developers, marketers and everyone else involved in yesterday's announcement!

Links:

DB2 on Campus event at York University

Adam Gartenberg — Mon, 11 May 2009 16:23:45 -0400

Agatha provides an update from a DB2 on Campus event at York University. Sounds like a great event!

On April 22nd, Dan Han, the first DB2 Student Ambassadors at York University, organized the first ever, DB2 on Campus event at YorkU.

Over 70 YorkU students from Computer Engineering, Computer Science, and IT programs attended the event to learn about the DB2 on Campus program and to help grow the DB2 community. Also, everyone in attendance requested to be contacted about additional DB2 resources, DB2 certifications, and future DB2 events!

Our featured DB2 on Campus Quarterly Newsletter and DB2 Best Practice flyers were picked up faster than free food! We also handed out DB2 9.5 Discovery Kit DVDs, some free t-shirts, and Raul donated a copy of his book, Understanding DB2: Learning Visually with Examples, to the YorkU Library.

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Congratulations to 65 new Data Champions

Adam Gartenberg — Fri, 8 May 2009 13:54:15 -0400

Please join me in congratulating the 65 new Data Champions!

These individuals, who come from 21 countries and whose participation spans products like DB2, IDS, IMS, U2 and Data Studio, have been honored for their exceptional contributions to the IBM Data Management community.

Data Champions are objective experts. They have no official obligation to IBM. They simply share their expertise, enthusiasm, and years of experience with others in the community, and their work contributes greatly to the overall success of Data Management. The new Data Champions include IBM customers, business partners, university professors and students. All members of the Data Management community that are not currently employed by IBM are eligible for this recognition.

You can meet the new Data Champions here, and learn more about the program itself on its homepage on ibm.com.

Nominations for the 2010 Data Champions will open in the Fall, and in the mean time, congratulations and our appreciation go out to all of those recognized this year.

Marketing to Strangers vs. Marketing to Friends

Adam Gartenberg — Thu, 7 May 2009 12:58:24 -0400

I've been meaning to weigh in on the discussions taking place over on the Lotus blogosphere (e.g.. here, here, here) around IBM advertising and marketing, but haven't had the time to really put my thoughts down in detail.

And I still don't, but I thought this post by Seth Godin on marketing to friends vs. strangers was too relevant not to pass along today.

I was talking to an author about his next project. The question I asked him was, "are you writing this for strangers or friends?" The implications are huge. It impacts how you design the cover, how you price it, what it's about, where you sell it, when you publish it, how much you pay for store displays, etc...

You need to treat friends differently at every step along the way. First, don't confuse the moments you're supporting them or connecting with them with the moments when you are doing business. Second, understand that the most powerful win is when your friends tell their friends about you. This is worth 1000 times more than you talking about yourself.
...
Guaranteed: if you sell a friend the way you sell a stranger, you've made neither a sale or a friend.

Outside of our advertising (well, possibly including some advertising), I think a lot of the marketing IBM does falls into the "marketing to friends" category. And the feedback I hear from a lot of the folks in the Lotus community is that you'd like to see us doing a better job of marketing to strangers. The two questions that come to mind are:

1. Can we (IBM and our Business Partners) grow our businesses the way we want to by only marketing to friends? Do we have the appropriate focus, resources, attention, revenue allocation split appropriately between marketing to friends vs. strangers?
2. Have we made a conscious effort to only market to friends, or is it happening by default (because our marketing hasn't been designed to effectively target strangers)?

My concern is that in not making this choice explicitly, as Seth Godin points out, we're failing both parties (and ourselves).

Thoughts?

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Upcoming Triangle DB2 User Group (TriDUG) Meeting and DB2 Application Tuner Boot Camp

Adam Gartenberg — Wed, 6 May 2009 14:17:30 -0400

I just received notice in my inbox that the TriDUG (Triangle [North Carolina] DB2 User Group) has scheduled their next user group meeting for Thursday, 5/21, followed by a DB2 Application Tuners Boot Camp seminar on Friday, 5/22.

You can find more details on the User Group meeting here.

The Boot Camp will be led by Sheryl Larsen, an IBM Gold Consultant who speaks regularly at IDUG and IBM's Information On Demand Conference. You can find more detail about her background and the seminar at the SMLI Website. Sheryl will also be on the agenda for the TriDUG meeting on Thursday, as will Paul Zikopoulos, the Program Director for IBM's DB2 evangelist team.

TriDUG Meeting - Thursday, May 21st
Cost: $20
To register E-mail: reg_tridug@tridug.org

Meeting Topics:

DB2 9 Performance Topics for z/OS Developers; by Sheryl M. Larsen
The Business Value of Intelligent Data Access; by Sheryl M. Larsen
What's New in DB2 9.7; by Paul C. Zikopoulos
Update on Data Studio; by Paul C. Zikopoulos

Briefs for these presentations can be found on our website at: http://ww.tridug.org/speakers.htm

Seminar - Friday, May 22nd: DB2 Application Tuners Boot Camp
Cost: $275
Registration details will follow in a few days when registration is open for this session. Additional details

Seminar Description:
The majority of SMLI’s performance audits easily discover poorly coded or performing SQL. These statements can easily add up to 25% total CPU utilization. If your goal is optimizing IT, DB2 SQL education and tuning is a low cost, immediate return, high ROI and low organizational blockade solution.

Let SQL tuning expert Sheryl M. Larsen with over 20 years of DB2 experience, award winning lectures and course material, increase your developers’ SQL tuning skills in as little as one day of education.

(Re)Subscibe to IBM Data Management magazine today

Adam Gartenberg — Wed, 6 May 2009 11:17:11 -0400

It was recently announced that we would be transitioning IBM Database Magazine to IBM Data Management magazine. Along with the new name comes a new publisher, which means that if you subscribe to IBM Database Magazine today, we do need to ask that you visit this site for a free subscription to the new publication (via print or e-mail).

We are promising to continue the same great content, same technical details, same insights, tips and commentary - and a lot more. There will be a new look and feel, plus additional coverage on the topics that we hear are most important to you.

The next edition is due out next month, so please click the link below to make sure you don't miss an issue. (And if you don't subscribe today, I'd recommend you check it out!)

Link: Subscribe to IBM Data Management Magazine (free)

Dressed for Success

Adam Gartenberg — Fri, 1 May 2009 22:00:00 -0400

Carl Tyler has come up with something for those of us for whom working from home means that every day is casual day (well, maybe not THIS casual), and yet still need to jump on the occasional video conference. Now all I need is a painted backdrop with a corner-office view and I'll be all set!

I have to say, Carl, I'm quite impressed with your handiwork. Should the whole Sametime/UC/Plugin thing not work out for you, you've got quite a backup as a tailor.

For additional background, here's what started it all. I guess spending much of my childhood waste-deep in snow is good for something!

Announcing Analytics Solution Centers to promote Business Analytics and Optimization

Adam Gartenberg — Thu, 30 Apr 2009 14:37:29 -0400

Closely following the recent announcement of the Business Analytics and Optimization service line, earlier this week IBM announced that it would be opening a network of Analytics Solutions Centers in locations around the world, with the first five being opened over the next few months.

Three of the Analytics Solution centers will be located in the major financial centers of New York, London and Tokyo, and will be initially staffed with more than 100 consultants and mathematicians each, serving clients seeking a deeper view of financial risk across markets as they look to incorporate predictive insight into their business operations. Another, located in Washington, D.C. at the IBM Institute for Electronic Government, will focus on analytics requirements needed to manage economic recovery investments. The fifth Analytics Solution Center will be located in Beijing, and will focus on rail and transportation analytics.

The press release on the announcement highlights the purpose of these centers:

The centers will enable IBM to meet growing client demand for advanced analytics capabilities as part of new, smarter business systems. Much of this demand is driven by new stimulus investments around the world in areas such as financial risk management, smart grids, electronic medical records and food tracking. These clients are embedding new sensor technology into their processes in order to gather better performance and management data. Organizations are then leveraging new analytics capabilities to turn that data into predictive intelligence to help run new digital infrastructures more effectively and smarter.

Links:

New Informix Blog - Informix Voices

Adam Gartenberg — Wed, 29 Apr 2009 13:12:01 -0400

I was very pleased to see a new Informix blog show up in my Google Alerts, authored by Informix Marketing Manager Cathy Elliott. (And this is the first time I'm seeing a blog on the new MyDeveloperWorks site. Lotus friends - does that platform look familiar?)

I really like the approach that Cathy is taking with the blog, as is indicative by the title - "Informix Voices"

Welcome to the new 'Informix Voices' blog! This blog will contain interviews from Informix voices from around the world, and will include pointers to the other Informix news and happenings.

Cathy has posted a number of updates from the 2009 International Informix User Group Conference going on this week (and be sure to head over to PlanetIDS for all of the updates), and you can also follow Cathy on Twitter.

Please head over and join me in welcoming Cathy to the blogosphere!

Where to find IBM Information Management at IMPACT 2009

Adam Gartenberg — Mon, 27 Apr 2009 16:00:29 -0400

IBM's IMPACT 2009 conference is just a week away. If you're planning to be there and are interested in the role that information plays in a SOA strategy, Information Management will present at nearly 20 sessions over the course of the conference. (And if you're not yet planning to be there, registration is still open.)

To share just a few higlights:

Andy Warzecha, VP of Information Management strategy, will be a speaker among of the slate Day Three's keynotes, and will also lead a drill down session - Information in SOA: Best Practices - that will provide an overview of the connection between having an Information Agenda approach and SOA.
Dan Bigos, Strategy and Planning Marketing Manager, will share the interesection between Enterprise Content Management and SOA in the session: Leveraging Content to Improve the Efficiency of Core Processes.
SOA and cloud computing are extremely complementary, and we have an excellent session to help explain Informagion Management's contributions to cloud computing titled: Universal Services for SOA, Cloud and XML Data,presented by Susan Malaika, IBM Academy of Technology Member.

In addition, in IMPACT's exhibit area, we will feature demos of the IBM Mashup Center and key Information Management productsthat connect to and leverage that technology, including FileNet BPM.

Please see this pdf for all of the details on Information Management's presence. at IMPACT next week.

A Smarter Planet in Action: Smarter Traffic, Smarter Electrical Grids, Smarter Food Safety

Adam Gartenberg — Thu, 23 Apr 2009 14:23:08 -0400

Fortune has a great article that goes into depth on a number of examples of how cities, electrical grids, and food safety are all getting "smarter."

The city of Stockholm has managed to cut traffic by 35%, emissions by 14%, and increase public transit ridership by 40,000 a day... all without any obvious side effects on inner-city commerce or public complaints.
IBM is working with CenterPoint Energy on a self-healing power grid that can automatically detect downed power wires, deploy technicians, and reroute the lines to get energy back on in a matter of seconds. (And in looking towards the future, is thinking about how to deploy smart thermostats so their customers can do things like turn on their air conditioning from their iPhone 20 minutes before they get home.)
Matiq, an IT consultancy in Norway, is deploying RFID tags and traceability software so they can monitor food "from farm to fork," tracking the origin, delivery date, transportation mode, and destination of any package of meat. The implementation is based on anticounterfeiting schemes developed for the pharmaceutical industry. Should there be a crisis, such as an E.coli outbreak, the transparency promised by the system can save time, lives, and a lot of money for innocent companies, which won't be caught up in sweeping recalls.
Mars (the chocolate company, not the planet) is working with IBM to sequence the cacao genome - with 415 million base pairs - so that they can take steps to ward off diseases or other risk factors for the plant, helping in turn to ensure the livelihood of the 6.5 million farmers that grow it (not to mention billions of happy consumers).

The Fortune article calls out the common thread that runs through these - and many, many more - Smarter Planet examples:

From one view, this global tour of woe shows our world buckling because of poor planning, too much demand, and strained infrastructure. But there's a more opportunistic way to look at the vignettes. From another angle it becomes clear that they're all propagated by a single culprit: a lack of quality information.

This is why you're seeing us place such a large focus on helping companies capture, analyze but most importantly apply information to solving their business problems. The benefits possible are just too large to leave unaddressed.

Links:

Announcing DB2 9.7 and InfoSphere Warehouse 9.7

Adam Gartenberg — Wed, 22 Apr 2009 09:30:14 -0400

My colleagues on the DB2 and InfoSphere Warehouse teams announced today new versions of DB2 and InfoSphere Warehouse.

Conor O'Mahoney has a number of highlights posted on his blog on his blog already, and keep checking back in there and over at Planetdb2.com today and during the coming weeks for more details.

While I will leave it to those closer to the products to provide details on all of the enhancements, these new releases offer improvements around compression, partitioning and administration, XML enhancements, security, workload management and monitoring, developer productivity, and warehouse-specific enhancements.

From the press release:

IBM is addressing the challenge of today's business leaders to deliver greater return on their IT investments with new versions of DB2 and InfoSphere Warehouse software. Code-named "Cobra," the new version of DB2 introduced today reduces an even greater amount of space needed to store data, helping clients save up to 75% on related costs including energy -- more than any other available database software. This offering is also the industry's first database software that will deliver business analytics capabilities for both relational and XML data at the same time.

The press release highlights the benefits that one DB2 customer - UCLA Medical Center - is seeing. They've managed to reduce the storage required for their medical records - all of which are stored online - by 50%, while reducing the time required for administrative tasks by 35%.

To learn more, about DB2 9.7, please join us for a DB2 9.7 Overview webcast (Chat with the Lab) on May 6 at 11:30 AM ET.

And, if you are interested in trying out these new releases for yourself, you can sign up for the DB2 9.7 Early Access Program. Participants in the Early Access Program can download the code, read the technical documentation, and get more information on the products. To sign up for the Early Access Program, please see ibm.com/db2/technology-sandbox/.

Links: