IBM sweetens the pot for partners

Kicking off its PartnerWorld 2011 Leadership Conference, IBM announced an expanded set of incentives for business partners that offer cloud services based on IBM and analytics.

Ads reinforce the general strategy of IBM through resellers, integrators, ISVS (independent software vendors) and other IBM partners to customize and IBM support services for small and medium-sized enterprises, rather than this maintenance market directly.

"We do not compete with our partners, in particular in the ISV. We allow them to be the application vendor to IBM offerings, said Mike Riegel, vice president of IBM ISV and developer relations

Cloud computing, IBM has created a new package of incentives called the specialty of IBM Cloud Computing. The partners participating in this programme may resell IBM cloud services and subscription-based applications such as IBM LotusLive. IBM provides the billing of measurement and performance monitoring. The company will also provide development tools, education and early access to the IBM cloud computing strategic plans.

In may, IBM also will kick off a certification program, called authorization IBM Cloud Computing, that will certify IBM software partners who have demonstrated their ability to work with IBM's cloud computing offerings.

IBM also offers a series of new incentives for those partners who implement analytics software and services to IBM. The company is rolling out a series of new training courses and has also prepared a customized version of its Cognos business intelligence tool, called IBM Cognos Express Planner. This version of the software can help partners build projections and financial plans, anticipate differences in performance and allocate resources.

A prediction that, rather than IBM IBM business partner, perform approximately 95 percent of IBM's analytics implementations in medium-sized organizations. The company has about 700 partners who offer services for IBM analytics.

"Partners are realizing that Google analytics is a great opportunity," said Riegel, pointing to an IBM survey that found that 70 percent of enterprises chief financial officer were unhappy with their current financial forecasting tools.

PartnerWorld Conference, being held this week in Orlando, Florida, IBM also touted as one of the partners, Micro strategies, distributed Smart Business cloud services to IBM for a client, the start of the service of music Mastermind.

Mastermind music is preparing a service, called SoundBetter, which allows users to create and share their music. SoundBetter a contract with Micro strategies to help build the infrastructure for the service, which will go live in the second half of this year.

"Music Mastermind didn't buy servers and storage, and set it all up," said Bob Hoey, Director General, general business (SME), IBM Global Technology Services. Instead, Micro strategies estimates the amount of computing power needed music Mastermind and then a contract with IBM for services. Consequently, SoundBetter does not need to purchase hardware, or employ a staff of hardware support. Billing will be based on an initial subscription fee plus a monthly fee varies based on the amount of processing and storage resources that soundbetter uses.

Joab Jackson covers enterprise software and General technology breaking news for the IDG News Service. Follow Joab on Twitter at @ Joab_Jackson. E-mail address of Joab is Joab_Jackson@idg.com