IBM Watch: Day 3

September 15, 2016 by Douglas A. McIntyre

News from International Business Machines Corp. (NYSE: IBM) from Finland, Germany and the Armonk, New York, headquarters, and the big tech company put out three new announcements.

IBM is one of the oldest and most storied companies in America. Despite recent troubles, it remains one of the largest public companies in the United States, as well as among the largest employers. IBM is number 31 on the current Fortune 500 list. In 2000, it was number six on the list.

This is the 24/7 Wall St. IBM Watch, day by day, every day.

From Finland:

HELSINKI and CAMBRIDGE, Mass. – 14 Sep 2016: Tekes – the Finnish Funding Agency for Innovation (Tekes) and IBM (NYSE: IBM) today announced a partnership that will enable Finland to utilize Watson cognitive computing to help doctors improve the health of its citizens, and strengthen and develop the Finnish innovation and business ecosystem in the fields of health and well-being. To facilitate the collaboration, IBM intends to establish a Watson Health Center of Excellence in Finland, the first Nordic Healthcare Competence Center, and the first National Imaging Center of Excellence outside the United States in Finland. These centers are expected to employ 150 people over the next few years.

As always, any announcement that can get the Watson brand in is important since it has almost eclipsed IBM as the company’s most famous brand. The 150 jobs over several years may be less impressive.

Next:

ARMONK, NY – 14 Sep 2016: IBM (NYSE: IBM) today announced an expansion of its global footprint for delivering mobile security-as-a-service via the IBM Cloud. Through the deployment of new IBM MaaS360 services across global Cloud Data Centers in Europe, Asia, North America and South America, IBM will help clients address local data protection standards for mobile business. IBM will also offer data privacy consulting services as well as mobile strategy, design and deployment consultants as clients look to scale their mobile strategies globally.

IBM has used consulting services as part of its revenue model for decades. In this case, it adds sales to its Cloud model. Good deal.

And finally, from Germany:

COLOGNE, GERMANY – 14 Sep 2016: IBM (NYSE: IBM) today announced THINK Marketing, a new one-stop destination for marketers to gain knowledge, learn skills and ultimately drive a digital transformation within their business.

Designed to help Chief Marketing Officers (CMO) and their teams build proficiency and experience, THINK Marketing delivers news and thought leadership content from the industry’s top marketing influencers and news outlets. The news content links to learning materials, demonstrations, and trials from a variety of vendors around topics such as campaign management, digital marketing and analytics. Through these assets, marketers can gain a deeper knowledge and, when ready, match their needs with solutions from IBM and more than sixty marketing technology companies from around the globe including Sprinklr, Mirakl and MediaMath.

A bit like social media, but more well-organized.

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