ARMONK, N.Y., June 29, 2015 /PRNewswire/ -- Startups and
emerging businesses throughout Central and Eastern
Europe (CEE) are increasingly turning to IBM (NYSE: IBM)
to accelerate cloud-based business models and deliver innovative
services. By adopting IBM Cloud's Bluemix and SoftLayer platforms,
companies in a number of industries, including healthcare, gaming
and public safety, are growing their businesses in CEE and
beyond.
According to International Monetary Fund, across much of the CEE
region, the economy has begun to recover at a relatively solid pace
"Regional Economic Issues - Central, Eastern, and Southeastern Europe" by International Monetary
Fund, May 2015:
http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/reo/2015/eur/eng/pdf/REI0515.pdf
. With a strengthening business climate, organizations are
committed to investing in technologies like cloud, mobile and
analytics, which can speed growth and transformation.
"In Central and Eastern Europe,
spending on cloud services, which includes public, private and
hybrid cloud, is on the rise and is far exceeding the growth rates
of traditional technology delivery models. Cloud delivery—along
with other modern technologies and delivery models such as
mobility, big data/analytics and social media—is becoming a
de-facto business model and requires a new sourcing approach and a
transformation of services management," said Vladimir Kroa, Associate Vice President, IT
Services, IDC CEMA.
"Consequently, the integration of internal and external
resources is becoming more frequent as end users are opting for a
hybrid cloud model that, on one hand, solves some of the
legislative concerns about data privacy, and, at the same time,
enables more flexibility, price transparency and acceleration of
go-to-market strategies," he added.
A number of organizations across CEE have recently adopted IBM
Cloud, which provides them with the tools and experience necessary
to extend their businesses to the cloud and reach new markets
through a variety of deployment models, including hybrid cloud.
Clients also benefit from access to Bluemix, IBM Cloud's
development platform, which enables developers to create
interactive mobile and analytics-based applications that can be
hosted on SoftLayer infrastructure. These businesses
include:
- In Poland, CI Games, a
computer-gaming developer, publishes and distributes interactive
entertainment products with sales in more than 40 countries
worldwide. To improve the quality of its multiplayer online gaming
service, CI Games migrated its multiplayer game services to
SoftLayer. With IBM Cloud, CI Games has improved service quality
for its customers, reduced IT costs, increased service availability
and increased agility to deliver new multiplayer games.
- In Poland, fast growing
startup Telemedi.co used IBM Cloud to deploy a secure
platform to store data and enable consultations with doctors via
web or mobile device. With Bluemix and SoftLayer, Telemedi.co
gained greater scalability and reliability for its platform,
enabling it to grow traction by 10x in just one year, and increase
customer satisfaction and trust by 20 percent.
- In Czech Republic,
Kodarna relied on IBM Cloud to develop and host a mobile
video app called "Silent Line" that enables deaf people to
communicate with a call center using sign language or plain text to
request emergency services from any mobile device. Based in part on
its adoption of Bluemix and SoftLayer, Kodarna's business grew 30
percent over the past year.
- In Russia, Navigine
relied on IBM Cloud to roll out its advanced indoor navigation
platform for a fire department customer in less than two days. For
fire fighters, the platform collects and analyzes data from
multiple sources within buildings where GPS navigation isn't
reliable in order to improve public safety. With SoftLayer,
Navigine can rapidly scale server capacity, improve confidence
about uptime, and easily integrate their services with
Bluemix.
- In Slovenia, Acceleration
Business City (ABC), the country's first private business
accelerator, selected IBM Cloud as its main platform to provide
students, researchers and entrepreneurs with a place for
networking, gaining business expertise and developing go-to-market
strategies. ABC transitioned to the IBM Cloud to build a platform
to provide small businesses and start-ups with access to mobile,
big data and Watson services that
accelerate the creation of new solutions.
"We are now expanding our operations to other European
markets. By using IBM Cloud we can do it seamlessly and make sure
our customers get the best service no matter in which country they
operate" – said Pawel
Sieczkiewicz, CTO Telemedi.co. – "We probably would not
have attempted such a large move without relying on IBM
Cloud."
IBM launched Bluemix with a $1
billion investment in 2014, maturing quickly to become the
largest Cloud Foundry deployment in the world. Its
developer-friendly catalog provides access to over 100 tools and
services of the most prominent open-source technologies combined
with IBM and third-party services that let developers focus all of
their energy on the creation of enterprise class cloud applications
at consumer scale.
SoftLayer became part of the IBM Cloud in July 2013. The SoftLayer infrastructure is now
the foundation of IBM's cloud portfolio—including extensive
middleware software and solutions—ensuring businesses have the
scalability, transparency, and control they need to deploy IT
operations in the cloud. In January, IBM committed to investing
$1.2 billion to expand its global
cloud operations in all major geographies and financial centers,
increasing the reach and capability of a business' IT operations.
IBM Cloud operates SoftLayer facilities in North and
South America, Asia, Australia, and Europe, including data centers in the greater
London area, Paris, Frankfurt, Amsterdam, and Almere in Netherlands.
IBM total cloud revenue—covering public, private and hybrid
engagements—was $7.7 billion over the
previous 12 months at the end of March
2015; it grew more than 60 percent in first quarter 2015.
IBM's cloud delivered as a service business, a subset of the total,
includes both platform-as-a-service (PaaS) and
infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS) offerings.
For more information about cloud offerings from IBM, visit
http://www.ibm.com/cloud. Follow us on Twitter at @IBMcloud and on
our blog at www.thoughtsoncloud.com. Join the conversation
#ibmcloud.
Media Contact:
Tomasz Stachera
IBM CEE External Relations Leader
Mobile: +48-693-93-5612
E-mail: tomasz.stachera@pl.ibm.com
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SOURCE IBM