ARMONK, N.Y., Aug.
11, 2015 /PRNewswire/ -- IBM (NYSE: IBM) and Hootsuite
announced plans to integrate several of their respective cloud and
social technologies as well as expertise, to provide Hootsuite
clients a fast and reliable social experience.
Hootsuite will migrate its popular App Directory to IBM Cloud's
Infrastructure as a Service, SoftLayer. The Hootsuite App Directory
is a collection of extensions and applications that business
professionals add to their Hootsuite dashboard to create custom
views of the social outlets and metrics most important to them.
To provide reliability and speed for a global customer base,
Hootsuite requires high-performance computing on a platform that is
both stable and scalable. By running App Directory on the IBM
Cloud, Hootsuite will be able to provide clients a dedicated,
scalable infrastructure with an easy-to-use toolkit for
provisioning and management.
IBM Cloud also provides data resiliency, data privacy and data
localization, a key consideration for international customers who
want the option to keep their data in country. In addition,
Hootsuite can rapidly roll out new features and functions to
customers and ensure fast, reliable response times.
"IBM Cloud offers high performance, granular control and
flexibility. When you couple that with its globally integrated
footprint, we will have the ability to move data between data
centers efficiently which will provide resiliency, flexibility and
control," said Aaron Budge, vice
president of operations and IT at Hootsuite. "We have had a great
relationship with IBM for more than two years and are excited about
expanding our relationship with new product integrations and the
ability to leverage IBM technology."
Fueling New Skills for Social Analytics
IBM and Hootsuite are also joining forces on an upcoming
university program that pairs IBM's Academic Initiative with
Hootsuite's Higher Education Program, melding analytics and cloud
training with professional social media skill development. As part
of the program, classrooms enrolled in IBM's Academic Initiative
will have access to Hootsuite's Higher Education Program, which
provides professors and their students with three months of free
access to Hootsuite's leading social media education resources and
courseware.
The IBM Academic Initiative is a no-charge program that provides
over 8000 university faculty access to technology and expertise
worldwide. Faculty members receive 12 months access to a
Bluemix trial for their use and up to six months access for
students. Both faculty and student accounts are renewable and do
not require a credit card. The program helps faculty teach
market-ready skills to students.
To date, Hootsuite has made an impact in more than 300
universities with its Higher Education Program. By combining IBM
Cloud technology with Hootsuite's social media solutions students
will gain the opportunity to increase their technical skill set as
well as showcase their social media expertise.
"The partnership between IBM and Hootsuite will blend analytics
and social technologies to provide students and professionals the
skills they need for social marketing," said Randy Hlavac, a lecturer at Northwestern University's Medill School of
Journalism, and a member of IBM's Academic Initiative.
"Utilizing IBM Cloud and Analytic solutions, students are able to
gain deep market knowledge. The Hootsuite tools will utilize this
insight and allow students to test messaging immediately and
deliver the most engaging content globally."
Advancing Cloud and Social Innovations
The migration of App Directory to IBM Cloud and the joint
university program are the latest collaborative efforts between IBM
and Hootsuite. Recently, Hootsuite, integrated IBM Silverpop into
App Directory, allowing marketers and social media managers to gain
insights into the behavior of individuals who interact with their
brand through social networks like Facebook and Twitter. This
complements the existing integration into IBM Connections, enabling
users to marry internal and external social behavior.
In addition, IBM will leverage Hootsuite exclusively to socially
promote more than two dozen hackathons in 2016, as part of the
Eighth Global Hackathon Series to take place globally throughout
the year. The series will reach 10,000 developers, designers and
entrepreneurs, connecting the world's most vibrant communities of
code creators to drive open innovation for products, platforms and
brands. These events will showcase how Bluemix and Watson technologies are impacting various
industries, including healthcare, travel, food and emergency
responsiveness.
"IBM and Hootsuite continue to work together to drive the
integration of social and cloud to empower clients with the ability
to make data-driven decisions quickly and easily," said
Sandy Carter, general manager, Cloud
Ecosystem and Developers, IBM.
Hootsuite will move its App Directory to IBM Cloud in the fourth
quarter of 2015.
About IBM Cloud
IBM Cloud offers the industry's
largest portfolio of software, services, datacenter solutions and
consulting for private, public and hybrid cloud environments. Total
revenue for IBM Cloud was $8.7
billion, for the second quarter, ending June 30, 2015, $4.5
billion of which was attributed to XaaS. From IBM's Bluemix,
Platform as a Service, to the IBM MobileFirst mobile application
development platform, to the company's global network of IBM
SoftLayer datacenters, and much more, IBM is helping organizations
large and small adopt, manage, scale and benefit from open cloud
technologies.
Contact Information
IBM Media Relations
Mike Zimmerman
(914) 766-4935
mrzimmerman@us.ibm.com
Hootsuite
Julie Huang
Sr. Communications Manager
(778) 300-1850, ext. 4340
media@hootsuite.com
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SOURCE IBM