IBM Beefs Up Midsize Business Offerings

After the frenzy surrounding the launch of Windows 7, IBM has quietly beefed up its midmarket business portfolio with a new of products and enhancements.

IBM announcements are firmly aimed at midmarket companies, and include Rational AppScan OnDemand, Tivoli Foundations Application Manager and IBM Tivoli Foundations Service Manager, along with storage and server solutions.

As these new offerings are part of IBM’s Midmarket portfolio, Big Blue has certified that the offerings are easy for midsize companies to install and maintain, and has trained IBM sellers and Business Partners.

AppScan OnDemand is a software as a service (SaaS) solution that identifies and prioritises web application security and compliance risks, as well as increased support for audits mandated by industry regulations, such as the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard.

Scott Holden an account executive for Cognence, an IBM business partner, said with Rational AppScan OnDemand, their customers would now have access to a wide variety of security experts and protection that they never would have been able to implement in house. “Despite these challenging economic times, spending in the security industry continues to increase,” he said. “This is especially true for midsize organisations, which are being exposed to an alarming number of security and compliance risks every day.”

Tivoli Foundations Application Manager monitors, alerts and reports on the performance and availability of an organisation’s IT infrastructure. IBM said this appliance helps improves application availability and saves money by reducing service desk support and application upgrade costs.

IBM is also launching the IBM Software Support Services (Enhanced Technical Support) Gateway service. ETS Gateway is a proactive service that helps companies maximise IT infrastructure availability on IBM Power System, System i, System p and related operating systems through access to information regarding maintenance, security, and performance.

On the hardware side, IBM announced System Storage DS3950 Express, a mid-tier disk system with 8Gbps FC interface designed for data-intensive applications that demand increased connectivity. The company said the DS3950 is ideal for organisations that want to reduce their storage total cost of acquisition or improve performance in mixed workload environments. The IBM System Storage N3300 Express / N3600 Express also have been enhanced, offering companies greater space and power efficiency at a 50 percent lower total cost of ownership. The System Storage N3300 and N3600 Express solutions support dynamic infrastructure through increased performance and capacity.

According to IBM’s recently released Global CIO Study 2009, approximately one in two Midmarket CIOs report that they are unable to effectively handle a 200 percent processing load increase or 50 percent decrease.

The study, representing the insights of more than 2,500 CIOs worldwide, including 158 CIOs in 31 countries employed at midsize organizations, also revealed that changing business models are one of the top challenges midmarket CIOs face today and that virtualisation and risk management are among their top three technology priorities.