November 19 2008
International Business Machines (IBM) has launched its 'IBM Smart Business' globally for small and medium business (SMB). With this, IBM is targetting the 35 million SMBs in India and aims to fuel the growth of these businesses by delivering ready-to-use IT. A one month pilot is already in place across the Maharashtra and Gujarat states and the company plans to make it pan India by the end of the year.
IBM has currently tied up with 14 ISVs (independent software vendors) to provide 35 solutions and it plans to increase the number of solutions to about 100. The company intends to target at least 100 clients by the end of the year.
Ramesh Narasimhan, director, general business, IBM India & South Asia, said, 'We will initially target the healthcare and manufacturing verticals and then target retail, banking and education."
The IBM Smart Businesses pre-integrated solution with all the fundamental technology required to run a business with no manuals required.
It provides access to a web based community and marketplace to acquire new business applications, and webered collaborative services immediately ready to support a business, such as access to remote (cloud-based) application services like managed security and hosted back-up recovery.
IBM will be a single point of contact for service and support for its clients.