 Impact 2013 will provide an array of activities designed just for you,
including the IBM Business Partner Summit on Sunday, 28 Apr, 2013, the
Business Partner Cafe,
and more!.
Be sure to take advantage of special promotions available to you. Save on registrations for your firm and bring clients at reduced rates, too. Special Limited Time Offer for IBM Business Partners – Purchase by March 15th
Purchase this package for your customers and receive a Full Conference Pass for your company and a VIP Package! Promotion expires March 15th, 2013. Purchase one of the volume discount pass package and bring your clients and team together at Impact. Be one of the first three Business Partners to purchase this pass option and receive special incentives. This pass option can be used for multiple companies! - 10 full conference passes for only $1700 per
pass – that’s $4,950 off the regular price. Allocate them to your
customers. Total cost = $17,000
- 20 full conference passes for only $1650 per pass -- that’s $10,900 off the regular price! Allocate to your customers. Total cost = $33,000
The VIP package you will receive includes one of each:
- Complimentary pass*
- Meal with Software Group Business Partner Executives
- Limo transportation to/from the Las Vegas McCarran Airport
- Meet and Greet with Matchbox 20
What you need to do: Business Partner Customer Passes can be purchased by contacting impactregistration@MaritzTravel.com. * Complimentary Pass is pending IBM legal approval. Additional passes
can be purchased for $1,650 each after the purchase of a group discount.
Once payment is complete, you will receive a promotion code to enter
during registration. Offer is not valid when paying with co-marketing
dollars.Bring your customers, and you attend for less – Expires March 15thHelp us promote the educational benefits of attending Impact. For
every 5 customers registered with your Business Partner promo code, your
company receives $500 off of a Business Partner full conference pass.
And that’s not all! Your customer can receive $100 off their
registration. This promotion expires March 15th! How to take advantage: - Register for the contest by sending an email to impact13@us.ibm.com. Please include your company name, contact name and phone number.
- You will receive a promotion code that your clients will need to use to register for Impact. We will include a logo for your website and invitation materials.
- Promote Impact! Ask clients to use the promotion code so they receive $100 off registration and the registration is credited to you!*
- Once your registration code hits 5, you will be sent a promotion code for your discounted pass.
* Discount not applied if registration is part of an already discounted pass
Watch a video invitation from Mark Register, Vice President, IBM Software Business Partners and Midmarket on why you should attend. Mark Register Invites You to Impact
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Partner with IBM to harness the power of Big Data
Faced with a variety of data you can't analyze? Is the velocity of your data overwhelming and you need decisions in real-time? Do you have an issue with the volume of data that needs to be analyzed? If any of these issues apply then you have a Big Data challenge and are missing opportunities!
With better big data, you can turn your data into trusted information that can be harvested to find new insight and to answer questions that in the past were beyond reach. Due to the popularity of this topic, we've scheduled our speakers to host this event in Montreal on November 29th in addition to our original event scheduled in Toronto for November 27th.
Come hear our industry experts share their real-world experiences to help you learn how to take control of your ever-growing supply of data and turn it into an enterprise source of knowledge.
Agenda2:30 - 3:00 PM Registration
3:00 - 4:00 PM Achieving Competitive Advantage through Big Data Analytics
4:00 - 5:00 PM IBM Big Data Platform: Real World Approach to Introducing Big Data Business Alignment
Strategy, Plan and Execution
5:00 - 6:00 PM Cocktail Reception
LocationsNovember 27, 2012
IBM Innovation Center - Toronto
3600 Steeles Avenue East, Markham ON L3R 9Z7
November 29, 2012
IBM Innovation Center - Montreal
1360 Rene-Levesque Boulevard West, 11th Floor, Montreal ON H3G 2W6
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November seems to be the month for Big Data here in the Markham office. There are several events targeted towards IBM Business Partners coming up in the next month. If you haven't already heard about them, here they are:
Big Data Fundamentals BootcampNovember 13 - 16, 2012 This bootcamp covers Big Data fundamentals, with focus on InfoSphere BigInsights. Learn how a Hadoop-based solution complements existing IM products and how BigInsights can be integrated into an existing enterprise environment. This session will also touch on the basics and fundamentals of other IM Big Data portfolio products such as InfoSphere Streams and Vivisimo Velocity. Find out: - What is Big Data to IBM
- How to use Hadoop technology and related tools that are provided by InfoSphere BigInsights
- How to process streaming data to do real-time analysis and decision-making
- How IBM provides extensive enterprise class capabilities, security, performance, development and user tools
NOTE: This bootcamp is for IBM Business Partners only. To register, visit: www.ibm.com/events/idr/idrevents/detail.action?meid=8636&ieid=3898
Big Data Developer DayNovember 15, 2012 Participate in an exclusive Big Data Developer Day hosted by the IBM Big Data Development team. Experience IBM’s enterprise-class big data platform that allows you to address the full spectrum of big data business challenges. The morning will include interactive discussions and live demonstrations of big data for social media and log analytics, then get hands on with Hadoop scripting and text analytics with guidance from development experts. This is a unique opportunity to develop skills and learn about exciting technologies and techniques that you can immediately take back to your organization. To register, visit: www.ibmbigdatahub.com/event/big-data-developer-days Partnering with IBM Big Data to Grow Your Business
November 27, 2012 In today’s world there is an ever increasing amount of data. Estimates point to data growing at 50 percent a year, or more than doubling every two years. It’s not just more streams of data, but entirely new ones. Businesses and government agencies are confronted with three dimensions of this Big Data challenge—volume, variety, and velocity. Of course, Big Data is more than a challenge; it is an opportunity to find insight in new and emerging types of data, to make your business more agile. According to IDC, the market for Big Data technology and services will reach $16.9 billion by 2015, up from $3.2 billion in 2010. That is a 40 percent-a-year growth rate — about seven times the estimated growth rate for the overall information technology and communications business. Join us at the Toronto IBM Innovation Center to learn about the IBM Big Data solution portfolio and how you can take advantage of the great market opportunity highlighted by this IDC report. Learn how you can grow your business by integrating your solutions with IBM Big Data platforms and by creating practices around IBM Big Data solutions.
In a series of fact-filled presentations and demonstrations at this event, you will: - Learn IBM’s Big Data strategy and platform
- See Big Data use cases
- Understand how IBM develops Big Data Partner ecosystem and the mutual benefits by partnering with IBM Big Data
- Network with peers and subject matter experts
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On October 9th, IBM announced the newest member of the PureSystems family. The PureData system encompasses the three core attributes of all PureSystems - built-in expertise, integration by design, and simplified experience - with a focus on big data. With today's focus on efficient management and speedy analysis of the vast quantities of data collected each minute, this new system offers three workload-optimized models: - PureData Systems for Transactions
- PureData Systems for Analytics
- PureData Systems for Operational Analytics
Read more about this newest offering by reading the official IBM News Release at https://ibm.biz/Bdx24c.
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Business Partners and customers - are you attending IBM InterConnect 2012? Only a few weeks left to register to attend this meeting place for business and IT leaders! IBM InterConnect 2012 October 9 - 11, 2012 | Resort World Sentosa, Singapore Hot Topic Sessions A showcase of successful strategies that leverage the breadth and depth of IBM software and systems.  Exchange SessionsThese facilitated sessions offer attendees the opportunity to dig deeper into the strategies discussed in the Hot Topic Sessions and learn how to apply lessons learned. Come out of these topics with a plan to share what you've learned with peers from your organization. Solution Center
Located central to the entire event, this space is set up to foster topic discussions and offer interactive demonstrations for IBM Business Partners, Subject Matter Experts, customers, and IBM executives.
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What is Big Data? It's one of those keywords that has become increasingly prevalent as our use and consumption of information has become more demanding and all-encompassing. In an attempt to keep up to date on the ever changing areas of technology, I've been reading up on the topic. Here's a summary of what I've found to be the basics.
"The term Big Data applies to information that can't be processed or analyzed using traditional processes or tools." IBM defines Big Data by three characteristics: volume, variety, and velocity. What does this mean? - Volume: The sheer amount of information collected on a daily or even hourly basis by organizations is massive, reaching to petabytes. Imagine having to analyze and sift through for nuggets of relevant data.
- Variety: Data is being collected from a whole range of sources, from sensors to smart devices, emails to documents, social media forums, etc. Combined, these data generators bring in both traditional and raw data that may or may not be structured.
- Velocity: How fast is the data flowing? It's not enough to know how quickly it is being produced, stored, analyzed, but we also need to know how quickly the data will become obsolete.
As I continue to read up on the topic, I'll share my insights and discoveries with you. One of my key go-to sources is a fellow IBM-er, Lennart Frantzell, who writes for the Silicon Valley IBM Innovation Center blog. Also, keep up-to-date on IBM's Big Data products and strategy by watching the videos at IBM Big Data on Youtube.
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Last week, the IBM Innovation Center - Canada ran the pilot for the PureSystems Certification Preparation Workshop. This 3-day workshop focuses on the PureFlex System and includes sales and technical training on the first two days followed by testing on the final day.
 Due to the popularity of the pilot event, we had to increase the
workshop size! A word from Steve Powell, Course Developer for IBM and the instructor for the pilot workshop: "It was great to visit Toronto and meet so many dedicated Partners. We
had a lot of fun getting to grips with the certification test
requirements and I'm pleased to say many of our Partners are now
certified!"
For those of you who were unable to join us last week,
we are holding 4 additional workshops in the coming weeks in Toronto,
Montreal, Calgary, and Vancouver. We look forward to having many of you attend the upcoming sessions.
Please do note that as this is a review course, attendees are expected
to be familiar with PureSystems and should study the materials in
advance and come prepared with any questions. If you missed out on this workshop, visit the IBM Innovation Center website at http://ibm.biz/Bdx4sN to register online and find out about our other events.
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 The Global Network of IBM Innovation Centers has been hosting the IBM PureSystems Business Partner Day events worldwide. Here in Canada, we held these informative networking events in Toronto and Montreal and will be bringing the event out to our western Business Partners as well. With a twist. We've made this a morning event and added a more technical workshop component in the afternoon. Check out the agenda for the day. I've included it below with links to register online. Please register separately for the morning and afternoon sessions. We'd like to invite all of our IBM Business Partners that operate in the western provinces and territories to attend the PureSystems Business Partner Day in Calgary on September 6th. Agenda
Keynote & Breakout Sessions (9:00 AM – 12:30 PM MST)
Presenters:
- Luis H. Rodriguez – Director, IBM Innovation Centers
- Todd Austin – Worldwide Channel Marketing Leader, IBM PureSystems
Audience: C-level, Line of Business, Sales & Marketing
At the keynote, you will hear about IBM’s new family of expert integrated systems and how the PureSystems offerings meet the increasing demands of your business and technology challenges. Breakout sessions will provide value, pricing and incentives, and specific details on next steps. Register now for the keynote and breakout session: http://ibm.biz/BdxXx2
Workshop (1:30 PM – 3:30 PM MST)
Presenter: IBM Technology Consultant, IBM PureSystems Expert
Audience: IT Professionals
The workshop will instruct you on the tools and techniques used to create scripts for cloud deployment on the IBM PureApplication and PureFlex systems. This workshop will cover: - What are workload patterns
- IBM Workload Deployer (IWD) tooling for Virtual Pattern creation on PureApplication system
- IBM Composition and Construction Tool (ICCT) tooling for Virtual Appliance creation for PureFlex system
Register now for the workshop: http://ibm.biz/Bdx4qT
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 With all that IBM has to offer, how does one find their way from point A to point B? To help you navigate your route, IBM has created a series of roadmaps that should help you along the way. Whether you're a Business Partner, Academic, IT professional, or entrepreneur, these roadmaps offer a step-by-step guide with an overview, resources to learn more, and actions that will help you succeed. Roadmaps for Business Partners - Industry roadmaps
- Cross-industry roadmaps
Roadmaps for academia
- IBM roadmap for academia - Faculty
- IBM roadmap for academia - Students
Roadmaps for IT professionals
Roadmaps for entrepreneurs Visit the IBM Roadmaps website ( http://ibm.biz/BdxrUX) to learn more about the different routes you can take.
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"Ready for..." are technical validations offered by IBM to its Business Partners. Achieving "Ready for ..." status shows customers that your solution meets or exceeds IBM compatibility criteria with one or more of the IBM products in that category. There are several "Ready for..." validations available that your company can qualify for and recently, IBM announced the addition of Ready for IBM Social Business to the line-up. As social business becomes increasingly vital to organizations, this new offering builds on and combines the previous Ready for IBM Lotus and Ready for IBM WebSphere Portal validations. Read a guest blog about Ready for IBM Social Business from the perspective of one of our IBM Business Partners: www.ibm.com/connections/blogs/socialbusiness/tags/ready_for_social_business?lang=en_us Other offerings available to Business Partners include: -
Ready for IBM DB2 database software
-
Ready for IBM Informix database software
-
Ready for IBM Power Systems Software
-
Ready for IBM PureSystems™
-
Ready for IBM Rational
-
Ready for IBM SmartCloud Services
-
Ready for IBM Technology
-
Ready for IBM Tivoli software - IBM Integrated Service Management Library
Each validation has its own steps to complete the process to achieve
"Ready for..." status, and once you've successfully completed the
validation and marketing criteria, you can display the "Ready for..."
mark in the packaging and marketing materials of your qualified
offerings. Just remember to follow the guidelines when you download and
use your "Ready for IBM..." mark. For more information on the usage
guidelines, visit http://ibm.biz/BdxrXC.
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Are you a - systems integrator (SI),
- independent software vendor (ISV),
- managed service provider (MSP),
- value added distributor (VAD), or
- reseller
IBM Business Partners come from many different backgrounds, and each of you shares a vital relationship with IBM, so we like to do our best to invest in your success. Registering to become an IBM Business Partner is easy. Simply visit ibm.com/partnerworld/join
to sign up. At the Member level, we provide resources for five
categories: Marketing, Selling, Technical, Training, and Collaboration.
Each is designed to support your needs. By building your company's
skills, revenue, client references and customer satisfaction, you can
move up to the Advanced and Premier levels where you will receive
additional benefits and resources. Once you're an IBM Business Partner, you can begin using one of our Business Partner marks to identify your relationship.    Build and maintain your PartnerWorld Profiling System (PPS) profile to ensure you are receiving the right benefits and resources. Keep your profile up-to-date so that potential customers, IBM sales teams and other Business Partners can see your relationship with IBM and see what skills and capabilities you offer. Just remember to opt in on your PPS profile to allow others to pull up your company on the Business Partner Locator tool. (Have you looked your company up to see what your profile looks like to others?) Got a solution you're proud of and are ready to market? Submit your solution on the Global Solutions Directory so that others can read about it. There are a lot of resources available to IBM Business Partners on PartnerWorld, so don't miss out.
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Back in April, IBM announced the new family of expert integrated systems called IBM PureSystems. Since then, this revolutionary new product has been top-of-mind for IBMers and our Business Partners. To quickly catch you up, these systems incorporate hardware, software, and applications with built-in expertise, integration by design, and offers a simplified IT experience. The current offerings include: - PureFlex System: an infrastructure system that combines computing, storage, networking, virtualization and management and is expert at sensing and anticipating resource needs.
- PureApplication System: a platform system built for cloud and offers a simple and efficient experience putting you in control.
The IBM Innovation Centers (IICs) have been hosting PureSystems Business Partner Day events worldwide to get our Business Partners up-to-date on IBM PureSystems. Here in Canada, we have already hosted events in Toronto and Montreal. Both events were a success with over 180 Business Partners in attendance, and experts on IBM PureSystems speaking about the product and networking with independent software vendors, managed service providers, systems integrators, and resellers. We at the IIC Canada are working hard to get our Western Business Partners out to an event as well, so keep an eye out for a communication from the IIC.
Keep reading as we get our event plans lined up for the fall and start blogging about what you can expect on the agenda here at the IIC Canada. Check out what events are coming up at the IBM Innovation Centers around the globe: http://ibm.biz/Bdx4sN
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Hi and welcome to the first of many posts from the IBM Innovation
Center (IIC) Canada! While most posts will come from me (Jeanette), I'd
like to start by introducing our team, as you can expect posts from all
of us.
IIC Canada Team
Located
at the IBM Canada headquarters, our team is part of a growing network
of Innovation Centers worldwide. Our little trio handles technical
enablements, workshops, and events across Canada. Lila Adamec, Manager, IBM Innovation Center
Our fearless leader, Lila, has over 20 years
of experience in the technology industry and is a long-time IBMer.
Lila drives the Canadian Strategy and oversees all aspects of the center
operations and resources. She works with IBM Business Partners and IBM
executives in understanding and leveraging the capabilities of the
Global Network of IIC's worldwide to create a successful partnership.
Grace Barker, Planning & Deliver Manager, IBM Innovation Center
An
experienced IBMer, Grace has worked at IBM for 17 years. She handles
the business development and execution of IIC activities to support our
roadmaps.
Jeanette Lee, Event Coordinator, IBM Innovation Center
Newest
member to the IIC team, I plan and execute events held in the center
and work with IBM Business Partners to help them maximize the resources
available.
Blog GoalsOur team is dedicated to
working with and connecting Business Partners, Independent Software
Vendors, developers, academics, and entrepreneurs on how to build,
market, sell, and deliver solutions. We've joined the world of blogging
to make sure information and resources are available to you and build
awareness of events that we will be hosting. On a weekly basis, we will
post about relevant topics to keep you informed on what is happening in
the IIC, with IBM, and with IBM Business Partners. Some upcoming
topics...PureSystems, working in the cloud, Business Analytics, Social
Collaboration, upcoming event highlights and recaps and many more. Follow Us
Follow this blog! Help us stay interesting and relevant by suggesting topics, asking questions, or posting comments.
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