The New Statistics

Are you a statistics geek?

IBM SPSS Statistics is an integrated family of products that addresses the entire analytical process, from planning to data collection to analysis, reporting and deployment. The newest version addresses the unique needs of big data analysis and also adds some compelling risk probability capabilities via new “Monte Carlo” simulations.

Do you want to become a statistics geek?

I’m generally a words guy myself, but numbers have their place.

And increasingly, what we as mere mortals can do with those numbers using increasingly friendly, utilitarian software is making it easier than ever to manipulate numbers.

When I was in graduate school working on my master’s degree, I was exposed to statistics, and had to learn how to run stats on a mainframe computer using SPSS software.

It was anything but user friendly. For many of you, that may sound familiar.

But that has changed.  And  just today, IBM announced the newest version of IBM SPSS Statistics software (V 21), and the new enhancements are intended to ensure that the most advanced analytics techniques are available to business users, analysts, stats geeks, and the like.

Those new enhancements include simulation modeling (with Monte Carlo risk simulation capabilities), improved support for big data analysis, and improved integration with common data types and external programming languages.

You can learn more about the new SPSS here, and note, on the first page you can get both a video overview of the product, as well as a demo of the new Monte Carlo simulation capability.

Research In Nairobi

Over the past several years, you’ve probably noticed that IBM has become much more active on the African continent.

IBM’s newest research lab will be the first on the African continent, in Nairobi, where scientists will conduct basic and applied research to tackle some of East Africa’s toughest challenges, including smarter water systems and transportation congestion.

IBM’s continued investment in this emerging and important continent were expanded upon yesterday when IBM announced that Africa would be the next frontier for innovation in IBM Research.

IBM Research – Africa will have its first location, in Nairobi, Kenya, in collaboration between the Ministry of Information, Communication, and Technology (ICT) through the Kenya ICT board.

This new venture will conduct basic and applied research focused on solving problems relevant to African and contribute to the building of a science and technology base for the continent.

Key areas of research will include the following:

• Next Generation Public Sector: Governments have a mission critical role to play in the growth and sustainable developments in Africa. With the right kind of ICT, including big data solutions, advanced analytics, and cloud technologies, government organizations can draw insights and benefit from the vast amounts of data held by any number of government agencies. This can help advance e-government capabilities such as helping to reduce the cost of social services, improving efficiency and productivity, deterring fraud and abuse, improving citizen access to services, and enabling digital interaction between citizens and the public sector.
• Smarter Cities – with initial focus on water and transportation: Rates of urbanization in Africa are the highest in the world. The single biggest challenge facing African cities is improving access to and quality of city services such as water and transportation. IBM, in collaboration with government, industry and academia, plans to develop Intelligent Operation Centers for African cities – integrated command centers – that can encompass social and mobile computing, geo-spatial and visual analytics, and information models to enable smarter ways of managing city services. The initial focus will be on smarter water systems and traffic management solutions for the region.
• Human Capacity Development: A skills shortage is hindering the leadership and innovation of new industry in Africa. The IBM Research – Africa lab, while carrying out research, will help to elevate the level of ICT and related scientific skills in Kenya by working in collaboration with select universities, government agencies and companies. Boosting the innovation culture in Kenya and engaging local entrepreneurs and innovators in developing solutions that matter to the people of Kenya and the region may also assist in accelerating economic development.

“In today’s world, innovation is the main lever for a competitive national economy, is a source of employment, and has the potential to improve lives,” said Dr. Bitange Ndemo, Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Information, Communication and Technology. “The IBM research lab, will not only rubber stamp Kenya as Africa’s leader in ICT, but will help the country to transform into a knowledge based economy.”

Operations at IBM Research – Africa will commence immediately. Expansion into other parts of Africa may be considered in a second phase.

IBM Investment in Africa 

IBM is making a significant investment in Africa, ramping up its profile on the continent as part of its focus on emerging markets. The expansion program is part of a major business plan to increase IBM’s presence in growth markets and support global strategy. The company is present in more than 20 African countries and recognizes the huge potential of research and smarter systems in transforming business, government and society across the continent.

Alongside its day-to-day business of providing advanced technologies and services to clients in Africa, IBM has deployed an array of programs aimed at building economic capacity such as IBM’s employee volunteer program, Corporate Service Corps, which is modelled on the U.S. Peace Corps. For example, IBM is working with the Postal Corporation of Kenya (PCK) to review the country’s changing economic landscape and develop a plan to deliver financial services to rural areas.

IBM Research – Africa will join existing labs in Australia, Brazil, China, India, Ireland, Israel, Japan, Switzerland and the United States.

IBM Research laboratories are credited with the creation of many of the foundations of information technology, including the invention of the relational database, disk storage, DRAM memory and much more. IBM Research has been recognized with five Nobel Prize Laureates, and many leading scientific and technical medals and awards.

Recently IBM Research created a question-answering supercomputing system called Watson that defeated the champions of a major televised quiz show, showing its ability to match humans in answering a wide range of free text questions.

Now That’s Some Serious Spin!

Steve Lohr with The New York Times has gone long on “big data.”

In his piece, Lohr explains how big data has gone mainstream, and using IBM’s Watson computer that beat “Jeopardy!” world champions last year as a key inflection point in its evolution, and also quoting IBM exec and technical fellow Rod Smith.

Some excerpts:

Rod Smith: “Big Data is really about new uses and new insights, not so much about the data itself.”

And on Watson: “The Watson computer from I.B.M. that beat human “Jeopardy” champions last year was a triumph of Big Data computing. In theory, Big Data could improve decision-making in fields from business to medicine, allowing decisions to be based increasingly on data and analysis rather than intuition and experience.”

I mentioned in some prior posts the upcoming Smarter Commerce Global Summit IBM will be hosting at the Walt Disney World Swan and Dolphin Resort (which you can learn more about and register for here).

Just out of curiosity, I went and did a query to see if any sessions would include “big data” as a featured topic, and as it turns out, there were four, including “Crunch Big Data for Digital Analytics Using Netinsight on Premises and Netezza,” and “Big Data, Big Campaigns: Using Unica Campaign Management & IBM Netezza Data Warehousing Appliances.”

So, it’s pretty clear that the era of “big data” is certainly upon us with respect to marketing as well.

***
I also wanted to highlight some news just emerging from our friends in IBM Research.

Yesterday, they announced a new breakthrough that has potential impact for semiconductor transistor manufacturing.

With the announcement, they revealed the first-ever direct mapping of the formation of a persistent spin helix in a semiconductor, an effort jointly conducted between IBM Researchers and scientists with ETH Zurich.

Until now, it was unclear whether or not electronic spins posessed the capability to preserve the encoded information long enough before rotating.

But through this new experiment, they demonstrated that synchronizing electrons extends the spin lifetime of the electron by 30 times to 1.1 nanoseconds — the same time it takes for an existing 1 GHz process to cycle.

Why do we care?

Well, today’s computing technology encodes and processes data by the electrical charge of electrons. But that technique is limiting, as the semiconductor dimensions continue to shrink to the point where the flow of electrons can no longer be controlled. Spintronics could surmount this approaching impasse by harnessing the spin of electrons instead of their charge.

This new understanding in “spintronics” not only gives scientists unprecedented control over the magnetic movements inside devices, but also opens up new possibilities for creating more energy efficient electronics.

However, this effort could get colder before it warms up and leads to massive technology transfer into the marketplace: Spintronics research takes place at very low temperatures at which electron spins interact minimally with the environment.

In the case of this particular research, IBM scientists worked at 40 Kelvin (-233 Celsius, -387 Fahrenheit)!!!

You can read the full scientific paper entitled “Direct mapping of the formation of a persistent spin helix” by M.P. Walser, C. Reichl, W. Wegscheider and G. Salis was published online in Nature Physics, DOI 10.1038/NPHYS2383 (12 August 2012).

The Rory McIlroy-Fest

(Photo by J.D. Cuban, for Golf Digest.) These are the clubs that new PGA Championship champion, Rory McIlroy, had in his bag as of three years ago, according to Golf Digest. With his new victory, he can probably afford quite an upgrade, and this just in time for the Ryder Cup in Medinah, where he’s clearly destined by European captain Jose Marie Olazabal to play a central role on the European squad.

The PGA Championship at Kiawah Island, South Carolina, ended with a non-climactic finish yesterday afternoon.

I was playing some golf of my own up in north Texas with my father, so I got to watch the final round of the PGA once I returned home to Austin.

And when I watch the final round of a major, I can tell you I typically watch the whole round, start to finish, which is at least four hours.

I also had to place myself in a news blackout starting around 3 PM CST.

Driving south back to Austin, I realized the radio news might give the winner away, so I turned Puccini’s “Tosca” on my iPhone and listened to it while navigating the slow southbound traffic.

Once home I warmed up the DVR and settled in, and I quickly realized the last round was about to become another Rory McIlroy-fest. If you saw what he did in the U.S. Open at Congressional last summer, you realize all Rory needs is a little winding up in those high performance gears before he starts golfing like a phenom, and that’s what happened yesterday afternoon on Kiawah Island.

Yes, Carl Petterson, and Adam Scott, and even Tiger Woods, weren’t completely out of the mix after finishing the third round and moving on to the fourth and final round in the late morning.

But Rory was like a fine BMW sedan whose upper end just needs a little punch of the gas to speed up and settle in to the highway, leaving everyone else in its dust.

Also, it wasn’t just one part of his game that was making the difference, as is often the case with a championship caliber player.

Rory’s drives were threading the waves of the Ocean Course, his mid-irons were mostly finding their targets with great precision, and when they weren’t that close, his putter was picking up the slack.

He simply looked like Tiger Woods in his hey day — and as we saw at Congressional, when he gets wound up like that, he simply can’t be stopped and is playing a whole different level of golf than we mere mortals.

For all those who’ve been watching the Olympics in London these past two weeks, and marveling at the performances of all the great athletes…well, that’s kind of how many of we golf fans feel when we watch Rory (or any great player) turning it on in a round like that.

By the way, Rory broke yet another record, one that belonged to Jack Nicklaus: The largest margin of victory in a PGA Championship (his was seven, and McIlroy’s yesterday was 8, at 13 under).

In the PGATour.com’s wrap-up, Tiger Woods summed up McIlroy’s potential as a player like this: “When he gets going, it’s pretty impressive to watch.”

Uh, yeah, ya think?  But I guess coming from the former world number one, those are still potent words.

So, congratulations, Rory.  You were a tour de force in a major once again, and if you play anywhere that well in the Ryder Cup, the U.S. has that much less of a chance in taking back the Cup.

Regardless, Medinah’s going to be some seriously compelling, but nerve-wracking golf.

Those Are Called “Sandy Areas”

Well, I sat down to watch on Turbo fast-forward DVR replay the first round of the PGA Championship yesterday evening, but not before first doing the same for the U.S. women’s gold medal soccer match at the London 2012 Olympic Games.

You girls made us proud, but my hat also goes off to the team from Japan. Even though the U.S. won 2-1, the Japan team never gave up and played their hearts out to the bitter end. Great soccer match all the way around.

Now, back to the Ocean course at Kiawah Island.

First, remember there are no “bunkers” this week filled with sand on the Ocean Course. Instead, the PGA explains they are “sandy areas” being played “through the green.”  Oh heavens, how confusing.

They’re not bunkers.  But, they’re filled with sand.  However, they’re “through the green” (whatever that means!), so unlike ANY other sandy area, or bunker, on the golf course, in these, you’re not in a hazard, and therefore you can remove impediments, ground your club when taking a practice swing, and even when addressing the ball.

So, in other words, everything you ever learned about the rules of golf over the past forty years, just give yourself a homebrewed lobotomy and throw all that out the window this week at the PGA Championship, and go have yourself a field day mucking it up in the “sandy areas,” you won’t be needing any rules officials in the bunkers…err, sandy areas.

Got it.

And Phil “The Thrill” Mickelson found plenty of those sandy areas. In fact, I was wondering why Phil didn’t just drop an umbrella and a few Coronas and throw a “sandy area” celebration party, he ended up in them so much yesterday.

But despite his all-over-the-course play, he still ended up only 1 over.

Other mentionables: Rory McIlroy, back to form and 5 under, one back from first round leader Carl Pettersson (in at 6 under).

Dutch golfer Joost Luiten, who gave up ski jumping for golf while a wee lad, came roaring into South Carolina on his way to a possible 62 (no one’s ever scored a 62 in a major). But after going 8 under after 14 holes, he went on a bogey fest (sound familiar, Mr. Scott?) and had to settle for 4 under for the round.

Another big surprise was John Daly, who arrived in at 4 under and is in the hunt. Go Big John!!

As for the course, it was giving away some scores yesterday, as the wind wasn’t blowing much. I’m thinking that won’t hold through the entire tournament, and the pin placements will inevitably get more challenging through the weekend.

As for Mickelson’s Ryder Cup bid, RC captain Davis Love III played in Mickelson’s group of ex PGA Champs yesterday, so whether or not he makes him a captain’s pick for Medinah really depends on your perception of Mickelson’s performance (and to be fair, yesterday was only one day).

Despite driving the ball all over the place, and hitting some rare bad chips, an argument could be made that Mickelson was pulling himself out of some pretty bad situations, and mostly making lemonade out of his lemons.

On the other hand, one could say, why end up in all those bad situations to start with???

As of last week, Mickelson was sitting on the last spot, #8, before Love starts making captain’s picks.

So, I did a little investigating to see what decides the Ryder Cup picks for the U.S. team specifically, and here’s what I found:

• Prize money earned in the 2011 major championships (Masters, U.S. Open, British Open and PGA Championship): One point is awarded for every $1,000 earned; all U.S. players making the cut will earn points.
• Prize money earned in 2012 “Official” events from Jan. 1 through Aug. 12: One point is awarded for every $1,000 earned, excluding the major championships, events played opposite major championships and events played opposite World Golf Championships; all U.S. players making the cut will earn points.
• Prize money earned for the 2012 major championships: (Masters, U.S. Open, British Open, and the PGA Championship). Two points are awarded for every $1,000 earned; all U.S. players making the cut will earn points.
• Prize money earned in 2012 events played opposite the major championships and opposite World Golf Championship events between Jan. 1 and the PGA Championship, Aug. 12 – one-half point will be awarded for every $1,000 earned; all U.S. players making the cut will earn points.

Here’s the last cut at the top 8:

1. Tiger Woods
2. Jason Dufner
3. Bubba Watson
4. Keegan Bradley
5. Webb Simpson
6. Zach Johnson
7. Matt Kuchar
8. Phil Mickelson

Hunter Mahan and Steve Stricker are right on Mickelson’s heels, so Phil needs to step it up a notch in Friday’s round!

But, looking at that list, and assuming Simpson loses his post-having-a-baby cobwebs after winning the U.S. Open…well, that’s certainly the start of a Ryder Cup team that I could live with!

Singapore Sling

Resorts World Sentosa in Singapore will play host to a new, first-of-its-kind IT event in Singapore this October 9-11, where smart businesses from around the globe that have been busy implementing new business and IT strategies will come together to network with IBM clients, industry experts, and IBM thought leaders and learn how they’re converting opportunity into outcomes.

It was a big day today in Singapore, where the country celebrated its independence, and where government leaders encouraged Singaporeans to make even more Singaporeans, in order to counter the country’s declining birthrate, which is among the lowest in the world at 7.72 births per 1,000 people.

I’m sure a few Singapore Slings may have been consumed, and I would have been right there with them, as the Raffles Hotel is definitely on my list of places to frequent for when I visit.

And that will be sooner rather than later, as IBM is going to be hosting a new, first-of-its-kind event at the Resorts World Sentosa this October 9th-11th.

This new IBM event will share with attendees the breadth of IBM’s integrated software and systems solutions capabilities, and demonstrate IBM’s strategic perspective on becoming a smarter busienss that excels in turning opportunity into outcomes in this new era of computing.

At the event, IBM will focus discussions on a variety of key “hot topics,” including those focused on speeding innovation with mobile computing, defending against cyber-threats with security intelligence, rethinking IT with cloud computing, and a host of others.

If you’re game, but need some compelling reasons to convince your boss to send you to Singapore, here’s a starter list:

1. Networking. You’ll have the opportunity in Singapore to network with peers, industry experts, and IBM thought leaders from around the globe, including IBM customers already collaborating to better align business and technology investments.
2. Learning. You’ll have the opportunity to learn from experts in our Solution Center, as well as through a personalized agenda of keynote session, “Hot Topic” sessions, and Exchange sessions built around your business interests.
3. Delivering New Value. At IBM Interconnect, you’ll become one of the first to learn how to manage the velocity of change from real world examples of business delivering new value to the people they serve.
4. Unleashing Innovation. You’ll also have the opportunity to begin to understand the new economics of IT, and how to use technology as the catalyst for unleashing innovation in your organization.
5. Uncovering New Markets. And finally, in an environment where most every organization is looking for new customers in new markets, you’ll have the opportunity to start to develop a clear plan of how you can reinvent relationships with yoru customers and workforce and, in turn, start to uncover those new markets.

Changing With The Changing Times

Rapid change has become the new normal, as entire industries are now transforming to deliver compelling new value to their customers. In this era of interconnected industries, businesses and consumers, a new kind of leadership is required to turn opportunity into business outcomes.

Smarter businesses are capitalizing on information as an indispensable resource and using technology as the catalyst for unleashing innovation. They are expanding the digital world of the back-office into the front-office and the corresponding business infrastructures that are at the heart of business leadership and operations; the key interconnection points among consumers, business partners and employees.

Take advantage of this opportunity to develop a personalized agenda around your business needs, collaborate with business decision-making peers, and meet face-to-face with technical decision-makers and industry experts.

You can start by first going here to register, then heading on over to the Session Preview Tool to start scanning the sessions to make sure you get the most out of your visit.

If you’ve never visited Singapore, I can’t recommend it highly enough. It’s like visiting a future that has already arrived, and in the meantime, you’ll have the opportunity to attend an IBM event that’s intended to help you create a future looming just over the horizon.

A New Pulse

We’re getting down to the wire on these London 2012 Summer Olympic games.

First off, bonne chance to the U.S. Women’s soccer team, who will have another go at the Japan women’s team, a powerful side that beat the U.S. last summer in the Women’s World Cup finals in penalty kicks.

Kick-off should start around 1:45 CST, and can be found on NBCOlympics.com.

I also wanted to send a shoutout to the ThinkPad, which is celebrating its 20th birthday.

Though IBM sold its PC business to Lenovo a few years back, it was 1992 when IBM introduced its first IBM ThinkPad laptop — I remember it well, because I was an early and proud owner of one of those first machines.

To celebrate the ThinkPad’s birthday, Lenovo is introducing some new machines, including a tablet aimed at business professionals and which runs Windows 8, the Thinkpad Tablet 2.

This new machine will have a 10.1-inch screen and is a mere 9.8mm, and it includes a new Intel Atom processor.

Because it will run Windows 8 Pro, it will be able to run those legacy Window apps you can’t afford to be putting in your desktop recycling bin!

And for you news junkies out there who use Pulse on your iOS or Android devices, there’s some new news on that front: Pulse is now available on the web. 

Click to enlarge. The new web-based edition of the Pulse news reader makes it easy to quickly check in on the latest stories broken down by your favorite topics.

The Web version will include most of the features you see on your mobile device, although the list of news sources will now be on your left, with the stories appearing in an elegant grid layout.

Nice way to catch up all the news you can (and cannot) use with a quick glimpse.

I added the “sports” category to my web edition, among others, so let’s hope there’s a nice big picture about the U.S. Women’s soccer team victory over Japan a little later in the day!

You can find your new Pulse here.

Golfing For Gold

To my fellow lovers of the links: All this London Olympics fervor has been slowly sinking in, and as I watched Jim Furyk hand Keegan Bradley the keys to the WGC-Bridgestone kingdom on the 18th green this past Sunday, it reached a fever pitch: Golf is coming back to the Olympics.

A brief bit of history is in order: The last time golf was featured in a Summer Olympic Games, Henry Ford’s Model T had not yet come off a production line.

Yes, it’s been that long.  1904, in fact.

Canada’s George Lyon was the last Olympian male to take a gold medal in golf.

When golf returns to the Summer Olympics in 2016 in Rio after a 112 year hiatus, it will be a much welcomed return for golf fans around the globe.

The International Golf Federation (IGF), which is the governing body overseeing golf’s return to the Olympics, proposed a 72-hole stroke play tournament for both the men and womens’ events in 2016, with a 3-hole playoff in the event of a tie.

Eligibility for the tournament would be determined by IGF rankings, with the top 15 players being eligible regardless of country, and then the next 45 players representing countries that didn’t already have two representatives.

And if you’re curious as to the designer, and designer, for the Rio Olympics course, check out this article on 48 year-old golf architect Gil Hanse, a “traditionalist” course designer known for his work at TPC Boston and Castle Stuart in Inverness, Scotland.

***

As to the FedExCup Standings thus far, after Bridgestone, Tiger Woods is still in the lead.  The next several behind him include Zach Johnson, Jason Dufner, Hunter Mahan, and Bubba Watson, all of whom are pretty much neck in neck.  Bradley jumped up to 7th place after his victory.

This week’s PGA Championship at the Ocean Course in Kiawah Island, South Carolina, has some big stakes — and I don’t just mean the PGA Championship trophy.

The Ryder Cup is just around the corner in Medinah, and U.S. Ryder Cup captain Davis Love III will not only be playing the PGA — he’ll be scouting his captain’s picks.

PGATour.Com has Phil Mickelson “on the bubble,” and explains players like Zach Johnson, Steve Stricker, and Hunter Mahan will be right on his tail.

The PGA Championship is the season’s last official major, but with the Ryder Cup looming ahead, there’s still plenty of great golf to be enjoyed before football season takes over (and baseball winds into the playoffs).

***

Turbo recently invested in a TaylorMade “Rocketballz” driver to fill out his golf bag, and based on his experiences thus far, swears that everything they’re saying in the TV commercials thus far is true!

As for my own game, I have to admit, the Taylor Made Rocketballz driver I recently bought has been a godsend.

I played a course in Frisco, Texas, this past weekend that required some serious needle threading off the tee box. Normally, I would be paranoid about such tight drives, and would panic hit them left, right…everywhere but center.

But with a minor swing adjustment where I keep my elbows closer to my body through my swing, I hit 13 out of 14 fairways this weekend (Note: I didn’t have to use my driver on the par 3s, thankfully 🙂 ), with most going straight and long…I’d say an average of 15-25 yards longer than normal.

Straight and long, the most beautiful phrase in golf.

However, I’ve plateaued in my mid-iron game, and could also use some help around the greens, so I’ve decided to take a golf school vacation.

I’ve been thinking about it for years, but it’s time to commit. The Academy of Golf Dynamics is located right here in Austin, and despite the 100+ heat, I’m hopeful the three-day course will help me work out those few kinks that are really keeping me from consistently lowering my score.

Their Web literature indicates that most players who follow their guidance and do the follow-up work achieve a 25% reduction in their handicap.  I spoke with one of the instructors there on the phone, and he explained the summer workshops don’t quite fill up as much as the spring, so if I’m willing to beat the Texas heat, I’ll get more than my fair share of personal instruction.

I’m certainly going to give it a try.  Golf is something you can never master, but it IS certainly something you can always improve upon. And for those of you who play consistently, you know that improving and hitting those masterful shots you always knew you could hit in your mind is what keeps you coming back for more.

So, I’ll be sure to take some notes in case any of you out there are considering such an investment and let you know how it goes.

Right after the three days of the workshop, my 70 year-old, 10 handicap father (I’m a 13), is coming in to town and we’re going to take a week straight and play some of the best courses in and around Austin to see if my investment in the workshop will have paid off!

Moving forward, I’m also going to try and more consistently use an iPhone app (“Golfshot GPS”) to track my play so that I can better understand precisely where and how I’m losing the most strokes.

Business analytics on the golf course?  Hey, whatever it takes.

IBM And Mobily: Spoken Like A True, Modern Mobile Network

IBM’s mobile computing juggernaut continues with a new deal just announced in Saudia Arabia.

Etihad Etisalat (Mobily) and IBM announced today a 5-year agreement worth approximately $280 million to provide comprehensive IT solutions for the Saudi Arabian company.

Saudi Arabia: 870,000 Square Miles

Riyadh is the capital and largest city of Saudi Arabia. It is also the capital of Riyadh Province, and belongs to the historical regions of Najd and Al-Yamama (Source: Wikipedia) IBM and Mobily, the Saudi Arabian telecommunications firm, will collaborate on future innovation with the help of IBM Research, using IBM’s Spoken Web solution. The basic principle of Spoken Web uses speech to create voice sites using the mobile phone network to establish a spoken version of the internet. The opportunity to collaborate with leading IBM researchers has become a key differentiator for IBM.

Saudi Arabia is a big place, encompassing some 870,000 square miles with a population approaching 30 million people.  Mobily, as the fastest growing telecommunications company in Saudia Arabia, has experienced an explosion in demand from the growing number of subscribers using mobile devices, and so in turn needed to boost its IT capacity and innovation in the market.

This new agreement with IBM will provide Mobily with faster, targeted access to new technologies and expertise so it can build a strong infrastructure to keep up with the company’s business growth.

As Mobily gears up for further expansion, it wanted to improve the quality and speed of its operations using IBM best practices.

As part of the agreement, Mobily and IBM will collaborate on future innovation with the help of IBM Research, for example, using IBM’s Spoken Web solution.

The basic principle of Spoken Web uses speech to create voice sites using the mobile phone network to establish a spoken version of the internet. The opportunity to collaborate with leading IBM researchers has become a key differentiator for IBM.

IBM’s Growth Market Strategy

The agreement highlights IBM’s continued geographic expansion initiative to strategically increase its presence in key growth markets like Saudi Arabia in support of its global growth strategy.

IBM is ramping up its investment across the Middle East and Africa, harnessing the company’s Smarter Planet initiative to help both public and private sector clients do more with fewer resources.

The strategic management of IT remains with Mobily, ensuring continuation of its standards of excellence and cutting-edge architecture, and enabling Mobily to meet the explosion in demand it is seeing from the growing number of subscribers using mobile devices.

“Partnering with one of the largest technology companies in the world offers Mobily a broad portfolio of modern IT solutions that will have a positive impact on our customers in terms of the quality of products and innovative services, in addition to solutions that will enrich their lives. We are pleased to sign with IBM, which has a significant presence in this strategic sector,” said Khalid Al Kaf, CEO, Mobily.

“The agreement is part of our efforts and vision of transforming Mobily into an integrated telecommunications operator. It also supports the Saudi government’s initiative of creating a knowledge-based community, adopting state of the art services and solutions” Al Kaf added.

IBM And Saudi Arabia: Remaking The Kingdom’s Future

IBM is involved in a range of key initiatives in Saudi Arabia, including a joint project with King Abdulaziz City for Science and Technology using innovative membrane technology and solar power to address the shortage of drinking water.

In another project, King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST) and IBM are collaborating using the most complex, high performance computing system in the region.

The agreement with Mobily was signed in August 2012.

Out Of Curiosity?

I had a glorious weekend, thank you.

I got to watch some of the Olympics Saturday night, and I must say, it was refreshing to me to watch some plain old vanilla track and field events.

From Oscar Pistorius to Usain Bolt to Allyson Felix, I found myself enjoying the simplicity of seeing people running around the track.

Not that I haven’t enjoyed the beach volleyball and the swimming and everything else…I certainly do…but watching those runners break out of those gates and sprint for ten seconds or two minutes…well, I just found it very refreshing.

I did some of my own sporting over the weekend, playing golf at a couple of courses in north Texas where the temperatures in the afternoon were hovering around 102 or 103. Yes, it required lots of Gatorade.

Then, I went to bed late Sunday night, too tired to stay up for the Mars Curiosity landing but praying for its safe landing.

Terrified of what might become the further paring of the space program if Curiosity took a nose dive into the red planet.

This is one of the first images taken by NASA’s Curiosity rover, which landed on Mars the evening of Aug. 5 PDT (morning of Aug. 6 EDT). Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

Thankfully, that didn’t happen.  “Mars Science Laboratory” endured the now infamous “seven minutes of terror” (Google it) and landed just fine.  Here’s what JPL Tweeted on MSL’s behalf:

I’m safely on the surface of Mars. GALE CRATER I AM IN YOU!!! #MSL

Ah HA, a NASA with a Tweeter who’s the voice of MSL who has a sense of humor! (Follow MSL on Facebook here, a wonderful page about the program so far).

I’m an unabashed and unapologetic supporter of NASA and the American space program. One of my earliest memories was sitting on my dad’s knee when I was barely three years old, watching Neil Armstrong landing on the moon, so NASA made an impression on me very early on.

But also, just think about the amazing technology transfer the U.S. space program has brought back down to earth all these years: GPS, remote sensing for water and minerals and crop exploration, weather satellites, light-weight materials, geographic information systems…the list goes on and on.

And at a time when so many politicians and leaders seem to be thinking so small, I think it is through programs like Curiosity that we can dare to think and dream big.

Also let there be no question, IBM technology has played an instrumental role at times throughout the history of U.S. space exploration.

Just last year, while celebrating our Centennial, we saw videos like the following, which highlighted IBM’s role in Project Mercury, which led to Alan Shephard’s becoming the first American in space.

Shephard later became the fifth person to walk on the Moon, and the only astronaut of the Mercury Seven to make that walk. During his mission to the moon he hit two golf balls on the lunar surface — the longest drives ever!

NASA used IBM 7090 computing systems, and, later, 7094s to control the Mercury and Gemini space flights, and the IBM 7094 was used during the Apollo missions including Apollo 11, the moon landing.

Goddard Space Flight center also operated 3 7094s. During the early Apollo Program, a 7094 was kept operational to run flight planning software that had not yet been ported to mission control’s newer System/360.

So while curiosity may have killed the cat…it’s also what’s driving our latest mission to Mars…literally, and figuratively.

And no matter how little or vast our new knowledge becomes of the red planet, we will have proved once again that looking up and into the heavens helps us expand not only our knowledge base about Mars, but also our sense of ourselves and humankind.