Even Greater Than A Grand Slam — Quintuple Leadership!

As clients transform their businesses to embrace cloud, mobile, and big data – our teams in WebSphere have been relentlessly re-inventing our portfolio to drive new innovations in these areas to accelerate client adoption and value from our portfolio. We all know the many stories about tech companies losing their way because they “missed a wave” or missed a shift in the marketplace, and certainly inside WebSphere we are vigilant to make sure we never make that mistake.

Given the magnitude of the marketplace shifts – it’s incredible to see the evolution of WebSphere over the past fifteen months. In just that short time-span our teams have:

• Launched a new portfolio and brand for Mobile – IBM MobileFirst
• Launched a new set of solutions for API Management
• Developed whole new set of capabilities for Smarter Process – our business process software portfolio
• Invented and launched a new line of services for the Internet of Things – our MessageSight offerings.
• And developed new sets of composable services for our core WebSphere portfolio around WebSphere App Server, DataPower, MQ, and Cast Iron.

And the good news is that the investments and transformation of the portfolio is being recognized. For the first time ever, our WebSphere portfolio is now cited as the leader in five broad areas in the Gartner Magic Quadrants:

1. Application Services Governance – leadership for our new WebSphere API Management, Datapower and SOA solutions
2. On-Premises Application Platforms – leadership for our WebSphere Application Server solution
3. Mobile Application Development Platforms·– leadership for Worklight solution
4. On-Premises Application Integration Suites – leadership for WebSphere MQ, Integration Bus & Cast Iron solutions
5. Business Process Management Suites – leadership for our BPM and Decision Management solutions

Obviously to be cited as the leader in all five areas is quite an accomplishment – congrats to our Product Management and Development teams around the world!

So what is better than a grand slam? I guest best analogy would be a five-point play, which is one of the rarest feats in basketball! Quintuple is the official word for “five of something” so here’s the WebSphere’s Quintuple Leadership!

Cool App Design – It’s In Vogue!

One of the cool elements of the mobile revolution that is taking place is that it is forcing a new focus around the importance of good creative design for mobile applications.  While I’m not sure if this is due to the differences in screen size and interaction methods (touch vs mouse driven), it doesn’t really matter.  The good news is that it is resulting in software developers being asked to really re-think good user interface designs and that’s good for all of us!

Part of the evolution is certainly due to the fact that smaller screens and form factors require that mobile applications must be simpler – the best ones are not simply replicas of web site or existing traditional apps, instead they are built for simple tasks and discrete purposes that often require re-imagining key customer interaction processes.    As functionality is re-thought from the user centered design perspective, it provides an opportunity to rethink the graphical interfaces and feel as well.  While it’s not very often you hear anyone bragging about the cool UI on a traditional PC app – it is quite common to see cool designs on mobile platforms.

Recently I came across this list of ten sites that was posted by Jacob Gube , the Founder and Chief Editor of Six Revisions,  that can provide mobile app developers with some inspiration for design patterns and graphical interface models.   It’s pretty cool – check it out.  I think my favorite is lovely ui – but let me know what you think!   As some of you know – my lovely wife is a graphic designer – so I’ll have to ask for her vote too and she what she thinks.

This week here at IBM we were also proud to report that our IBM Interactive Design Services team was cited as one of the best design and digital marketing teams in the industry as noted by their placement in the Gartner Magic Quadrant!   If you aren’t familiar with them – you can check them out here – and as you can see by clicking on the Our Work tab, they have done some great, cool projects with great user designs.