IBM Virtual Desktop for Smart Business

Earlier this year, IBM announced their Virtual Desktop for Smart Business, a new workforce mobility offering that provides anytime, anywhere access to personal desktops from mobile devices -- including tablets, netbooks, laptops and thin clients.

The IBM Virtual Desktop allows Windows or Linux desktops to be hosted and managed centrally, thus lowering the cost and complexity of managing PC environments through rapid deployment of new applications, automatic software updates and reducing the need for help desk requests. The Virtual Desktop, which includes VERDE software from Virtual Bridges, can be deployed on a customer's own infrastructure or through a "private cloud" hosted environment like Lexcom.  

"As IBM's latest smarter work offering, the Virtual Desktop expands the time and place where people can access information, contribute ideas and support customers," said Dan Cerutti, general manager, IBM Smart Business. "We're bringing the power of virtual computing to smaller companies seeking greater agility while freeing up critical IT resources."

The IBM Virtual Desktop has self-configuring, self-managing and self-protecting features that enable easy installation and management, plus continuous backup and recovery. Whether visiting clients, checking inventory or making patient rounds at a hospital, the solution provides instant access to information, helping employees solve problems and speed decision-making.

This new IBM solution is offered as a pre-integrated, ready-to-run software package priced at $150.00 per user per year for a one year contract. IBM Virtual Desktop will be delivered through IBM Business Partners who will provide local consulting, networking and software infrastructure skills to ensure smooth installation. 

Download a IBM Virtual Desktop Brochure here.

IBM's Watson Takes on Jeopardy! Champs

Over the past four years, a team of IBM scientists have set out to accomplish a grand challenge – build a computing system that rivals a human’s ability to answer questions posed in natural language with speed, accuracy and confidence.  The computing system named Watson, will compete on Jeopardy! against the show’s two most successful and celebrated contestants -- Ken Jennings and Brad Rutter -- on February 14, 15 and 16.

Jeopardy! provides the ultimate challenge because the game’s clues involve analyzing subtle meaning, irony, riddles, and other complexities in which humans excel and computers traditionally do not.

Watson's ability to understand the meaning and context of human language, and rapidly process information to find precise answers to complex questions, holds enormous potential to transform how computers help people accomplish tasks in business and their personal lives. Watson will enable people to rapidly find specific answers to complex questions. The technology could be applied in areas such as healthcare, for accurately diagnosing patients, to improve online self-service help desks, to provide tourists and citizens with specific information regarding cities, prompt customer support via phone, and much more.

Last night Watson held his own and was tied with all-time Jeopardy champ Brad Rutter after the first round. Watson and Rutter both tallied $5,000 in winnings, while Ken Jennings, whose streak of 74 consecutive wins is a Jeopardy record, was in third with $2,000.

The Watson program runs on IBM's new massively parallel POWER7 processors, which the company rolled out last year.