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Brief
IBM IRL discusses major projects and Mobile Web
The India Research Lab of IBM celebrated its 10th anniversary recently. On
this occasion, the company unveiled a new initiative to bring even more features
and functions to mobile devices as they continue to rival the PC as primary
tool for Web-based business, communication, entertainment and more.
IBM’s institute of business value predicts that the number of mobile Web
users will grow by 191% from 2006 to 2011 to reach one billion. This proliferation
of mobile devices and mobile Web user signals an incredibly lucrative growth
opportunity for businesses.
Speaking on this occasion Daniel Dias, Director, IBM India
Research laboratory said, “This world is entering the era of mobile Web.
In many countries, the mobile phone has become an electronic wallet, the window
to the World Wide Web, an education device and more. We have launched this project
that will make a mobile device even easier to use than the PC, allowing to do
everything one can do with a PC and much more.” Globally mobile devices
outnumber PCs, credit cards and television sets.
As part of the mobile Web initiative, IBM is making major investments in mobile
software and hardware platforms and has opened several world wide telecom solution
labs focused on research and development. The new IBM research program announced
recently, will entail a number of efforts to bring simple, easy to use services
to the millions of people in the world who have bypassed using the personal
computer as their primary method of accessing technology, and are instead using
their mobile phones.
In the past 10 years, IBM’s India Research Laboratory, located in two cities,
New Delhi and Bangalore, has grown into an innovative hub for information engineering
and computing solutions. IBM has worked with local clients and partners to shape
India’s innovation landscape, helping transform it into a significant contributor
to the world economy.
On this Dr. Jonny E Kelly, Senior Vice President IBM Research said, “Today,
staying competitive means looking ahead. The rise of globalization is shifting
the way business works. Business leaders need to anticipate how these changes
will affect their ways of operating and look to new technological innovations
to help them succeed in this new landscape.”
Since its inception, the India Research Laboratory, the youngest of the IBM
Research’s eight world-class globally integrated research labs across six
countries, has been driven by one mission: to advance state-of –art innovations
in IT through research in software and services, and to provide leadership by
delivering innovations to IBM’s client globally. Now, the India Research
team will serve as IBM’s catalyst for delivering new mobile web solutions
to emerging markets around the world.
Projects which will be led out of India, but also are being incubated in IBM’s
eight global labs in six countries include:
- The Spoken Web-Voice enabled mobile commerce
- Instant Translation- Real time communication between
multiple languages through mobile devices.
- SoulPad – Enabling any portable device to carry
your computing application in your pocket.
- BuddyComm- Social networking on-the-go
- Good Samaritan- Mobile healthcare information made
available in any emergency situation.
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