IBM Announces Mobile Analytics & Desktop as a Service
In efforts to drive workforce productivity, IBM has announced that they will be offering a new mobile analytics service hosted in their IBM cloud. IBM describes this new analytics tool as a way for business to get to most out of their mobile users and their device usage. With the announcement of IBM’s new mobile analytics service, IBM has also announced that they have launched a Desktop-as-a-Service offering as well.
IBM GM of Mobility Services Rich Esposito mentions, “The trifecta of mobile, cloud and analytics services are turning the mobile device into a powerful business tool that lets companies quickly use them for sales, marketing and employee productivity Now these businesses need the tools that let them manage the performance of their applications to make sure they deliver impactful results from any individual’s device of choice.”
IBM described their process of delivering mobile analytics as end-to-end. This means that software distributed to mobile devices using IBM’s Cloud can be monitored entirely. This allows development teams to perform agile tasks on the app at hand. Darryl Taft at EWeek vividly described the services writing, “The new mobile analytics service uses an analytics correlation engine designed by IBM Research to examine data collected from mobile devices. The tool presents the data through a dashboard so businesses can spot problems with mobile device performance and improve the user experience to avoid failed transactions, user abandonment, poor app store rankings and negative feedback.”
IBM’s cloud based Desktop as a Service offering will be run on top of SoftLayer using Citrix Workspace Suite. Since Citrix apps can be run from any mobile device using the Citrix Receiver, enterprise applications can be delivered through a secured web portal. Users can have entire Windows based desktops published to their mobile device from the IBM mobility services administration panel for cloud hosted desktops. IBM looks leverage these types of business verticals in the future in order to service a workforce that’s more increasingly moving away from desktop and laptop hardware and more towards handheld mobile devices and tablets.
