IBM Notes/Domino 9 Social Edition public beta planned for December 14

On a webcast watched live by 2000 people, earlier today, IBM announced a plan for a public beta of IBM Notes/Domino 9.0 Social Edition. The beta is expected to be available on December 14, and you can register for the beta today via http://bit.ly/ND9BETA .

If you were unable to join us for the webcast, a replay will be available starting tomorrow morning via On24.

Notes/Domino Social Edition was first unveiled at Lotusphere 2012, and has been in development for more than a year. We decided to release a public beta, the first in a long time for Notes/Domino, because of the importance of the release. That was also the consideration that lead to putting the 9.0 version number on the beta, rather than the 8.5.4 we have previously announced.

The plan for Notes/Domino Social Edition calls for availability in Q1 2013, subject to change and all the usual disclaimers.

The decision to call Social Edition beta "9.0" is the right one, but leads to some questions. Yes, there will still be an 8.5.4 maintenance release, with no new features, sometime in 2013. A "dot zero" release is legendary in the IT industry as being the one you play with, waiting for a bug fix release. Except that the DNA of this release is what we have been building as 8.5.4, and carries with that all the stability and reliability of the 8.5 codestream. The 9.0 beta will show that though there are many new features, they are built upon the same solid architecture as the entire 8.5 series. We want you to deploy the dot zero, and we will stand behind it with every confidence.

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IBM cuts more than 1,000 U.S. workers

Computerworld - IBM has laid off just over 1,000 employees so far this week, and more layoffs may be possible, according to an employee organization.

IBM never comments on the specifics of any cuts, and the only reason that the company's job action is noticeable is due to the Alliance@IBM/CWA Local 1701, which gathers its data directly from IBM employees.

The alliance keeps a running tally of cuts by business units while affected employees post comments on a bulletin board.

An alliance spokesman was uncertain as to how many employees will lose their jobs in this latest round of cuts. The employees are from multiple business units and locations in the U.S., and nearly half of the employees "are mobile or work from home," according to a union spokesman.

An IBM spokesman, in a statement, said IBM "is constantly rebalancing its workforce." The company went on to say that "that means reducing in some areas and hiring in others -- based on shifts in technology and client demand. This flexibility allows IBM to remain competitive and relevant in an industry that is constantly changing. And given the competitive nature of our business, we do not publicly discuss the details of our staffing plans."

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IBM to lead $4.4 billion chip investment in New York

DG News Service - Five chip makers, including Intel, IBM, Samsung Electronics, GlobalFoundries and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. have committed investment of US$4.4 billion in research and development in the state of New York over the next five years, to develop new 450-millimeter chip wafer technology, the state's governor Andrew M. Cuomo said on Tuesday.

New York secured the investment in competition with other locations worldwide, Cuomo said in a speech that was also webcast.

IBM has committed $3.6 billion of the total investment to work on next generations of computer chips, including those using 22-nanometers and 14-nanometers process technology, said John Kelly, senior vice president and director of IBM Research.

Since 2000, IBM has invested more than $10 billion in New York state, its largest investment anywhere in the world, Kelly said.

The transition from 300mm to 450mm wafers will require unprecedented industry-wide collaboration, and the New York project is critical for the new consortium, called Global 450, said Brian Krzanich, senior vice president and general manager of manufacturing and supply chain at Intel.

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Tech Icons Reflect on PC's 30th Anniversary

The IBM PC turns 30 today. Over those three decades the notion of personal computer has evolved greatly, spawning entire industries. From smartphones to tablets to "the cloud," the PC was the idea that created them all. Thirty years ago, the idea that we'd all be walking around with wallet-size computers was something out of science fiction. Now it's simply Tuesday.

Although we're celebrating the birthday of a machine today, it's important to remember that machines don't think, innovate, or create new paradigms (at least not yet). People still do that stuff, and we have a lot of them to thank for the many forms of personal computing that have emerged over the last 30 years. PCMag spoke to several technology icons, innovators, and thought leaders on this special anniversary to ask them their thoughts on the PC and what it's meant to the world.
30th Anniversary of the PC

From industry-defining software to highly specialized hardware, the contributions from the people represented here are as impressive as they are varied. For every person, we asked the same three questions: What was the biggest innovation for personal computing in the last 30 years? How has personal computing changed people's lives for the better? What do you see happening in personal computing over the next 30 years?

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IBM to invest $100 million for big-data analysis research

IDG News Service - Sensing a greater need in big-data analysis tools, IBM will invest US$100 million to research advanced large-scale analytics, the company announced Friday.

IBM also said it will have 20 new service offerings to help customers quickly analyze petabytes of data.

"We think it's a good time from a research perspective to double down on how we think about big data and how people can get actionable insights from it," said Rod Smith, IBM vice president of emerging technologies.

The money will be used to investigate ways of advancing software, systems and services to better analyze data. "Analytics are terrific, but if you can combine analytics with specific problems and expertise around certain problems, then you can define outcomes in unique ways," Smith said.

While the IT industry already has plenty of business intelligence and analytics software, tools are still lacking for analyzing large amounts of unstructured data, Smith said. About 80 percent of the data in an enterprise is unstructured, meaning it is not easily categorized in databases.

Smith said many IBM customers are collecting large amounts of data through sensors, either software- or hardware-based, but do not have ways of analyzing the results. "From a research perspective, we can ask, 'What does that mean, and what can we do in these new areas to help them?' " Smith said.


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