IBM Corp. filled out its Workplace platform strategy on Tuesday, launching an online developer resource center that will give corporate and third-party developers access to tools to help develop products and services for the platform.
The new Workplace Resource Center, which is hosted on IBM"s developerWorks site, offers programmers a detailed and integrated overview of the technologies and products that constitute IBM"s Workplace initiative, including links to business and technical articles, whitepapers, code downloads, and a number of other resources.
"Since we announced Workplace client technology last summer and our 17 design partners, we have been developing a lot of code downloads, white papers, and testing tools for use within their platforms. So we are taking all these resources and for the first time making them all available in one location to simplify ISV"s time, expense and efforts," said Mike Loria, director of channels and product marketing for IBM"s Lotus software group.
IBM has been working with a number of business partners including Adobe Systems Inc., Bowstreet Inc. (with its Portlet Factory offering), and Hyperion Solutions Corp. to adapt their tools that would allow users to create and customize applications that work to exploit the Workplace environment.
IBM"s Workplace initiative is what company officials describe as a "front-end" development model intended to assist corporate IT shops" move from PC-centric environments to network-managed delivery of tools and applications. This allows administrators to centrally manage and provision applications more effectively to a range of desktop and mobile devices, company officials said.
IBM officials note in the majority of corporate workplaces settings, users must use a series of disconnected e-mail, calendaring, and document management applications in order to do their jobs. Because of this, they contend, those users lose unnecessary time having to deal with a variety of format conflicts and document access points. This can be an expensive proposition as IT departments are forced to manage, deploy, and update all of these systems user by user.
In a related announcement, IBM announced on Tuesday that 100 software developers have now adapted their applications to take full advantage of the Workplace environment, which has helped IBM secure 1 million seats of Workplace software over the past year.
The new Workplace Resource Center is accessible at http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/workplace.