IBM today announced the opening of a cloud computing laboratory in Singapore to help businesses, government and research institutions and institutes of higher learning to design, adopt and reap benefits of cloud technologies. The new lab housed at Changi Business Park is part of IBM's expansion of its global cloud computing capabilities, and puts Singapore and the ASEAN region on the map as the eleventh cloud computing lab. This new addition will be part of the network of labs in Hong Kong, Ireland, Vietnam, China, South Africa, Japan, Brazil, India, Korea and the United States.

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Ronnie Tay, CEO, Infocomm Development Authority of Singapore (IDA) today announced the launch of the new cloud lab at the opening ceremony of IDA's flagship event, CloudAsia 2010, held at Singapore Management University. With increasing focus on cloud computing technologies across Asia and the world, CloudAsia 2010 convenes researchers and practitioners in grid and cloud computing and provides a platform for delegates from local and overseas academia, research institutes and laboratories, in sectors including biomedical, digital media, physical sciences and manufacturing, to engage in active interchange of research ideas and experience.

"IDA is pleased to collaborate with IBM in its Cloud Lab initiative. IDA sees cloud computing as the next important paradigm in computing that will help to sharpen the competitiveness of organizations and enterprises," Ronnie Tay said. "We seek to develop a vibrant cloud computing ecosystem here and position Singapore as a centre for cloud computing services in the region and beyond."

"IBM has been working with leading edge clients from around the world to adopt cloud computing in new and innovative ways," said Alan Ganek, chief technology officer and vice president of Strategy and Technology, Software Group, IBM, who was also present at the opening ceremony, "The Cloud Lab in Singapore will help IDA realize their iN2015 master plan and accelerate the adoption of cloud computing for all organizations to build a Smarter Singapore."

Through briefings, technology deployment and development sessions, the Singapore lab will work closely with businesses, government and research institutions and institutes of higher learning to design and deploy their own cloud environments. The lab will help these clients deploy first-of-a-kind solutions that increase business responsiveness, lower IT operating and capital costs, enable real-time data streams and information sharing, and provide globally available resources.

Specifically, the adoption of private, public or hybrid cloud environments can help organizations reduce IT management complexity and skill requirements; share resources among multiple applications; accelerate time to market; and support both existing and emerging, data-intensive workloads. A cross section of Singapore's industries will benefit from cloud computing, with key sectors such as banking, education, healthcare, government and telecommunications likely to be early adopters.

"Investments such as IBM's new Singapore-based Cloud Lab are critical in the still nascent cloud computing market, where both resources and support are needed to overcome the early skepticism, uncertainty and doubts that characterize this market," said Michael Barnes, vice president of Software Research at Springboard Research, a leading innovator in IT market research.

According to its most recent report "Cloud Computing in Asia Pacific - Market Evolution and Implications," cloud computing will continue to drive demand for Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) and further broaden the types of services available via the on-demand model. "We expect organizations across Asia Pacific to embrace cloud computing as a way to drive greater standardization at the IT infrastructure level while simultaneously lowering the resources required to leverage technology solutions for business benefits," Mr. Barnes added.

The Singapore lab will also serve as a gateway for businesses, government, research institutions and institutes of higher learning to access cloud infrastructure and technologies and benefit from the expertise of IBM's software, services, and research labs around the world.

Teresa Lim, managing director, IBM Singapore said, "Cloud computing is being acknowledged as a new computing model which can drive business transformation in a cost-effective manner. Due to the strong presence of many global enterprises in Singapore and the nation's ranking as the second most networked country in the world according to the Global Information Technology Report, we see the republic in a strong position to become the global Asia hub for cloud computing. With the IBM Cloud Lab in Singapore, we are excited to help organizations leverage cloud computing to drive sustainable business growth and contribute to Singapore's national agenda of becoming a cloud hub."

IBM has provided cloud computing services to clients across the globe such as PayPal, the City of Wuxi China, the City of Dongying China, Panasonic, SK Telecom, and Quang Trung Software City in Vietnam.

In Singapore, the National Technological University (NTU) became the first to participate in the IBM Cloud Academy in November 2009 - a global forum for educators, researchers and IT personnel from the education industry to pursue cloud computing initiatives, develop skills and share best practices for reducing operating costs while improving quality and access to education. Through the Academy, NTU, along with 16 educational institutions worldwide, can create working groups on areas of interest to the education industry, "jam" on new innovations for clouds in education-related areas with developers, work jointly on technical projects across institutions, share research findings, and exchange new ideas for research.

For more information about IBM's cloud computing portfolio, research and labs, visit www.ibm.com/cloud.

  Contact:
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  IBM Media Relations
  917.472.3607
  knechtj@us.ibm.com

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SOURCE: IBM