ARMONK, N.Y. and TORONTO, Jan. 17, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- IBM (NYSE: IBM) today announced that it is helping students at York University's Schulich School of Business develop leadership skills by learning to collaborate on course work virtually in the cloud.

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In the fall of 2011, 400 students enrolled in "Management 1000" at the Schulich School of Business used IBM's social networking services to aid their semester-long project of creating a comprehensive business plan. Students at Schulich used the IBM SmartCloud for Social Business portfolio for online meetings, file sharing, decision making, workload sharing and overall project management.

The Schulich School of Business is the top-rated business school in Canada and ranked among the top business schools in the world by the Economist magazine. Schulich is also ranked as one of the globe's top 10 schools outside the U.S. by Bloomberg Businessweek and Forbes.

"The students were already familiar with consumer social networking sites, but this project exposed them to how people communicate and collaborate in a real-world business setting," says Jean Adams, Professor, Schulich School of Business, York University. "Exposure to IBM social networking and cloud computing better prepares my students for employment in leading edge, technologically advanced work places when they graduate in four years time," says Adams.

Online meetings were used frequently since many of the students lived off campus and far apart. IBM SmartCloud for Social Business helped the students to quickly get to know each other so that they could effectively collaborate to develop and complete their business plan projects.

Students used the social networking capabilities in IBM SmartCloud to share, track and vote on new business ideas. In addition, students worked in teams to create online communities, share files, set up activities, create action items, monitor project timelines, assign tasks and deadlines, and participate in meetings arranged by each team's designated technical expert. Using the IBM tool, instead of a consumer social networking service such as Facebook, allowed the students to collaborate in a confidential and more structured, business-like manner.

For a related image of Schulich School of Business students collaborating in the cloud, visit: http://bit.ly/zl72XQ

The use of cloud services is on the rise. According to Forrester Research Inc., cloud computing will grow from a $41 billion business in 2010 to $241 billion in 2020.* It can help businesses of all sizes to reduce IT costs, increase productivity and save money.

The school chose the IBM SmartCloud for Social Business portfolio for its robust features, security, ease of use, rapid deployment and scalability. The university plans to expand its use of cloud collaboration tools in the future both in and outside of the classroom.

IBM has helped thousands of clients adopt cloud models and manages millions of cloud based transactions every day. For more information about cloud offerings from IBM visit http://www.ibm.com/smartcloud.

To join the Twitter discussion use hashtags #IBMSocialBiz or #IBMCloud.

Contact: Michelle McIntyre, IBM Global Media Relations, 408-483-6681, mc@us.ibm.com, Leslie Plant, IBM Canada Media Relations, o: 416-478-9840, m: 416-526-5647, laplant@ca.ibm.com

* Source: Forrester Research Inc., "Sizing The Cloud, Understanding And Quantifying The Future Of Cloud Computing, by Stefan Ried, Ph.D., Holger Kisker, Ph.D., April 21, 2011

SOURCE IBM