LAS VEGAS, April 28, 2014 /PRNewswire/ -- IBM (NYSE: IBM) today announced the launch of the first BlueMix Garage - a physical location where developers, product managers and designers can collaborate with IBM experts to rapidly innovate and deliver new cloud apps deployed onto BlueMix, IBM's open platform-as-a-service (PaaS).

Located in San Francisco, the first IBM BlueMix Garage has begun initial projects and will become fully operational this June, transforming app development with modern cloud technologies and highly disciplined agile processes. Centered in dense startup communities, BlueMix Garages will help redefine how developers use the cloud to turn new ideas into initial products, evolve them based on market feedback, and deliver scale and integration with client systems as needed through the IBM BlueMix platform.

Designed as a collaborative space for developers from companies of all sizes, the first BlueMix Garage will locate an IBM community and development lab in the heart of a thriving, entrepreneurial community: Galvanize. Located in San Francisco's South of Market neighborhood - home to more startups per square foot than anywhere in the world - Galvanize attracts a strong network of entrepreneurs, developers, students, mentors, angel investors and venture capitalists in a physical space to learn, collaborate and create the next generation of high-tech and digital businesses. By the end of 2014, Galvanize will be home to approximately 200 San Francisco startups, which will sit next to the BlueMix Garage and spur co-innovation through events, technical talks and mentorship by IBM Fellows and senior business leaders.

"Galvanize is a co-learning campus, providing digital startups with the industry-critical tools, mentoring and connections they need to learn, grow and launch," said Jim Deters, co-founder and CEO of Galvanize. "The inclusion of IBM's first BlueMix Garage within the Galvanize community will equip our strong network of developers with the ability to competitively innovate apps with speed, using the power of cloud and open standards."

Working side-by-side with IBM experts, entrepreneurs from various companies will gain a core set of skills in agile practices focused on cloud integration, systems of record, scalability and security; they will be able to quickly build, deploy and iterate new Cloud apps and services on BlueMix. On an ongoing basis, IBM will identify products created in the Garage, as well as startup offerings, which would benefit IBM's clients, making them available as software-as-a-service (SaaS) capabilities in IBM's new Cloud marketplace.

As part of the new partnership with IBM, Galvanize and IBM will be adding BlueMix content into existing gSchool courses, Galvanize's 24-week immersive developer training program. Galvanize is announcing a new gSchool course on Cloud Foundry in San Francisco commencing in Fall 2014 powered by IBM and Pivotal. This new curriculum will produce developers highly skilled in building apps on BlueMix, Pivotal Web Services, and other Cloud Foundry providers.

With the launch of BlueMix Garages, IBM's developer platform will continue to strengthen the extensive ecosystem underpinning it. Reaching more than four million developers worldwide with its developerWorks community, IBM fuels a dev2dev support community, thousands of "how to" guides, developer discussion forums and deep technical documentation. Though the Global Entrepreneur Program, IBM also works closely with more than a thousand startups, helping them build their companies with venture capital investment, incubators, mentoring camps and startup villages throughout emerging markets such as India and Africa. Additionally, IBM provides mentoring and access to skill building in over 200 countries, sponsoring more than 3,000 technical events each year from enablement to testing and validation. This mentoring extends to academia, where IBM reaches more than 3,500 universities, helping to educate students about advances in Big Data, analytics, cloud and more.

About IBM Cloud Computing
IBM has helped more than 30,000 clients around the world with 40,000 industry experts. Since its acquisition in 2013, IBM SoftLayer has served 4,500 new cloud clients. Today, IBM has 100+ cloud SaaS solutions, thousands of experts with deep industry knowledge helping clients transform and a network of 40 data centers worldwide. Since 2007, IBM has invested more than $7 billion in 17 acquisitions to accelerate its cloud initiatives and build a high value cloud portfolio. IBM holds 1,560 cloud patents focused on driving innovation. In fact, IBM for the 21st consecutive year topped the annual list of US patent leaders. IBM processes more than 5.5M client transactions daily through IBM's public cloud. For more information about cloud offerings from IBM, visit http://www.ibm.com/cloud. Follow us on Twitter at @IBMcloud and on our blog at http://www.thoughtsoncloud.com. Join the conversation #ibmcloud.

For more information about cloud offerings from IBM, visit http://www.ibm.com/cloud.

Follow us on Twitter at @IBMcloud and on our blog at http://www.thoughtsoncloud.com. Join the conversation #ibmcloud.

For more information on IBM Impact, visit www.ibm.com/press/ibmimpact2014.

Media Contact:
Erin Lehr
edlehr@us.ibm.com
ph: 832-766-7625

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SOURCE IBM

SOURCE: IBM