Thaindian News

Bangalore, March 31 (IANS) Information technology and consulting multinational IBM Wednesday unveiled a global entrepreneur initiative to provide start-up companies industry-specific cloud-computing technologies.
“The initiative will provide start-ups free access to cloud-computing technology to capture emerging business opportunities in fast-growing industries such as energy and utilities, health care, telecom and government,” IBM Venture Capital group managing director Claudin Fan Munce told reporters here.

Next-generation entrepreneurs will also have access to IBM’s research community, sales, marketing and technical skills under the new programme.

Explaining why the company was opening its resources to start-ups, Munce said businesses the world over were applying new technologies to address industry-specific needs and start-ups were looking for new ways to capitalise on the new trend.

“We invest over $6 billion per year in research, with about 3,000 people in eight labs across the world. With 4,914 new patents in 2009, we bring innovative technologies to market,” Munce said.

With its smarter planet strategy and years of investments in research, IBM is skilled in building product and services offerings for businesses based on new ideas. Its industry frameworks are software platforms targeted to industry specific market opportunities such as smarter water, smarter buildings and smarter health care.

Norwest Venture Partners managing partner Pramod Haque said venture capital investments in the technology industry would be targeted at entrepreneurs in India, China, Israel, Britain, Germany, France and the US this year.

“To make these investments count, start-ups must have the right skills to bring new technologies to market quickly. Venture capitalists, businesses, government and academia must collaborate to ensure entrepreneurs are prepared to succeed,” Indian-born Haque said.

IBM will collaborate with 19 global industry and technology associations to identify and connect local start-ups to the programme through its smart-camps and forums at its innovation centres.

The criteria for start-ups to participate in the initiative are the company must be privately-held; in business less than three years and developing software aligned to IBM’s smarter planet focus areas.