alphaWorks:
IBM emerging technology
Cynthya Peranandam, Business Development
IBM Confidential © 2007 IBM alphaWorks

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What is alphaWorks?
 A proving ground for emerging technologies and ideas
 Facilitates immediate feedback from early adopters and
targeted communities
 Helps to determine new markets for technology, including
commercial interest
 Has established market leadership: over 800 technologies
published, many graduations to products and open source

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alphaWorks reach:
Relevance in the marketplace
 Primary resource for early adopters
alphaWorks
 Users consist of enterprise, SMBs, individuals,
academic and other niche communities
 Facilitates immediate feedback to help determine
demand and future of technology development
 Creates communities around key IBM strategies
including open-source technology, standards and
specifications
 Top 10 Google hit for “emerging technologies”

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alphaWorks 2007 focus
 alphaWorks Services: Increase pipeline of high-quality, broad-
appeal technologies for alphaWorks Services
 Emerging technology: Focus on early-stage prototypes and less
on later-stage incremental innovations
 Community: Promote alphaWorks’ mission,
goals and value proposition, and increase
collaboration and feedback, in both internal and
external communities

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alphaWorks Services

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alphaWorks Services
 Online access to emerging software services
from IBM labs
 Targets broader communities of business,
technical and end-users
 Focus on building community: Web 2.0
tooling, feedback, collaboration
 Emphasizes low barriers to the use
and adoption of IBM services

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alphaWorks Services: Current offerings
 QEDWiki: Extends current wiki technology to enable
rapid deployment, content aggregation, structured data,
and powerful extensibility.
 IBM Development Engagement Service: Provides an
Ajax-based development environment that enables
business users to visually develop form applications.
 ManyEyes: Combines information visualization with
social software, enabling collaborative visualization by
groups of users.
 Web Relational Blocks: A visual builder for rapid
development of W eb applications.
 ThinkPlace: Facilitates innovation through idea
generation, collaboration, and refinement.

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alphaWorks Services: DevEngage
 IBM Development Engagement Service: Provides an
Ajax-based development environment that enables
business users to visually develop form applications.
 Allows the creation of simple form-based applications that solve
daily tasks
 Targets business users without technical skills
 Visual GUI familiar to business users
 Ideal for SMBs, individual users, enterprise
 Tools to provide immediate feedback to tech creators and
community
 Saves time and development work for the IT department
 Collaboration features in next phase

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alphaWorks Services: DevEngage
 alphaWorks Services homepage > Select service

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alphaWorks Services: DevEngage
 Overview > browse content > Login/Register

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alphaWorks Services: DevEngage
 DevEngage > Create new app

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alphaWorks Services: DevEngage
 DevEngage > Create new app > Select criteria > Publish

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alphaWorks Services: Many Eyes
 Many Eyes: Combines information visualization with
social software, enabling collaborative visualization
by groups of users.
 Allows visualization and analysis of new and existing data sets
 Numerous methods and techniques for visualization
 Facilitates sharing of data sets and visualizations with the
community
 Targets business users and consumers
 Ideal for SMBs, individuals, enterprise

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alphaWorks Services: Many Eyes
 Many Eyes > Browse visualizations

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alphaWorks Services: Many Eyes
 Many Eyes > Browse visualizations

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alphaWorks Services: Many Eyes
 Sample visualization

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alphaWorks Services: Many Eyes
 Sample visualization, corresponding data set

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alphaWorks Services: Many Eyes
 Create a visualization > 3 easy steps

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Emerging technology downloads

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Emerging technology for early adopters
 Focus on early implementations that:
– Explore new strategic directions for IBM or target early-entry
marketplaces
– Introduce upcoming industry standards and/or specifications
– Are appealing to early adopters
 250+ technologies currently offered (over 800 published)
Numerous successes include:
 VitalFile: Became Tivoli Continuous Data Protection
 Servlet Express: Part of WebSphere Application Server
 UIMA: Included in OmniFind, on SourceForge, and continues to
be available on alphaWorks

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www.ibm.com/alphaworks