IBM "Mobilizes" Business Content

IBM Content Navigator speeds access to big data on mobile devices.

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IBM today introduced new software that helps employees tap into a broad range of business information to work more effectively from their desktops, mobile phones, and tablets. The new offering allows traditional and mobile workers to securely access, manage, and gain insight from structured and unstructured content such as e-mail messages, documents, images, Web data, and collaboration tools to improve productivity.

Last year, shipments of smartphones exceeded those of PCs for the first time, with 73 million more units being sold. With the proliferation of tablets, smartphones and social business applications, organizations are looking for an enterprise content management (ECM) solution that can help extend their employees’ ability to access and share business content to speed workflow. In IBM's 2011 Global CIO Study of more than 3,000 CIOs, 75 percent of respondents identified mobility solutions as one of their top priorities.

IBM Content Navigator is a new software solution that gives employees access to a broad range of documents, records, images and other relevant content to do their jobs more effectively.

Built on open standards such as HTML5 and CMIS, the new software provides a consistent user experience across a variety of mobile devices, operating systems, and content sources, allowing employees across all lines of businesses to access, manage, contribute, and share content any time, from any location. Whether they need to conduct everyday business while on the road or in a client’s office, IBM is arming them with the access to the right data, anytime, anywhere. For example, a human resources manager who is traveling to meet employees can now access a range of documents such as employee records, compensation, benefits and evaluations without the need for a PC.

Similarly, an insurance claims adjuster who spends her day inspecting damaged property or vehicles can now use her iPad to take a picture, document the incident and automatically upload it in the client’s claim file. The document can be found immediately by colleagues in the main office using Content Navigator’s integrated search and analytics to accelerate claims processing.

In addition to the collaboration and mobile capabilities IBM Content Navigator delivers, the underlying platform was built for easy customization. Employees can set up document collaboration areas themselves with minimal help from IT. This self-provisioning capability allows departments such as sales, human resources, finance or legal to customize the solution for their specific business needs.

For example, a government agency could use the software to provide large numbers of employees with access to enterprise content based on an individual’s job role without devoting IT resources to setting up the interface for each user.

Analytics and Search for Big Data

To gather the facts needed to make the right businesses decisions, organizations must be able to uncover trends, patterns, and relationships from both their structured and unstructured enterprise content. With IBM Content Analytics with Enterprise Search v3.0, IBM integrates content analytics software with enterprise search capabilities into a unified platform. Content analytics and enterprise search capabilities are an integral part of IBM Content Navigator, enabling users to quickly locate content across IBM and third-party repositories, with thumbnails, facets, summaries, and term highlighting. Through its capabilities in natural language processing, semantic search, and sentiment analysis, this solution provides richer, more accurate, and relevant insights from content such as documents, reports, e-mail messages, Web content, surveys, and enterprise applications.

IBM has also integrated its content analytics software with a component of IBM’s big data platform, InfoSphere BigInsights, so clients can gain greater insights in a cost-efficient manner from the ever-increasing volumes of unstructured information flowing both within and outside the enterprise. This helps clients overcome processing limitations and indexing constraints to analyze petabytes of information to support decisions in areas such as crime intelligence, healthcare, insurance claims and customer care.

More information is available here.

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