IBM delivers new social networking and collaboration services

New Delhi: Addressing the rapid pace of information technology transformation across all industries, IBM announced new social technology enhancements to developerWorks, to help software developers more easily work together on open standards-based innovations.

While developers have access to a wide variety of IT resources scattered across the Web, many are struggling to maximize their productivity and are faced with filtering through multiple networking sites just to get to the technical information they need. As a result, there has been no easy way for developers to quickly access and integrate this information to more quickly build their skills around key IT and industry trends while connecting and collaborating with peers.

IBM is responding to these requirements, with MydeveloperWorks, combining the best in social computing technologies and professional networking into developerWorks.

“There has never been a better time to harness social technology and drive some of the world's most important transformations-from energy to healthcare,” said Himanshu Goyal, Country Manager-Academic Initiative, Developer Works & Globalization, IBM India. “IBM is the only vendor that can bring collaboration technology and content together to help developers maximize their productivity and tackle new IT challenges by quickly establishing a worldwide network of peers. Developers can use this capability to get recognized by the global IT community and more easily find technical resources they need to succeed in their field.”

Now developers can more easily gain real-time access to key technology updates, connect with other experts around the globe and build critical skills requirements more quickly to speed development and bring new innovations to market faster-from deploying complex cloud computing applications to architecting a smarter energy grid to building Java applications.

IBM recently surveyed hundreds of software development professionals across the globe including India, to find out how they use online resources to build new skills and engage each other professionally. Nearly three-quarters said they use forums, blogs, wikis, and online newsletters to gain skills and communicate with each other. Nearly 65 percent said they want to start using social networking capabilities like those found on Facebook, Twitter and MySpace as a primary way to build new skills and collaborate with peers on one easy-to-use destination.