IBM, ProtonMedia team up

IBM  and ProtonMedia have entered into a teaming agreement that will result in the delivery of innovative, 3-D virtual collaboration and communication solutions engineered specifically for global life sciences organizations. Under the terms of the agreement, ProtonMedia’s ProtoSphere technology will be the basis for customized, 3-D virtual collaboration environments to create high-performance workplaces. IBM’s Global Business Services division will provide consultancy, integration, deployment, and installation services to life science customers around the world, leveraging the ProtoSphere platform. The companies are also in discussions for cross-marketing initiatives for their solutions.

“We’re excited to collaborate with ProtonMedia,” says Cindy Skirvin, Partner of Strategy and Transformation Workforce and Talent Solutions for IBM Global Business Services, and new member of the ProtonMedia Executive Advisory Board. “By combining our strengths and breadth of technology services with ProtonMedia’s virtual collaboration platform, we’re enabling organizations to address some of the most pressing issues facing them today, including speeding decision-making across the entire product lifecycle, meeting human capital management needs, and improving workplace performance overall.”

Skirvin recently joined ProtonMedia’s Executive Advisory Board with Cisco’s Greg Pelton and Microsoft’s Sam Batterman. Skirvin and ProtonMedia CEO Ron Burns will be presenting at the Society of Pharmaceutical and Biotech Trainers (SPBT) Conference in Orlando, Fla., on June 9. Their workshop is entitled “Utilizing 3-D Virtual Worlds and Informal Learning in Employee Training and Collaboration.” They will cover how ProtoSphere is being used to help life sciences companies overcome the pressures to operate globally with effective remote teams, improve recruiting and onboarding, increase productivity and efficiency and reduce overall costs. They will explore lessons learned from these experiences as well as ways other life sciences companies can use ProtoSphere for both their learning and collaboration needs.

“IBM continues to break new ground and lead life sciences with forward-thinking and innovative technology services,” says Burns. “IBM recognizes that ProtoSphere has a significant installed base in life sciences, and that there are great opportunities for both companies to help life sciences organizations around the world lower costs, improve team productivity, and speed knowledge transfer using ProtoSphere. By pairing IBM’s vast resources and domain expertise with ProtonMedia’s leadership in business-focused virtual collaboration technology, it’s clear the market can expect to see some eye-opening new developments in the near future.”

ABOUT PROTONMEDIA

ProtonMedia is the developer of ProtoSphere, the market-leading virtual collaboration environment for the high-performance workplace, and the #1 virtual environment for collaborative PLM in life sciences. ProtoSphere’s virtual environment provides an arsenal of business-focused collaboration and communication tools that help companies accelerate decision-making and raise productivity, improving workplace performance overall. The company is a Gartner “Cool Vendor in the High-Performance Workplace” for 2010. Its customers include some of the world’s most respected brands, including AstraZeneca, Johnson & Johnson, Merck Inc., BP, Chevron, Duke University, Deloitte, TIAA-CREF, Lockheed Martin, and Boeing. A trial version of ProtoSphere can be downloaded at http://protonmedia.com/trial-download/. For more information, visit www.ProtonMedia.com.

ABOUT IBM

IBM is a values-based enterprise of individuals who create and apply technology to make the world work better. Today, about 400,000 IBMers around the world invent and integrate hardware, software and services to help forward-thinking enterprises, institutions and people everywhere succeed on a smarter planet.

IBM operates in more than 170 countries and enjoys an increasingly broad-based distribution of revenue, grouping markets by common growth characteristics, not location.

IBM has six major businesses:

Global Technology Services – Provides outsourced IT infrastructure services and business process services

Global Business Services – Provides professional services and application outsourcing services

Systems and Technology – Provides advanced computing, storage and semiconductor technology and products

Software – Provides middleware that enables clients to integrate systems, processes and applications, as well as computer operating systems

Global Financing – Provides financing solutions that can be customized to address specific IT needs, from competitive rates to flexible payment plans and loans

S&D and Research – Our Sales and Research, Development and Intellectual Property organizations provide a wide spectrum of client support and additional value

IBM maintains the world’s largest private-sector research arm. In 2008, for the 16th consecutive year, IBM was issued more U.S. patents (4,186) than any other company. In the last six years IBM has aggressively complemented an investment of $35 billion in research and development with more than 100 acquisitions of hardware, services and software companies.