IBM Opens Bluemix Garage in Europe to Fuel Cloud Development

SOURCE: IBM

ARMONK, N.Y. and NICE, FR – 22 March 2016: IBM (NYSE: IBM) today announced the opening of a Bluemix Garage in Nice, France to help European organizations of all sizes and industries accelerate the development and design of next-generation apps on IBM Cloud.

Now spanning four locations across the globe, Bluemix Garages are physical hubs where multi-disciplinary teams, including developers, product managers and designers, can collaborate with IBM experts to rapidly innovate and deliver new technologies using IBM Cloud. Based in San Francisco, Toronto, London, and now Nice, these Garages give developers access to the tools and expertise they need to build progressive, intelligent apps.

The Nice Garage will serve as a counterpart to IBM’s Bluemix Garage in London, the company’s northern anchor to the continent’s innovation scene. Both Garages will help support the world’s rapidly growing developer population, expected to reach more than 20 million by 2020. Europe alone already has a base of 1.6 million developers, priming the region to play a critical part in the next wave of global cloud and cognitive innovation.

Launched in 2014, the London Bluemix Garage has grown into an innovation hub, working with developers to design and build in new ways with IBM Cloud, which is currently drawing more than 20,000 developers per week. For example, the Garage team is working with Simon Wheatcroft, a blind ultra-marathon runner, to use IBM Cloud APIs and services, such as Cloudant, IBM’s database-as-a-service, to use data to direct, monitor and pace him through a solo, 60-mile run through a desert in Namibia.

Co-located within the European Business Innovation Center (BIC) of Nice Metropole, the region’s largest startup incubator, the Nice Bluemix Garage will help developers through:

• Business Development: Combining enterprise acumen, agile methods, and a unique process to design, build and deploy, Garage consultants help clients to refine, iterate on and deliver a business idea into an app.

• Protecting Existing Investments: Tapping IBM Cloud’s hybrid and open models, Garage consultants help companies to seamlessly move existing data workloads to the cloud, lowering cost and adding enhancements, as well as connecting existing systems into new cloud apps.

• Speeding App Development: Through the Garage’s expertise in agility, extreme programming, DevOps and more, Garage consultants help businesses to significantly reduce the time it takes to design and build new services, applications or products.

• Skills Development: Equipping development teams with the skills and expertise needed on Bluemix, IBM’s Cloud Platform, Garage teams help businesses to rapidly scale cloud capabilities and implement agile development.

Bluemix, IBM’s Cloud platform, which draws more than 20,000 new developers per week who are creating more than 120,000 apps every month, has grown rapidly to become the largest public Cloud Foundry deployment in the world. Based in open standards, it features over 140 tools and services spanning categories of big data, mobile, Watson, analytics, integration, DevOps, security and the Internet of Things.

Powered by IBM Cloud’s continuously growing catalog of advanced APIs, Garage teams work with companies to identify and build new ways to use the latest technologies, such as a robust roster of Watson APIs, Twitter social sentiment analysis, IoT tools, and new forms of data such as video, weather intelligence and more.

Local Nice startup ADVANSOLAR, a sustainable mobility company, tapped IBM Cloud and Design practices in the Garage to create and deploy its new electric bicycle rental services in just weeks – cutting the time needed to get to market by more than 50 percent. Using the Garage’s design methods as a starting point, ADVANSOLAR worked with Garage experts to use IBM Cloud tools, including IoT, NodeRed and Node.JS services, to easily integrate external services and data to build a high-quality customer experience.

“Working with IBM Cloud and design experts enabled us to quickly identify the most important features of our new service, and then build and deliver them rapidly,” said Raphael Briere, CEO of ADVANSOLAR. “Combining the power, openness and agility of IBM Cloud with the Garage’s expertise enabled us to create a valuable product rapidly, and deliver our rental services at the right price for all our customers.”

The Garage’s co-location with the BIC also houses it within the European Business Network – Europe’s largest startup incubator network comprised of over 10,000 startups.

“We are thrilled to welcome IBM’s latest Bluemix Garage – and its top experts in cloud, design and cognitive technologies – into our incubator of Europe’s most promising startups,” said Marie-Christine Vidal, director of BIC of Nice. “We believe the ability to easily build with cloud will be critical to helping European companies innovate on a global scale.”

“Our latest Bluemix Garage in Nice is a critical addition to our network of Garages across Europe and globally, and will help our clients to more quickly build with IBM Cloud,” said Steve Robnison, General Manager, Client Technical Engagement of IBM Cloud. “IBM Cloud offers companies the most rapid on-ramp, and most robust toolset, for their developers to create the apps they need to succeed and compete.”

To learn more about IBM Cloud, visit: https://www.ibm.com/cloud-computing/

To learn more about IBM Bluemix Garages, visit: https://www.ibm.com/cloud-computing/bluemix/garage/
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1. Stack Overflow: http://stackoverflow.com/research/developer-survey-2015#profile-geo
2. Dow Jones Venture Capital Report
3. Fundacity European Accelerator Report 2014 http://www.fundacity.com/european-accelerator-report-2014

Thoughts on Cloud Blog – IBM Opens Cloud Foundry Dojo in Research Park, North Carolina

By: Angel Diaz

There’s a new way to work in open source, and IBM is thrilled to be a part of it.

Today we celebrate the grand opening of the IBM Cloud Foundry Dojo at The Frontier in Research Triangle Park, North Carolina. Under the leadership of Michael Fraenkel, IBM’s distinguished engineer in Cloud Foundry, we’ve created a space where local IBM Cloud developers who are experts in Cloud Foundry are training fellow software developers—regardless of company or affiliation—to become dedicated “committers” for the Cloud Foundry project.

Why is this a big deal?

When developers help developers, it translates to accelerated innovation. This new learning space serves as a training ground for aspiring Cloud Foundry developers, while simultaneously driving new innovation and continuous improvement to Cloud Foundry open source projects. The entire open source developer ecosystem—adopters and contributors alike—can benefit from a growing base of skilled Cloud Foundry developers and the increased pace of innovation thanks to shared code.

Additionally, because Cloud Foundry is at the core of IBM’s cloud platform, Bluemix has rapidly grown to become the largest public Cloud Foundry deployment in the world. It features more than 140 tools and services spanning areas like big data, mobile, Watson, analytics, integration, DevOps, security and the Internet of Things and draws more than 20,000 new developers per week who are creating more than 120,000 apps every month. The dojo increases the pace of innovation on the Bluemix platform, which benefits the growing community of developers on IBM Cloud.

The dojo also provides a unique environment that dramatically reduces the time it takes for coders to reach Cloud Foundry “committer” status. Students pair up for intense, hands-on training for only 6-12 weeks and graduates can take the skills they learned in the dojo and immediately put them to use within Cloud Foundry projects and their organizations.

It’s not only a coup for IBM and Cloud Foundry. The RTP area will benefit from the project, too. Julie Terry, Special Projects Manager for The Research Triangle Park, explains why it’s such an important step forward for the area:

“We’re really excited to have the IBM Cloud Foundry Dojo at The Frontier here in Research Triangle Park. When The Frontier opened a year ago, our team had hopes that it would become a convening point for all kinds of people with varied interests. Through our partnership with IBM, coders and cloud evangelists will have the opportunity to mingle with artists and nonprofit leaders. The best kind of change occurs when different minds start working together, and that’s exactly what we hope happens as the dojo continues to become an established part of The Frontier community.”

I’ve been working with Cloud Foundry Foundation CEO Sam Ramji since the organization’s inception. In that time, I’ve watched Cloud Foundry become an indispensable platform for the developer, by the developer. It allows developers to use any language they want and deploy across many clouds. Sam Ramji explains why dojos are such an effective way to build a critical mass of software coders developing innovative applications on Cloud Foundry:

“The dojo method provides a truly immersive approach to learning the process and methodology required to become a Cloud Foundry Committer. By ensuring developers are educated on continuous innovation and paired programming, the dojo helps ensure a culture and skills match for full-time committers to the project.”

If you’d like to learn more about Cloud Foundry and contributing to the community, you can find more information here.