IBM and Ford Team Up on a New Cloud-Based Analytics Platform

Today’s topics include IBM and Ford teaming up on a new cloud-based analytics platform, Qualcomm is at odds with seven tech vendors, SGI will build the next-generation supercomputer for climate research, and Citrix is selling its cloud management products to Accelerite.

Ford and IBM have teamed up to deliver a new cloud-based analytics platform that finds more efficient ways to move in traffic. The pilot platform will enable research scientists to analyze small bits of data—10 or 15 seconds at a time—to spot patterns, correlations and trends, and to write code to make more efficient transportation decisions. The pilot platform is designed to help consumers make more efficient transportation decisions, such as finding an open spot in a jam-packed parking lot.

Qualcomm for more than a year has been the target of investigations in several countries over its licensing practices. Now, the chip maker is reportedly pushing back at some of the tech vendors that officials believe helped spark a probe in South Korea. The company is asking a federal court to force seven vendors to produce any documentation they may have provided to South Korean antitrust regulators in connection with the investigation. Vendors include Samsung Electronics and manufacturers that make Apple products.

Supercomputer maker SGI will build the next-generation system for the work being done by the National Center for Atmospheric Research regarding climate change and a range of other atmospheric issues. Officials announced Jan. 11 that the supercomputer will be based on the vendor’s new ICE XA system and will be 2.5 times more powerful and three times more energy-efficient than the facility’s current system. The new supercomputer at the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) will be called “Cheyenne.”

Citrix Systems officials continue to remake the company, most recently by selling two cloud management products. The company is selling its CloudPlatform and CloudPortal Business Manager product lines, both based on the open-source CloudStack technology the company inherited when it bought Cloud.com in 2011. Citrix is selling the business lines to Accelerite, a division of Persistent Systems that makes infrastructure software for the cloud.