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IBM to Acquire Instana as Company Continues to Advance its Hybrid Cloud and AI Strategy

– Acquisition to help businesses use AI to better manage complexity of modern applications that span hybrid cloud landscape; Builds on IBM’s industry-leading AI-powered automation capabilities

ARMONK, N.Y., Nov. 18, 2020 — IBM today announced a definitive agreement to acquire Instana, an application performance monitoring and observability company. The acquisition will help businesses better manage the complexity of modern applications that span the hybrid cloud landscape. Today’s news further advances IBM’s Hybrid Cloud and AI strategy and strengthens its AI-powered automation capabilities. Financial details were not disclosed.

With the acquisition of Instana, IBM will help companies overcome the challenge of managing application performance across multiple teams, and across 2 to 15 clouds, on average.i And it is another example of how IBM is building on its AI-powered automation capabilities, including:

–  the launch of IBM Watson AIOps earlier this year, IBM’s AI offering for automating how enterprises self-detect, diagnose and respond to IT anomalies in real time;
–  its acquisition of WDG Automation to provide clients with broader access to intelligent automation through software robots;
–  its expanded partnership with ServiceNow to develop a joint solution to help companies reduce operational risk and lower costs by applying AI to automate IT operations;
–  and continued updates to IBM Cloud Pak for Automation designed to help companies drive innovation across their expanding IT environments and accelerate digital transformation.

“Our clients today are faced with managing a complex technology landscape filled with mission-critical applications and data that are running across a variety of hybrid cloud environments – from public clouds, private clouds and on-premises,” said Rob Thomas, Senior Vice President, Cloud and Data Platform, IBM. “IBM’s acquisition of Instana is yet another important step that we are taking to provide companies with the most complete portfolio of AI-automated solutions to tackle this enormous challenge and help prevent unforeseen IT incidents that can cost a business in lost revenue and reputation.”

Headquartered in Chicago, with a development center in Germany, Instana provides businesses with capabilities to manage the performance of complex and modern cloud-native applications no matter where they reside – on mobile devices, public and private clouds and on-premises, including IBM Z.  Instana’s enterprise observability platform automatically builds a deep contextual understanding of cloud applications and provides actionable insights to indicate how to best prevent and remedy IT issues that could damage the business or reduce customer satisfaction — such as slow response times, services that aren’t working or infrastructure that is down.

Once Instana’s capabilities are integrated into IBM, companies will be able to feed these insights into Watson AIOps. The information could then be compared to a baseline of a normal operating application, with AI triggering alerts to resolve issues quickly before negative impacts to that transaction or activity. This can help eliminate the need for IT staff to manually monitor and manage applications, freeing these employees to focus on innovation and higher value work.

“With the added responsibility of ensuring the build and run quality of the software they develop, DevOps teams need a new generation of application performance monitoring and observability capabilities to succeed,” said Mirko Novakovic, co-founder and CEO, Instana. “Instana’s observability capabilities combined with IBM’s AI-powered automation capabilities across hybrid cloud environments will give clients a full view of their application performance to best optimize operations.”

KAYA&KATO and IBM Pioneer Blockchain Network to Track Sustainable Clothing

New Network Designed to Create Transparency About Each Product from the Source of the Fiber to the Completion of the Garment

ARMONK N.Y., November 16, 2020 – IBM and KAYA&KATO, a textile company that manufactures uniforms and work wear, today announced the development of a blockchain network for the fashion industry, with the support of the German Federal Ministry for Economic Development (BMZ). The network is designed to create transparency about the origin of garments, from the fiber used to the completion of the final product, and to provide consumers with the knowledge that their clothes are sustainably produced.

This new application of blockchain technology to document and trace the supply chain for textiles will allow suppliers of organic cotton and customers of KAYA&KATO alike to identify the origin and where the fabrics were processed as well as gain an understanding into each production and distribution step. The aim is to create transparency and to help develop secured protocol for the traceability of ecological materials. All the permissioned parties involved will be able to access the transaction data recorded in blocks in an unchangeable record on the chain.

There is increasing demand from consumers to understand the environmental impact of the products they buy. According to a global study conducted this year by the IBM Institute for Business Value in association with the National Retail Federation, 77% of consumers surveyed say that sustainability is important to them, and 57% surveyed said they are willing to change their purchasing habits to help reduce negative impact to the environment.

Within the garment industry, these attitudes are more prevalent among and more important to younger demographics. A recent survey of European consumers by Morning Consult commissioned by IBM found that 75% of respondents said they are concerned about the level of waste in the fashion industry. Furthermore, 64% of respondents said they would be more likely to buy the garment if new technologies could prove sustainability claims.1

Many within the fashion industry are working to help address changing consumer attitudes while creating ways to be more transparent about the environmental impact of the materials they use. Blockchain is well-suited to help garment manufacturers and their suppliers work together to create a permanent, immutable record of the origin of all materials used in production to build trust.

“Blockchain technology is a catalyst for collaboration and transparency across industries and within supply chains,” said Christian Schultze-Wolters, Director of Blockchain, IBM. “Blockchain technology today is being used to help increase visibility and agility in supply chains in industries including automotive manufacturing, mining, electronics production and even the cultivation and distribution of many types of food. By creating shared visibility, the technology helps foster trust among companies and their suppliers, businesses and especially their consumers. We want to set an example within the industry and offer other companies the opportunity to join us in advancing development and helping to create solutions for supply chain.”

“The advancement of sustainability and digitization is crucial to our forward-looking approach. This project combines both aspects in an excellent way by promoting supply chain transparency. For KAYA&KATO, there are multiple compelling reasons to initiate the development of a blockchain network and we look forward to implementation and eagerly await the first solutions in cooperation with IBM,” says Dr. Stefan Rennicke, co-founder and managing director of KAYA&KATO GmbH.

The German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) has long been calling for more transparency in global supply chains and is also supporting the cooperation between KAYA&KATO and IBM.

KAYA&KATO is one of the first 27 companies to be certified with the “Green Button” by the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ). The Green Button is the seal introduced by the BMZ for textiles produced in a socially and ecologically sustainable manner. The Green Button is the first state seal to combine requirements for textiles and for the entire company

IBM and the Masters Tournament Bring New Watson-Powered Personalized Experience to Golf Fans Worldwide on Masters Digital Properties; Partner to Foster Economic Opportunity and Social Equality in Augusta Community with focus on Education and Digital Skills

– IBM launches new My Group Feature powered by IBM Watson AI and hybrid cloud technologies, enabling fans to watch every shot from their favorite players throughout the Tournament
– IBM announced a foundational partnership of the Harrisburg and Laney Walker Redevelopment Project to revitalize Augusta, Ga, through funding and education

ARMONK, N.Y., Nov. 11, 2020 — IBM and the Masters Tournament, of which IBM is an exclusive digital partner, are unveiling My Group, an innovative digital feature enabling new levels of fan engagement and revolutionizing the digital viewing experience for the 2020 Masters Tournament. The new feature will allow patrons, anywhere in the world, to create personalized groups of players, and watch every shot, on every hole, from all of their favorite golfers from the 2020 Masters Tournament. My Group, which runs on IBM Cloud with Red Hat OpenShift, will be available globally in the Masters Tournament app and on Masters.com.

Additionally, IBM is proud to partner with Augusta National Golf Club on a redevelopment project in the Harrisburg and Laney Walker neighborhoods in Augusta, Ga, alongside AT&T and Bank of America. The $2.5 million cash grant contribution from IBM and each of the partners, resulting in a combined $10 million contribution, will provide the majority of funding for this phase of the transformational project, which includes the construction of an innovative community center, and a new headquarters for the Boys and Girls Clubs of the CSRA. IBM will also offer resources and expertise on alternative forms of education that quickly deliver in-demand digital skills, with the goal of improving income and economic opportunity in the community for generations to come.

My Group with Watson on the IBM Cloud

This marks the first time ever in professional golf that patrons will be able to create customized “feature groups” of golfers in the app, and access video of every shot by those players throughout the Tournament. With more than 90 golfers from dozens of countries around the world competing in the 2020 Masters, My Group offers a personalized video feed, giving patrons access to every player’s rounds in near real time. My Group also features highlights and regular updates from the Tournament leaders, and must-see shots from other golfers, as they happen. As part of My Group’s customized viewing experiences, IBM is leveraging Watson’s artificial intelligence (AI) to curate highlights of exciting play. My Group is one of the first applications of Watson to bring customized viewing experiences to millions of people, globally.

The technology being used for the Tournament this year builds on IBM’s Watson-powered solutions developed for previous Masters, which have analyzed data including traditional golf statistics, ball tracking data, crowd noise and more. During the 2019 Tournament, nearly 20,000 individual video clips of players’ shots were captured and analyzed by Watson. This year, new AI models were developed using data from last year’s Tournament. The data includes the excitement ranking of shots and other data points like player ID, round, hole, score, and tracking stats such as shot length. In total, 16 distinct models were trained to provide personalized and important content of popular players and top performers  for My Group users.

For patrons familiar with the Tournament, the “Masters roar” is an iconic indicator of an important shot. Without patrons onsite this year, broadcasters and digital content teams would face a new challenge: quickly and accurately identifying the most important shots. Using IBM Watson Studio and its AutoAI and machine learning capabilities, data from those past shots will serve as a baseline for Watson to generate a hypothetical patron excitement score to identify this year’s “must-see shots.” These excitement rankings models will be used to automatically determine which live shots, of similar situations in past videos, a viewer is presented to watch as highlights in their My Group channel. This information will go on to power the new My Group feature as well as editorial content, including “Round in 3 Minutes” video summaries, and more on the Masters app and Masters.com.

For the first time, IBM will power the 2020 Masters using a hybrid cloud approach enabled by Red Hat OpenShift, the industry’s leading enterprise Kubernetes platform, with on-premises data and workloads running on multiple public and private clouds operating seamlessly. In previous years, many workloads were already operating in the cloud, but some, including publishing, scoring and staging for the Tournament remained on-premises for latency reasons. In reaction to the pandemic, which necessitated more data and workloads being housed in the cloud to boost efficiency, IBM worked closely with the Masters Tournament to pivot those workloads to IBM public cloud, and used a hybrid cloud architecture to bring them together. The flexibility and hyper-scalability of Red Hat OpenShift, built on Red Hat Enterprise Linux, enables both the larger Tournament technology and features like My Group to exist on a consistent foundation across IT environments.

“The digital experience of sports has never been more important than it is right now,” said Rob Thomas, Senior Vice President, IBM Cloud and Data Platforms. “We’re proud to put the power of IBM’s hybrid cloud and AI technologies on display through the My Group feature on the Masters app and website. And we are honored to enable millions of Masters patrons around the world to enjoy the storied tradition of this magical Tournament.”

The Harrisburg and Laney Walker Redevelopment Project: Education, economic opportunity and social equality

Augusta, Ga, a city of 200,000, has been home to Augusta National Golf Club and the Masters Tournament since 1934. A few miles from the Club are the noteworthy, but historically underserved, neighborhoods of Harrisburg and Laney Walker. This redevelopment project intends to provide new and enduring opportunity to these communities. In addition, IBM is working to replicate the innovative Pathways in Technology Early College High (P-TECH) School model in the State of Georgia, with the first wave of adoption next year. P-TECH is a groundbreaking public education model to create education and workforce development opportunities in primarily underserved communities, and is now in 27 countries and regions around the world. IBM also intends to introduce STEM and professional success skills training at local high schools in the area, beginning as early as 2021.

“We believe that education is the cornerstone of both economic opportunity and social equality,” said Obed Louissaint, Senior Vice President of Transformation and Culture at IBM. “P-TECH was designed to address both business and societal imperatives by delivering critical career skills to our most underserved populations. In our work with the Harrisburg and Laney Walker Redevelopment Project, we hope to make a lasting socio-economic impact, and help ensure that the digital era is a more inclusive era.”

IBM has been the digital partner of the Masters for more than 20 years, and together they work closely to bring unparalleled experiences to golf patrons worldwide. This year’s new offerings represent their latest collaboration to create an innovative experience that delivers meaningful, data-driven insights, while still highlighting and sharing the history and tradition of the Tournament. The IBM iX team, one of the world’s largest digital design agencies, used the IBM Garage Methodology to apply design thinking and agile development to create a personalized digital experience for the Tournament’s 13 million viewers, across 200 countries. The application of this methodology to the Masters is similar to the work IBM does to support and innovate with clients around the world.

IBM has been a long-time partner to a range of sports organizations, teams, and events, including tennis (US Open and Wimbledon), golf (Masters Tournament), football (via ESPN Fantasy Football), and the GRAMMY Awards. Through IBM’s partnerships, including a recently announced esports partnership with the Overwatch League, IBM is able to reimagine sports, and entertainment experiences for fans, players and coaches alike, leveraging the flexibility of the hybrid cloud, and other AI-powered solutions.

The Masters will be played from November 12-15 at Augusta National Golf Club in Augusta, Ga. To see the technology in action, visit Masters.com, or the Masters app on your mobile device, available on the App Store and Google Play Store.