Monthly Archives: December 2022

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The Weather Channel Teams Up with Consumer Reports and MightyNest to Offer Convenience for Digital Customers with Expanded Premium Subscription Packages

ARMONK, NY (December 21, 2022) – Subscriptions have become commonplace in the digital world, and bundling is designed to help lower both pricing to the consumer and investment from the brand. To date, however, bundling can arguably be most viable when part of a larger media portfolio. The Weather Channel, part of IBM, has developed a platform solution that not only provides account management for the end consumer, but also makes bundling viable across media portfolios, creating some often-surprising collaborations between digital publishers.

The Weather Channel digital properties has expanded its premium subscription offerings, adding new packages with independent products ratings organization Consumer Reports and sustainable home products retailer MightyNest. The bundling will allow for discounted rates, helping consumers manage their multiple digital subscriptions in one place – providing convenience while on the go and offering brand awareness to The Weather Company’s more than 415 million monthly visitors served globally[1]. The platform also aims to help ease the technological backend for brands bundling with The Weather Channel. These collaborations show a compelling business case for how publishers strive to help expand reach, grow subscription membership, and enhance customer service by offering value-added services to end consumers in the U.S.

“The Weather Channel customers are accustomed to having information at their fingertips, and MightyNest gives their consumers the efficiency and transparency they are looking for when purchasing sustainable household essentials,” says MightyNest co-founder and CES Chris Conn. “MightyNest recommends products based on a customer’s specific home and lifestyle needs, and our rating system makes it easy for them to find products that suit their preferences.”

Building on co-bundled premium subscription packages already announced with Tripadvisor® and USA TODAY, The Weather Channel efforts are designed to save consumers time and money. Pairing two premium subscriptions can help consumers manage multiple subscriptions while integrating weather from the world’s most accurate weather forecaster.[2]

“Consumers are demanding convenience and ease of use when it comes to managing their subscriptions,” said Sheri Bachstein, CEO of The Weather Company, an IBM Business. “Weather impacts everyone, everywhere, every day. Offering bundled subscriptions is another way we can provide added value that helps people make more informed decisions in daily planning.”

According to an IBM Watson Advertising study, 82% of respondents check the weather daily.[3] It’s become a daily habit to check weather information, and a bundle helps a consumer access the latest weather along with news, ratings or shopping information in one convenient location to help save them time and effort.

The Weather Channel Premium Pro subscribers gain access to deeper weather insights, such as 72-hour future radar and eight days of hourly forecasts, all in an ad-free environment. Consumers now have the option to pair The Weather Channel Premium Pro digital subscription[4] with another subscription, all while managing both subscriptions in one place.

Consumers can subscribe to the information they want in one place on The Weather Channel website. Bundling options include top names such as:

Consumer Reports Digital Annual Membership – On-the-go access to trusted ratings on thousands of products and services, expert shopping advice, and members-only savings to help shoppers buy confidently with unbiased testing and research.
MightyNest Shop Sustainably Membership – Receive personalized product recommendations for sustainable living. Members receive free monthly shipping, exclusive member benefits and up to 35 percent off top sustainable brands such as Mrs. Meyers, Seventh Generation, Stasher and more. Know what you’re buying with sustainability scores from MightyNest showing every product’s ingredients, materials and waste impact.
Tripadvisor Plus – Receive members-only prices and perks on travel experiences, hotels and more from the world’s largest travel guidance platform, to enhance the trip planning experience.
USA TODAY’s Digital All-Access plan – Access subscriber-only content and newsletters, exclusive conversations with the newsroom, and the eNewspaper, a digital replica of the print edition, from the largest local-to-national digital media organization representing the voice of an entire nation.

IBM Helps Financial Services Industry Manage Risk and Regulations with CSA

ARMONK, N.Y., Dec. 15, 2022 — Today, IBM announced it is working with the Cloud Security Alliance — a global not-for-profit dedicated to defining standards, certifications, and best practices to help ensure secured cloud computing — that aims to further advance security and risk management of cloud within financial services.

Building on IBM’s mission to reduce risk for the industry with resiliency, security, compliance and perfromance at the forefront, the IBM Cloud Framework for Financial Services is designed to help clients automate their security and compliance posture. The framework is central to IBM Cloud for Financial Services, a first-of-its-kind cloud with built-in security and compliance controls to help clients as they work to mitigate risk, tackle ongoing regulations and accelerate cloud adoption. It has been mapped to the Cloud Security Alliance’s Cloud Controls Matrix (CCM) – a cybersecurity control framework for cloud computing, which can help clients to drive innovation faster while addressing third and fourth party risk in cloud. With the alignment, organizations that have adopted CSA’s controls can now use services or transact with SaaS providers on IBM Cloud for Financial Services with confidence.

“As global regulations continue to evolve, it’s critical for all organizations to adhere to changing requirements while operating in a secured cloud environment – but this is even more critical for highly regulated industries such as financial services,” said Jim Reavis, CEO of Cloud Security Alliance. “With its long history and deep expertise working with some of the world’s most well-known financial services organizations on their modernization journeys, IBM understands the importance of establishing a highly secured hybrid, multicloud architecture that can allow organizations to host workloads wherever they need to be. Together, we aim to help financial services organizations drive growth and reduce systemic risk with a more secured cloud landscape and by empowering them to address evolving regulations globally – from DORA to data sovereignty.

Collective intelligence aims to reduce financial services risk  
Designed specifically for financial regulated industries, IBM Cloud for Financial Services was introduced in 2019 in collaboration with partner banks including Bank of America and BNP Paribas. It aims to help financial services organizations address the industry’s unique cybersecurity, regulatory and operational requirements, while providing the benefits and flexibility of the cloud in a secured environment.

Leveraging the collective intelligence of the IBM Financial Services Cloud Council – a network of more than 120 financial services CIOs, CTOs, and Risk and Compliance officers such as Banco Bradesco, Nationwide, Banco Sabadell, Virgin Money and MUFG – the platform includes industry-informed and built-in controls that can help financial institutions meet their security and compliance requirements of this highly regulated industry. These industry-informed controls are not IBM’s – they are the industry’s collective controls. While IBM Cloud has implemented these controls as part of IBM Cloud for Financial Services, it has also made them available for clients to use on multiple clouds (public or private) – through managing workloads with IBM Cloud Satellite and monitoring their compliance through the IBM Cloud Security and Compliance Center.

“As organizations strive to keep up with the latest regulatory requirements and evolving data sovereignty laws, security and compliance are at the core of our approach. We are on a mission to be the world’s most resilient, secure, compliant and preformant cloud, which is why many of the world’s major financial services organizations have worked with us over multiple decades,” said Howard Boville, Head of IBM Cloud Platform. “IBM Cloud for Financial Services is specifically designed for highly regulated workloads, allowing financial services and other regulated industries to host applications and workloads in the cloud with confidence while addressing third and fourth party risk throughout their supply chains. As we continue our mission to help reduce risk in financial services, through our work with the Cloud Security Alliance, today we can demonstrate alignment to their Cloud Controls Matrix, a globally recognized standard for the industry.” 

Leading with security and compliance as the stringent regulatory landscape evolves
With regulations continuing to evolve, financial services organizations must prioritize security and compliance to keep up with the demands of new requirements. However, maintaining security and compliance requirements should not come at the price of innovation. The IBM Cloud Security and Compliance Center aims to help financial services reduce the amount of time and money spent on maintaining compliance by enabling them to monitor and demonstrate their compliance efforts in the cloud and allowing them to free up resources to drive innovation. The offering includes capabilities to monitor security posture with built-in controls and profiles to help clients adhere to industry requirements such as CSA’s CCM and enables clients to proactively monitor their compliance posture.

IBM Cloud for Financial Services also includes IBM’s innovative confidential computing capabilities and encryption technology to help ensure clients data remains their data only – even IBM cannot access it. IBM will continue to collaborate with organizations, such as the CSA, to help clients drive innovation while monitoring their regulatory and security posture.

Statements regarding IBM’s future direction and intent are subject to change or withdrawal without notice, and represent goals and objectives only.

IBM and Rapidus Form Strategic Partnership to Build Advanced Semiconductor Technology and Ecosystem in Japan

TOKYO, Dec. 12, 2022 — IBM and Rapidus today announced a joint development partnership to advance logic scaling technology as part of Japan’s initiatives to become a global leader in semiconductor research, development, and manufacturing.

Rapidus Corporation researches, develops, designs, manufactures, and sells advanced logic semiconductors, and was established with the endorsement of major Japanese companies. As part of this agreement, Rapidus and IBM will further develop IBM’s breakthrough 2 nanometer (nm) node technology for implementation by Rapidus at its fab in Japan.

This work will leverage IBM’s decades of expertise in semiconductor research and design. In 2021, IBM announced that it had developed the world’s first 2 nm node chip, which is projected to achieve 45% better performance or 75% more energy efficiency than leading 7 nm chips. IBM has a long history of successful joint development partnerships with Japanese semiconductor manufacturers in advanced logic and memory technology, as well as Japanese equipment and material suppliers.

“It is my great pleasure to announce today that Rapidus has officially partnered with IBM for the joint development of 2 nm node technology,” said Atsuyoshi Koike, President and CEO of Rapidus. “This is a long-desired international collaboration, truly essential for Japan to once again play a vital role in the semiconductor supply chain. I am fully confident that this collaboration will pave the way for our goal of contribution to the well-being of humanity through advanced logic semiconductors produced with technologies jointly developed with IBM.”

“IBM is honored to be partnering with Rapidus on developing the next generation of semiconductor technologies and helping to position Japan as a leader in one of the world’s most strategic technology areas,” said Darío Gil, SVP and Director of Research at IBM. “This collaboration is critical to ensure a geographically balanced global supply chain of advanced semiconductors, built through a vibrant ecosystem of like-minded companies and nations.”

As part of this agreement, Rapidus scientists and engineers will work alongside IBM Japan and IBM researchers at the Albany NanoTech Complex owned and operated by NY CREATES in Albany, New York – one of the world’s most advanced semiconductor research facilities. Rapidus is the latest entity to join the Albany NanoTech Complex ecosystem, which includes IBM, Applied Materials, Samsung Electronics, Tokyo Electron, SCREEN, JSR, the State University of New York (SUNY), and others.

Rapidus is planning to deploy differentiated strategies in manufacturing, including automation and efficiency, to ensure speed to market and competitiveness. This 2 nm technology is intended to be market-leading and will be compatible with industry standard offerings. Rapidus expects to start mass-production of its 2 nm technology in the latter half of the 2020s.