IBM InterConnect 2015, the Premier Cloud & Mobile Conference got over few hours back. Since Smarter Process and BPM is my key focus area, I went into the conference with mixed feelings. No major release announcement for IBM BPM….. BPM on Cloud is promising, but the pricing model is rigid….. What’s happening with ODM?…. MobileFirst and BlueMix, new things to catch up….. What’s this DevOps and what happens to Agile? These were some of the things on my mind.

But today, thanks to InterConnect 2015 I know more about where technology is heading, how IoT is going to find applications beyond home into the Enterprise world, how Mobile and Apple is making further headway into the Enterprise and elevating performance of the knowledge worker by putting right tools in their hands and how BPM combined with Mobile & Cloud will be enabling Smarter Processes that will help streamline the businesses.

So there is a lot happening at IBM. Let me start with what’s new in IBM BPM:

– Mobile:

  • Responsive Coach Views (This is big. You don’t need custom toolkits for this anymore)
  • Responsive BPM Process Portal (Same as above)
  • Process Federation Server (No more logging into multiple Process Servers)
  • IBM MobileFirst Integration (Easily build Mobile App front-end for BPM processes and services).

– Improved Admin Console for operations and managing platform stability.
– Migrations are easier
– SAP Transaction Coach View and Inbound Event Pattern
– New multi-tier BPM on Cloud Pricing Model
– Internet Protocol Security Virtual Private Network (IPSEC VPN) service included

Impact 2014 introduced the idea of BPM + Mobile + Cloud = Smarter Process and with IBM BPM version 8.5.6 its truly coming to life.

My team will be eagerly looking forward to the new version release, so we can start building Mobile App front-ends for our CRM and ITSM solutions.

ODM is adding Advanced Decision Server Insights which is capabilities for acting on Data and Events at real-time.

Maximo Inventory Insights is a SaaS extension that offers predicted inventory optimization.

IoT was displayed everywhere at InterConnect 2015, meaning there were scanner in each conference room probably communicating with the EventConnect mobile App and keeping track of who was attending which sessions. Curious how IBM is going to use all that data gathered. J

DevOps is something that I will be talking more about in the coming days. It is truly the methodology for developing Apps going forward. I think all of us are experiencing this pain point that the Development cycles have shortened but the release cycles have not changed and DevOps is the solution.

I had put my sales hat aside and went with the solutions designer hat and I learnt a lot. But, I can only be in one session at a time. So as expected, there were a lot of sessions that I couldn’t attend. I will try spending some time on InterConnect Go, but it’s not going to match the first-hand experience because of lack of interaction.

All in all, InterConnect 2015 was a great conference! Now, let me get back to using the new things learnt for provide solutions.