Increasingly, cities are using location-based technology to bring efficiency to their operations and improve the customer experience. They are using IBM software to get both a bird's eye view of their city infrastructure -- roads, buildings and waterways -- as well as insight into their operations underground or on the street of the pipes, wires, street lights, electrical meters, storm drains and other assets that make up a city's infrastructure. Some cities are using embedded sensors to detect faulty pipes or broken streetlights to automatically generate a work order for maintenance staff..

IBM and Nuance Communications, Inc. announced a research agreement to explore, develop and commercialize the Watson computing system's advanced analytics capabilities in the healthcare industry.

The research and technology initiative will combine IBM’s Deep Question Answering (QA), Natural Language Processing, and Machine Learning capabilities with Nuance's speech recognition and Clinical Language Understanding (CLU) solutions for the diagnosis and treatment of patients that provide hospitals, physicians and payers access to critical and timely information.  The two companies expect the first commercial offerings from the collaboration to be available in 18-24 months.

Arcplan announces the launch of arcplan Mobile, its BI solution for iPhone, iPad, Blackberry and Android smartphones. With arcplan Mobile, users can create and distribute mobile BI applications quickly and device-independently to display detailed reports as well as interactive, animated dashboards. As a result, arcplan improves decision-making by enabling employees to have easy access to operational and financial data 24/7.

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HP today announced it has signed a definitive agreement to acquire Vertica, a privately held, real-time analytics platform company based in Billerica, Mass. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

The acquisition of Vertica will enhance HP capabilities for information optimization, adding sophisticated, real-time business analytics for large and complex sets of data in physical, virtual and cloud environments. Vertica’s platform helps customers analyze massive amounts of data simply, quickly and reliably, resulting in “just-in-time” business intelligence.

Gartner has positioned IBM Global Business Services in the leaders quadrant in its "Magic Quadrant for Global Business Intelligence and Performance Management Service Providers, February 2011" for its Business Analytics and Optimization (BAO) service line. In positioning vendors in its Magic Quadrant, Gartner evaluates completeness of vision and ability to execute.

IBM announced that Sequoia Hospital, based in Redwood City, Calif., has reduced its mortality rate in cardiac surgeries more than 50 percent through the use of IBM predictive analytics software by reducing risk and offering personalized patient care.

By analyzing a cardiac database of more than 10,000 patients, including demographics, types of surgeries, risk factors and outcomes, IBM predictive analytics informs doctors and recommends crucial pre- and postoperative procedures that reduce complications and extend the length and quality of patients' lives..