IBM
Nieuws
IBM maakt haar debuut met een Grid Computing offering voor de
Levensverzekeringen branche
Nieuw actuarieel Grid helpt klanten bij risicobeheersing en bevordert
winstgevendheid
Amsterdam, 27 Juli 2006 - IBM (NYSE: IBM) today announced a new grid
computing offering to help life insurance clients significantly
decrease the time needed to run complex insurance model scenarios.
Called IBM Grid and Grow for Actuarial Analysis, the offering combines
IBM and IBM business partner and ISV technologies to help insurance
clients improve financial risk and capital management, give a faster
time to market with new products and gain a competitive advantage. At
the heart of the offering is IBM's BladeCenter systems to power the
grid.
Actuaries -- basically risk mathematicians for the insurance industry
-- often perform calculations with simple personal computers or with
basic, manually provisioned, distributed processing environments. The
time and efficiency lost through these conventional methods costs the
insurance industry millions of dollars a year. Using the IBM actuarial
solution, actuaries receive results much quicker making it possible
for them to run more calculations and tune their models to improve
accuracy. The ability to model more accurate, complex financial
scenarios is key in gaining a competitive edge. It also helps meet
regulatory compliance and ever increasing reporting demands.
"With grid computing, infrastructures are faster and more resilient,
automatically circumventing hardware failures or capacity issues to
ensure complex queries complete in an accelerated fashion," said Ken
King, vice president, Grid Computing, IBM. "For insurance companies,
as with almost any business, the ability to understand the complex and
ever-changing balance between risk and reward in a timely manner is
crucial to success. Grid computing can do weeks of work in mere hours
and the time saved can make a real difference in the marketplace."
The Actuarial Analysis solution is a packaged set of hardware,
software and services leveraging industry leading grid ISV offerings
like DFA Capital Management Inc.'s ADVISE(TM), GGY's AXIS, Milliman's
MG o ALFA® and SunGard's iWORKS Prophet as well as middleware from IBM
business partners DataSynapse and Platform Computing. IBM clients
already using an early version of the solution are reporting an
immediate payback in their investment. An internal IBM survey of
customers using IBM grid solutions for the insurance industry showed
as much as a 75% reduction in time spent manually scheduling jobs and
a 97% reduction in job processing time.
"Grid computing has moved well beyond traditional research and
academia. Offerings like IBM's Grid and Grow bundle pre-packaged
products, including Platform Enterprise Grid Orchestrator(TM), which
enable rapid benefits to customers solving 'real world' business
problems," said Chris Purpura, vice president of strategic alliances
and new ventures for Platform Computing. "By working with IBM, we have
the opportunity to expand our deep experience in insurance to offer
rapid deployment solutions for Actuarial Analysis."
IBM's Grid and Grow program was launched in August, 2005 to allow a
simple, cost effective way for businesses both large and small to
incorporate grid computing into their infrastructure. IBM has
specialized grid offerings that provide hardware, software and
middleware packages for a variety of industries including financial
services and medical archiving.
"We have been pleased to be involved with several of IBM's Grid and
Grow offerings to date," said Rick Moran, senior vice president,
business development for DataSynapse, an IBM ISV that provides the
application virtualization technology to the Actuarial Analysis
offering. "By grouping the best technologies available to handle very
specific computing needs - these offerings can change the way grid
computing impacts an entire business, like the insurance industry."
The IBM Grid and Grow for Actuarial Analysis offering, which includes
IBM's BladeCenter, the IBM Director tool, IBM implementation services,
Microsoft Windows or Linux operating systems and leading ISV and
partner technologies is available immediately.
Voor informatie over IBM, surf naar www.ibm.nl.
Voor meer informatie kunt u contact opnemen met:
Gerjan Vasse
IBM Corporate Communications
06-20226356
gerjan_vasse@nl.ibm.com
_____________________________
For more information on IBM, go to www.ibm.com. To learn more about
IBM's Grid offerings, go to www.ibm.com/grid.
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