I think the book was distributed to everyone in Software Group Austria and while we also certainly have exciting technology in our WebSphere part of the SWG business I must say I’m now very excited about the opportunity Big Data offers.

The book starts with explaining the business challenges Big Data can help address and then talks about the technical solutions, toolkits, and capabilities IBM brings to the table to address those business challenges. It’s a quite entertaining and interesting read and while it’s not too technical it gets you excited about Big Data and helps you identify business challenges that might be addressed by using InfoSphere BigInsights and InfoSphere Streams.

Maybe you’ve already seen the video below, about how IBM makes cities smarter?

It’s a very intriguing video, but it’s not explaining the vision behind this initiative or why it’s important. A few days ago I found something called TheSmarterCity. It presents a vision of what’s possible with today’s technologies, it links to interesting follow-up material, and it’s a great way to learn about what Smarter Cities is all about.

Let’s build a smarter planet, city by city.