OREANDA-NEWS. IBM (NYSE: IBM) and Hootsuite announced plans to integrate several of their respective cloud and social technologies as well as expertise, to provide Hootsuite clients a fast and reliable social experience.
Hootsuite will migrate its popular App Directory to IBM Cloud’s Infrastructure as a Service, SoftLayer. The Hootsuite App Directory is a collection of extensions and applications that business professionals add to their Hootsuite dashboard to create custom views of the social outlets and metrics most important to them.

To provide reliability and speed for a global customer base, Hootsuite requires high-performance computing on a platform that is both stable and scalable. By running App Directory on the IBM Cloud, Hootsuite will be able to provide clients a dedicated, scalable infrastructure with an easy-to-use toolkit for provisioning and management.

IBM Cloud also provides data resiliency, data privacy and data localization, a key consideration for international customers who want the option to keep their data in country. In addition, Hootsuite can rapidly roll out new features and functions to customers and ensure fast, reliable response times.

“IBM Cloud offers high performance, granular control and flexibility. When you couple that with its globally integrated footprint, we will have the ability to move data between data centers efficiently which will provide resiliency, flexibility and control,” said Aaron Budge, vice president of operations and IT at Hootsuite. “We have had a great relationship with IBM for more than two years and are excited about expanding our relationship with new product integrations and the ability to leverage IBM technology.”

Fueling New Skills for Social Analytics

IBM and Hootsuite are also joining forces on an upcoming university program that pairs IBM’s Academic Initiative with Hootsuite’s Higher Education Program, melding analytics and cloud training with professional social media skill development. As part of the program, classrooms enrolled in IBM's Academic Initiative will have access to Hootsuite's Higher Education Program, which provides professors and their students with three months of free access to Hootsuite’s leading social media education resources and courseware.

The IBM Academic Initiative is a no-charge program that provides over 8000 university faculty access to technology and expertise worldwide.  Faculty members receive 12 months access to a Bluemix trial for their use and up to six months access for students. Both faculty and student accounts are renewable and do not require a credit card. The program helps faculty teach market-ready skills to students.

To date, Hootsuite has made an impact in more than 300 universities with its Higher Education Program. By combining IBM Cloud technology with Hootsuite's social media solutions students will gain the opportunity to increase their technical skill set as well as showcase their social media expertise.

“The partnership between IBM and Hootsuite will blend analytics and social technologies to provide students and professionals the skills they need for social marketing,” said Randy Hlavac, a lecturer at Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism, and a member of IBM’s Academic Initiative. “Utilizing IBM Cloud and Analytic solutions, students are able to gain deep market knowledge. The Hootsuite tools will utilize this insight and allow students to test messaging immediately and deliver the most engaging content globally.”

Advancing Cloud and Social Innovations

The migration of App Directory to IBM Cloud and the joint university program are the latest collaborative efforts between IBM and Hootsuite. Recently, Hootsuite, integrated IBM Silverpop into App Directory, allowing marketers and social media managers to gain insights into the behavior of individuals who interact with their brand through social networks like Facebook and Twitter. This complements the existing integration into IBM Connections, enabling users to marry internal and external social behavior.

In addition, IBM will leverage Hootsuite exclusively to socially promote more than two dozen hackathons in 2016, as part of the Eighth Global Hackathon Series to take place globally throughout the year. The series will reach 10,000 developers, designers and entrepreneurs, connecting the world’s most vibrant communities of code creators to drive open innovation for products, platforms and brands. These events will showcase how Bluemix and Watson technologies are impacting various industries, including healthcare, travel, food and emergency responsiveness.

“IBM and Hootsuite continue to work together to drive the integration of social and cloud to empower clients with the ability to make data-driven decisions quickly and easily,” said Sandy Carter, general manager, Cloud Ecosystem and Developers, IBM.

Hootsuite will move its App Directory to IBM Cloud in the fourth quarter of 2015.