International Business Machines Corporation


IBM

and mimik technology, Inc are teaming up to develop Artificial Intelligence (AI)-powered workflow solutions to boost automation and digital transformation across various verticals like retail, manufacturing Internet of Things (IoT) and healthcare.

Canada-based mimik technology

specializes

in hybrid edge cloud computing. The company’s hybrid edgeCloud platform enables to transform any computing device to work as a cloud server. This helps application developers accelerate app development. The start-up is headquartered in Vancouver and founded in 2009.

mimik technology is a participant of IBM’s edge ecosystem. The tech giant’s edge ecosystem assists in the deployment of open standards-based cloud-native solutions for equipment manufacturers, IT & software providers. These cloud-native solutions are capable of autonomously managing edge applications at scale.

mimik technology noted that due to the rapid proliferation of technologies like IoT and 5G as well as rapid migration to cloud has resulted in increasing number of smart devices at the edge. This is exerting enormous pressure on computing resources and internet bandwidth of the centralized data centers. Also, the increasing complex nature of clients’ application is making it difficult to update and manage such applications.

The combination of mimik technology’s hybrid edgeCloud platform and IBM’s Edge Application Manager will provide containerized computing functionalities at the edge for a wide range of Linux-powered edge devices and clusters. The integration will also offer containerized computing capabilities at the edge  for various devices like smartphones, PCs, routers, and IoT gateways, running on different operating systems like Android, iOS, Windows and QNX.

Growth in Edge Computing Bodes Well

Per an

IDC report

, edge computing market, worldwide, is forecast to reach $250.6 billion by 2024 at a CAGR of 12.5% between 2019 and 2024.

Edge computing technology implies to the storage and processing of data nearer to the edge of a user’s network, wherein the data is generated and not across a centralized data center. This offers superior control and management of the data, while cutting down on operational costs.

Notably, rapid deployment of 5G, migration of workloads to cloud by enterprises and increased proliferation of IoT & AI is facilitating data processing at the edge.

IBM is also expanding its presence in the edge computing market to gain a larger share. Its IBM Edge Application Manager platform leverages the Red Hat OpenShift platform and aids in autonomous management for edge computing. The platform was unveiled in May 2020.

Per company estimates, the platform is capable of allowing a single administrator to manage up to 10,000 edge nodes at a time.

Further, IBM’s

portfolio

of other edge-enabled applications and services include IBM Asset Optimization, IBM Visual Insights, IBM Production Optimization, IBM Connected Manufacturing, IBM Maximo Worker Insights and IBM Visual Inspector.

Given the benefits of edge computing, all the tech giants including

Microsoft


MSFT

,

Intel


INTC

and

Amazon


AMZN

are working on advancing edge computing technology, thereby intensifying the competition.

Stiff competition in the cloud space along with increasing debt amid extensive restructuring are persistent overhangs for IBM.

Currently, IBM carries a Zacks Rank #4 (Sell). You can see


the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here.

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