International Business Machines (IBM +0.39%) and ServiceNow (NOW +6.36%) today announced that they will take their partnership to a new level. IBM, which recently announced a spinoff of a legacy business to focus more on the cloud, will utilize its core strengths in the hybrid cloud and match them with ServiceNow's intelligent workflow and operations management competencies.
IBM and ServiceNow formed a partnership about two years ago to bring simplicity to IT across multiple clouds. This new collaboration integrates services on a deeper level.
The combined technologies will determine a baseline for a company's IT operations and allow for deployment in any location. This will enable clients to diagnose problems faster, gain insights, and integrate with the business' toolchain. The alliance will combine the capabilities of IBM's Watson AIOps with ServiceNow's Now platform.
According to IBM CEO Arvind Krishna, every company is becoming an AI company in some respects. "By partnering with ServiceNow and their market-leading Now Platform, clients will be able to use AI to quickly mitigate unforeseen IT incident costs," Krishna said. "Watson AIOps with ServiceNow's Now Platform is a powerful new way for clients to use automation to transform their IT operations."
Image source: Getty Images
ServiceNow CEO Bill McDermott added that this digital transformation has become a necessity instead of merely an opportunity. "We are focused on driving a generational step improvement in productivity, innovation, and growth," McDermott said.
Service outages remain a serious problem for companies. They can cost a company hundreds of thousands of dollars per hour, not including reputational damages that are incalculable. To that end, IBM will also supplement this deal by forming an AIOps Elite Team to further their work on preventing outages and ending them quickly if they do occur.
By implementing this solution, IT departments can spend less time on maintenance and instead focus on projects to keep pace with digital demands, according to Dinesh Nirmal, general manager of IBM cloud integration.
