IBM has announced the creation of the Services Innovation Lab (SIL), a new global lab that will initially comprise about 200 technology experts hand-picked from around the company. The lab will accelerate the expansion of real-time analytics and software automation in both IBM's technology services offerings and its global services delivery capabilities. The SIL will operate out of IBM Research’s Labs worldwide, including New York, California, China, Israel, India, Japan, Switzerland and Brazil. 

The SIL significantly expands IBM's nearly 10-year-old services research program by bringing together services, research, software developers and industry experts from around the company to focus initially on the creation of services software applications for cloud computing, analytics and mobility.  IBM invests more than $6 billion annually on research and development and employs about 3,000 researchers worldwide, with about a third of them focused on services and analytics.

IBM researchers, developers and other technical experts who will participate in the SIL have an array of credentials, including development and client experience in computer science, software, security and compliance, systems management, mathematics and business optimization, data mining, storage, computer systems, user interaction and cognitive sciences. The central mission of these elite researchers and developers is to turn the intellectual property created during client engagements into software – thereby making it easier and faster to replicate a solution to thousands of engagements around the globe.

The initial focus of the SIL projects includes:   

·         Cloud Computing  

·         Advanced Analytics

·         Service Delivery Automation

·         Enterprise Mobilization and Smarter Planet

The SIL is the latest example of the investments in research innovation and software capabilities that IBM has made over the past decade to create higher-value service offerings. IBM researchers have participated in more than 1,000 IT business process and consulting client services engagements.