Wednesday, September 17, 2008

IBM launches social software center in Cambridge, with VC flavor

By Mass High Tech Staff

IBM Corp. has opened a new “Center for Social Software” in Cambridge — which officials at Big Blue are billing as a first-of-its kind spot for developing collaborative and social software.

The center, which is based in the Kendall Square area, was established to help organizations collaborate across distributed, global enterprises. The new operation will be directed by Irene Greif, an IBM fellow and founder of the field of computer-supported cooperative work. The center will feature design and demonstration spaces to showcase social software systems, officials said. It will also combine expertise of IBM’s research labs in Hawthorne, N.Y., and Yorktown, N.Y., along with labs in San Jose, Calif., Israel, Japan and China.

The center is also teaming up with IBM’s global business services, software group, and office of the chief information officer in a “venture research” methodology, which is designed to move projects rapidly through a pipeline from idea conception, through swift proof-of-concept and initial evaluation, to deployment, officials said.

IBM officials aren’t disclosing the number of workers the social software center will employ. New York-based IBM (NYSE: IBM) employs more than 5,000 workers in Massachusetts, 3,400 of which are software workers. Later this year, the company plans to begin moving workers to a new software campus in the towns of Littleton and Westford. The campus is expected to eventually house 3,500 IBM employees.