Mobile skills key to future jobs

IBM says the job skills of the future include being savvy with smartphones, tablet computers and software hosted in the Internet 'cloud' rather than standard desktop computers, writes AFP.

An IBM Tech Trends Survey results show that a majority of business technology specialists expect that by 2015, more business software will be made for smartphones and tablet computers than for traditional office systems.

Some 91% of the 2 000 respondents from 87 countries agreed that within five years it will be more popular for companies to use programs offered online as services than for firms to manage in-house computer networks.

Enterprise software maker SAP and its recently acquired subsidiary Sybase have formed a joint mobile business unit to develop on-demand applications and a single deployment platform, notes Computer Weekly.

The joint initiative will develop mobile business applications as well as a single mobile platform and software development kit to make the deployment of enterprise applications easier and more secure across multiple devices, says the company.

John Chen, CEO of Sybase, will lead the mobile strategy. "With Sybase as the mobile arm of SAP, we are best positioned to capitalise on one of the most important trends in the industry to deliver the full value of business processes anywhere and on any device," says Chen.

Rackspace Hosting has created a new match-making engine for businesses to quickly locate online applications they can use to run their organisations, writes Austin Business Journal.

The engine, AppMatcher, can be used to find applications that support a range of projects, from accounting and project management to human resources. AppMatcher will feature applications hosted at Rackspace.

The tool relies on predictive analytics and sophisticated matching algorithms to identify applications, according to the company.