Panasonic To Collaborate With IBM On World's Largest Cloud Computing Deal

Shares of International Business Machines rose by $2.98 or 1.6 percent to close at $132.31 in the New York Stock Exchange after the company announced the largest ever enterprise cloud computing deal.

This will see Panasonic Corporation ditching Microsoft Exchange for IBM’s LotusLive collaboration service. 

According to announcement made by IBM, Panasonic plans to use IBM’s cloud services in its internal corporate structure for web conferencing, file sharing, project management and instant messaging. 

The Japanese electronics giant also intends to use LotusLive services for social networking between employees, partners and supplier. 

Panasonic will initially roll-out LotusLive services for 100,000 employees within the company and in a couple of years, the service will be used by around 300,000 Panasonic workers, partners and suppliers. 

Mitsuhiro Aoyama, vice president of Corporate Information System for Panasonic Corporation, while commenting on the deal mentioned “LotusLive is an integral vehicle for our employees to truly function as a globally integrated enterprise. It will allow us to work securely with our extended enterprise of Panasonic partners and customers worldwide.” 

Though both the companies have refused to divulge the financial specifications of the cloud computing deal, it has furthered the existing perception amongst many business analysts that 2010 will witness a meteoric rise in the information technology spending by businesses with cloud computing technology scoring high on their ‘must-have’ lists.