IBM Diversify into Social Media but what will this mean for their traditional markets?

IBM recently announced their new venture into Social Media analytics in an effort to capitalise on the growth of companies such as Facebook and Twitter. Their new analytics appliance for retailers allows them to sift through "petabytes of big data including consumer sales data and online shopping trends to help retailers gain actionable insight on buying patterns."

You can read a more in depth article on this here but does this development mean that their focus will be moving away from their traditional strongholds such as hardware maintenance or simply expanding upon there current offerings?

There are no answers to this question yet and it would be remiss to assume this would be the case, however, it does present the possibility that the company is looking to other markets away from their traditional background which in itself presents an opportunity for Blue Chip.

As maintainers of 40% of the IBM hardware in the UK any loss of focus from IBM in this area is something we must look to capitalise on, particularly when it is in an area in which we have so much experience and expertise.

This article has been created by Chris Meredith, Online Marketing Executive at Blue Chip. Chris can be contacted via info@bluechip.co.uk