IBM has always been known for its mainframes since the 50s it then took up PC manufacturing but around 2005 it decided it was done with the PC business. A while back it stopped making servers and quit hardware all together to focus on software for mobile in the cloud computing era.
Mobile became the new focus for IBM, providing cloud and analytic services by taking up the latest technologies required for a mobile first world where people around the world are using their smartphones and tablets to carry out transactions in business and even banking.
With money moving around the cloud platforms as most people today are using their mobile devices to send and receive money, IBM has introduced a new system that the company says is the most secure system of all time to track money transactions in a day.
This system, is the z13 mainframe. Yes, IBM never stopped building mainframes and the new z13 is confirmation that its dedication to focus on mobile technologies was well planned out and thought over, as the z13 has been optimized for the mobile economy.
Built to encrypt and analyze data in real-time and process 2.5 billion transactions in a day (30,000 transactions a second), the system is as a result of five years of development alongside a 1 Billion Dollars investment.
According to IBM, the z13 has been designed to perform data analytics on the system itself, meaning that the user will not need to transfer data from the system to another computer to do analytics.
Aimed to help governments and organisations improve fraud detection, the z13 will provide a live feed of the purchasing habits of clients in order to allow the company to push related promotions to customers when they are still available.
In a more connected world where more and more people are using mobile devices to establish a relationship with systems, there is need for security across platforms from devices to the actual transactions as well as providing clients with necessary analytics to help grow businesses.
Earlier last year, IBM partnered Apple to help build business apps for iPhones and iPads and with the new z13, there will be a back-end system for the apps that will provide the security every consumer will be looking to find.
With mobile money taking a threshold across nations and specifically in Africa – Kenya being in the front line, this new mainframe designed for the mobile world is bound to become a necessity as organisations and governments seek to curb electronic fraud.
There is no details on how much the system will cost customers, but with that amount of investment and the functions it seeks to provide for the ever-growing mobile first world, the z13 will not come near affordable but will attract millions in purchase.
This, however, will be instrumental as the system promises to drive security in the key sectors that promote a country’s economy such as the financial institutions, telecommunication companies, insurance companies, airlines, retailers and of course the overall – the government.
All these sectors are looking for the best security systems to protect customers from becoming victims of fraud and with apps being developed every day, the security front becomes hard to establish powerful barriers, leading to cybercriminals finding a way past the firewall.
The z13 mainframe from IBM promises to help secure all transactions on a day to day basis, as well as any other business carried out on the mobile platforms through powerful processors that contain up to 300 per cent more memory than that found on most servers.
