IBM Systems has launched the z13, one of the most sophisticated computer systems that is powerful and secure, ever built.

It delivers scale and economics together with real-time encryption and analytics to help meet the expectations of consumers for speed and safety for trillions of transactions in the mobile economy, said a statement.

The z13 system culminates a $1 billion investment, five years of development, exploits the innovation of more than 500 new patents, and represents a collaboration with more than 60 clients – underscoring IBM’s singular commitment to providing higher-value, innovative technologies to clients, it said.

The new mainframe’s capabilities include the ability to process 2.5 billion transactions a day, equivalent to 100 Cyber Mondays every day of the year.

The rapid growth of mobile applications has created consumers who expect mobile transactions to be fast and seamless – regardless of which mobile payment platform, retailer, or financial organisation is providing the service, said the statement.

As a result, businesses are being forced to evaluate whether their IT infrastructures can support mobile applications that meet and exceed these consumer expectations -- or face the potential of losing clients to competing businesses, it said.

Tom Rosamilia, senior vice president, said: “Every time a consumer makes a purchase or hits refresh on a smart phone, it can create a cascade of events on the back end of the computing environment.

“The z13 is designed to handle billions of transactions for the mobile economy.  Only the IBM mainframe can put the power of the world's most secure data centres in the palm of your hand.

"Consumers expect fast, easy and secure mobile transactions. The implication for business is the creation of a secure, high performance infrastructure with sophisticated analytics." - TradeArabia News Service