When looking at the version history of IBM® SmartCloud® we can clearly see a pattern of delivering major releases twice a year, more specifically in May and December. Since the May 2013 release has just been announced and implemented—at the time of writing—it can be expected that the next major release will be announced and implemented in December 2013.
In terms of functionality, let's look at what announcements there have been on the IBM® SmartCloud® strategy and which trends there are in the marketplace.
Platform as a service is clearly expanding the range of options you have from the cloud. We can see these IBM products and service developments; just look at the landing page of IBM for platform services—www.ibm.com/cloud-computing/us/en/paas.html—but also on almost all other major cloud service providers.
Specifically, we want to mention the platform services—IBM® SmartCloud® Application Services and IBM® SmartCloud® for SAP Applications—that...