IBM has had a number of green initiatives launch lately, spanning a range of products and services that fit into various aspects of the global eco-friendly movement.  The latest development is the Tririga acquisition, a developer of software for real estate management, under undisclosed terms.  With this buy, IBM will add software to its Smarter Buildings-branded portfolio, now launched in Europe as well,  bringing the company one step closer to reaching its goals set in 2008 at the beginning of this smarter planet initiative.

‘Since introducing the smarter planet concept, IBM has collaborated with more than 600 organizations worldwide that each do their part in making this vision a reality. Leaders from many of these businesses and governments [banking, communications, electronics, healthcare, insurance, energy, retail and transport] joined us in November 2010 for our Smarter Industries Symposium in Barcelona. There, they shared their own stories of building a smarter planet.’

IBM is expecting revenues worth of $10 billion by 2015 from this initiative alone, explaining thus its motivation in acquiring Tririga, a company currently serving over 700 customers, among which Nokia, GE, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and Gap. IBM is not the only one seizing opportunity in smarter building tools, as it is competing with stronghold Siemens, Schneider Electric, Cisco and so on, Schneider Electric being one of IBM’s past collaborators.

The integration of IT with building and green initiatives is seen by big companies such as IBM, Cisco, Microsoft, and Google as a well of sound revenues. A proper management of buildings that goes in hand with the green trend can save companies billions of dollars a year, according to Lux Research. Microsoft is collaborating with Alstom, the powerful French provider in energy and transport, in order to use cloud technologies to aggregate energy data from potentially destabilizing distributed power generation resources such as solar panels and wind turbines within a city context.

Another similar and recent initiative from IBM was covered by Silicon Angle at the beginning of this month with its City Forward website. The program is aimed at improving the quality of life in cities of all sizes around the world.  IBM aims to do so by helping officials make sounder and more scientific decisions on city services. The company closely collaborated with universities, cities and NGOs in order to make public such valuable data. The content consists of statistics and trends in several domains, from education, safety, health, transportation, land use, utilities, energy, environment and personal income to spending, population growth and employment. In 2010, IBM signed a partnership with the city of Shenyang to launch a joint development lab for computer applications that help forecast water pollution trends, plot efficient traffic plans and devise caps on industrial carbon output.