REDWOOD CITY, CA — (Marketwired) — 09/05/13 — , the pioneer and market leader in gamification, and , which provides the ultimate cloud infrastructure for IBM applications, today announced plans to help Blue Iron Network customers achieve widespread adoption and sustained engagement of IBM Connections via the motivational power of gamification.

Through a new partnership, Blue Iron Network will add to its array of . Nitro for IBM Connections puts the industry-s most advanced gamification engine inside IBM-s social software platform and motivates employees to join, learn and contribute to IBM Connections communities in meaningful ways.

The alliance also gives Bunchball access to an ecosystem of 25 other IBM resellers who rely on Blue Iron Network-s infrastructure to deliver their IBM implementations from the cloud. Working through Blue Iron Network, any of those resellers can now sell the Bunchball solution. The two companies also plan to jointly market Bunchball Nitro for IBM Connections, and plan to explore opportunities to gamify other popular IBM applications.

Bunchball Nitro for IBM Connections is the only turnkey gamification solution for IBM-s social business platform. The cloud-based solution uses proven motivational techniques to trigger a person-s innate desire for progress, recognition, competition and community — all resulting in community members who work smarter, share more and collaborate better.

Customers can use pre-built components to quickly deploy progressively motivating experiences that are completely integrated into the IBM Connections user environment. As community members accomplish goals, gain status, and earn rewards, they become frequent and valued contributors, helping organizations to engage the right people to drive innovation and deliver results.

“IBM Connections is a great platform for creating a collaboration culture, but just -putting it out there- doesn-t always deliver the results companies are looking for. For too many IBM Connections customers, there-s an initial burst of interest among users, but then participation plateaus,” said Tom Simmons, Vice President of Sales and Strategy at Blue Iron Network. “Gamification offers a way to break through that plateau and achieve sustained, long-term engagement, and Bunchball is the market leader with a clear strategic vision of what gamification can do for enterprises. Together, we have the solution that will drive improved ROI and long-term satisfaction for our customers.”

“Collaboration networks have the power to transform businesses, workflows and company cultures, but only if they are widely adopted and regularly used,” said Joe Fisher, vice president of products at Bunchball. “By partnering with Blue Iron Networks, we-re making it easier for companies that have invested in IBM Connections to derive the greatest return from that investment. And by tapping into Blue Iron Network-s partner ecosystem, we have 25 other reasons to be excited about this alliance.”

more about Bunchball Nitro for IBM Connections.

our “Using Gamification to Create an Engaged Enterprise” white paper.

our “Enterprise Gamification: Engaging and Motivating the Gen Y Workforce” white paper.

our latest gamification webcasts.

about the New York Times and Wall Street Journal Best Seller from Bunchball founder Rajat Paharia: “Loyalty 3.0: How to Revolutionize Customer and Employee Engagement with Big Data and Gamification”

Bunchball is the market leader and visionary in gamification. Bunchball enables organizations to improve business performance throughout their ecosystem by creating highly active and loyal customers, employees, and partners. Bunchball-s comprehensive suite of innovative cloud-based solutions empowers companies to engage and motivate, leading to improved employee productivity, customer loyalty, audience engagement, and ROI. Bunchball-s world-class customers include Adobe, HP, Cisco, MTV, Comcast, LiveOps, VMware and Hasbro. Based in Silicon Valley, Bunchball-s investors include Granite Ventures, Triangle Peak Partners, Northport Investments, and Correlation Ventures. For more information, visit , our blog at , or follow .

The Blue Iron Network cloud has been designed to simply be the most cost effective, reliable and scalable global deployment infrastructure for deploying IBM enterprise applications. Blue Iron Network maintains the highest security standards and can meet strict compliance requirements such as HIPAA, FISMA, CJIS, PCI, ePHI and others. Blue Iron Network-s Enterprise Cloud is an excellent choice for deploying or migrating IBM enterprise applications to the cloud. Blue Iron Network offers a wide range of capabilities; from complete outsourcing to offering individual cloud based resources.

For Bunchball:
Mina Manchester
Bateman Group
(415) 697-2565
Email:

  blue-iron, bunchball, gamification, ibm-connections