UB, IBM Sign Memorandum Of Understanding

BUFFALO, N.Y. -- The University at Buffalo and IBM Corp., the world's largest computer manufacturer, have signed a memorandum of understanding in which the two parties will collaborate on research and development of new technologies, education, training and placement of UB students, and delivery of educational services and business systems.

The strategic alliance was signed by Robert J. Wagner, UB senior vice president, and Michael J. Cadigan, vice president, IBM server manufacturing and procurement, who is a UB alumnus.

The agreement puts UB in a select group of 50 colleges and universities in the nation from which IBM actively will recruit new employees.

Benefits that already have accrued from the relationship include the Students Needing Assistance Program (SNAP) for Access99, the program requiring all incoming freshmen to have access to computers; the Electronic Test Design Automation Lab at UB, and a research project conducted at UB's Multidisciplinary Center for Earthquake Engineering Research.

"We are looking forward to this expanded partnership with the University at Buffalo," said Cadigan, who holds a bachelor's degree in mechanical engineering from UB. "IBM and UB have a long history of collaboration on technology projects, and this agreement will allow us to expand our efforts in this exciting era of 'e-business' transformation. Partnerships like this one are critical in the rapidly changing world of information technology. Both IBM and UB will benefit a great deal from this new arrangement."

Wagner added: "UB's relationship with IBM over the years frankly has been extraordinary. IBM has gone out of its way to help us, and so we felt it was in our interest, and IBM agreed it also was in their interest, to formalize this in a memorandum of understanding."

According to UB officials, partnerships with corporations are becoming not just attractive for universities, but necessary.

"In looking at our peer institutions -- particularly with regard to IT planning -- it has become clear that an important ingredient in it is partnerships with corporations," said Voldemar Innus, UB senior associate vice president for university services and the university's chief information officer.

Innus noted that technological breakthroughs that occur at other institutions often involve partnerships with corporations. He added that officials at these institutions often say that, either from a technical or economic point of view, such advances would not have happened without the corporate partner.

"The real essence and value of this partnership is that IBM and UB are investing together on joint, high-value projects that really impact meeting the goals of both parties," said Steven Frodey, senior client representative for IBM Global Education.

"It's multidimensional," Frodey continued. "We're working together on recruitment, on advising and on doing joint research and development as well, all of which is based on a solid, expanding partnership."

According to Innus, major benefits already have been realized from working closely with IBM.

As a result of this partnership, he said, the university was able to meet the needs of its Access99 program. UB was committed to the principle that the program pertain to all freshmen, including those who could not afford to buy a computer.

UB was able to do it partly because IBM sold the university 150 computers just coming off lease at a very reduced price.

"That's one of the great advantages to partnering with a corporation: providing services to your students, faculty and staff that could otherwise be so costly as to be prohibitive," Innus said.

Under this arrangement, students who demonstrate a compelling financial need are provided with nearly new computers that they keep throughout their four years at UB, as long as they remain financially eligible.

Other results of the relationship include:

• The corporation's donation under its Shared University Research grant program of $1.2 million in computer equipment to UB's Center for Computational Research, one of the nation's leading supercomputer centers. The 42-processor IBM RS/6000 SP computer, a next-generation version of the Deep Blue computer that beat chess grandmaster Garry Kasparov in 1997, is one of only a handful of such machines in an academic laboratory in the U.S.

• Establishment at UB of the first Electronic Test Design Automation Lab in Western New York sponsored by IBM's Test Design Automation Group in Endicott, N.Y. Designed as an educational tool for undergraduate and graduate students learning to test and fabricate computer chips, it also is available to UB researchers and others in the community who desire training in computer-chip testing.

• A research program between IBM and earthquake engineers at UB to investigate how better to protect electronic equipment from seismic damage

The relationship also has had payoffs in research and development, such as:

• A major advance in explaining high-temperature superconductivity that led to a paper published by researchers at UB and IBM in Nature in 1997

• The licensing by IBM of new materials with interesting thermal and rheological properties developed by UB professors. The patented materials are used in IBM's mainframe computers.

Both parties have agreed to evaluate the effectiveness of the partnership and identify plans for the future on a semi-annual basis.