IBM (NYSE: IBM) has rolled out new, in-person training and certification for channel partners engaged in its Smarter Commerce initiative and analytics technology, mapping the designations to a wide education curriculum the vendor is offering in Big Data, commerce, mobile computing and cybersecurity.

The channel partner-centric training and certification is linked to a portfolio of education materials, installation guidelines and best practices centered on IBM’s Smarter Commerce initiative and digital analytics technology as offered by the vendor’s developerWorks unit.

“In response to the growing IT skill gap, IBM is expanding its skill development programs in key areas such as cybersecurity, mobile computing and commerce,” said Jim Corgel, IBM general manager academic and developer relations.

Impetus for the training additions comes in part from a new IBM 2012 Tech Trends Report the vendor has made public. The report, compiled by IBM’s Center for Applied Insights from surveys of 1,900 IT and business professionals, students and professors worldwide, uncovered that only 10 percent of organizations possess skills required to apply business analytics, mobile computing, cloud computing and social business technologies.

IBM is offering the learning materials to channel partners free of charge, to include technical resources and online technical communities on mobile computing, cybersecurity and commerce technologies. As an example, security developers can access examples of weaknesses in applications, learn about typical web attacks and collaborate with peers around best practices for responding to vulnerabilities, according to IBM.

New social business software

Separately, IBM also recently unwrapped new, cloud-based productivity software called IBM SmartCloud Docs, including word processing, spreadsheet and presentation titles, and new services in its SmartCloud for Social Business portfolio.

The cloud services enable users to collaborate both inside the organization and externally with partners, customers or suppliers, including features such as checking to see if a document co-editor is online and available to chat in real time, adding to existing business-grade file-sharing, access to communities, online meetings, instant messaging, email and calendar in the cloud.

“As the mobile workforce moves beyond gaining access to email and calendars to collaborate and generate new ideas and be more efficient anytime, anywhere, on any device, the intersection of social, mobile, and cloud becomes even more critical,” said Alistair Rennie, IBM social business general manager.

IBM said early SmartDocs productivity suite adopters include the University of Texas at El Paso, Colleagues In Care (CIC), Centrax TCL, NEC, the Victoria Implementation Center and Netkom iBPM LLC. The software is available now for no additional charge in IBM SmartCloud Engage Advanced service or as an additional service for IBM Connections and IBM SmartCloud Engage Standard for $3 per user per month.