Addressing the rapid pace of information technology transformation across all industries, IBM (NYSE: IBM) today announced new social technology enhancements to developerWorks, to help software developers more easily work together on open standards-based innovations.

While developers have access to a wide variety of IT resources scattered across the Web, many are struggling to maximize their productivity and are faced with filtering through multiple networking sites just to get to the technical information they need. As a result, there has been no easy way for developers to quickly access and integrate this information to more quickly build their skills around key IT and industry trends while connecting and collaborating with peers.

IBM is responding to these requirements, with My developerWorks, combining the best in social computing technologies and professional networking into developerWorks, IBM's leading online destination for more than 8 million IT professionals worldwide.

Now developers can more easily gain real-time access to key technology updates, connect with other experts around the globe and build critical skills requirements more quickly to speed development and bring new innovations to market faster -- from deploying complex cloud computing applications to architecting a smarter energy grid to building Java applications.

IBM recently surveyed hundreds of software development professionals across the globe to find out how they use online resources to build new skills and engage each other professionally. Nearly three-quarters said they use forums, blogs, wikis, and online newsletters to gain skills and communicate with each other. Nearly 65 percent said they want to start using social networking capabilities like those found on Facebook, Twitter and MySpace as a primary way to build new skills and collaborate with peers on one easy-to-use destination.

My developerWorks brings these social networking attributes into a single view for users, enabling them to build online relationships to create new groups, comment on and share content, build skills and grow a worldwide network of peers to drive innovation. Their profile can be customized to include contacts, preferred content, real time feeds from forums, blogs and wikis, and IBM's developerWorks site. In the coming months, My developerWorks users will also be able to tap their social networking profiles on sites such as Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook, to expand their professional networks and collaborate on new technologies.