Verizon Wireless and chipmaker Qualcomm announced today that they are teaming up to offer machine-to-machine (M2M) wireless services to companies in industries ranging from healthcare to utilities to manufacturing. Their still-unnamed joint venture is designed to encourage corporations to use Verizon’s cellular network for more than phone services. For example, a utility could monitor and interact with circuit breakers, transformers, and other equipment to manage networks more efficiently and reliably. Just yesterday, Verizon Communications, which owns 55 percent of Verizon Wireless, announced it plans to cut a whopping 8,000 jobs by the end of 2009.

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IBM announced today that it has acquired Waltham, MA-based security and compliance software firm Ounce Labs for an undisclosed amount. The move could help Big Blue meet its clients’ growing need to reduce the costs and risks associated with increasingly complex security and business regulations and policies.

Corporations constantly struggle with security and compliance issues, especially as enterprise systems increase in sophistication and complexity. Ounce Labs technology could help nip the problem in the bud by scanning the source code of an application and identifying potential sources of compliance or security trouble early on in the software development process, when it is presumably easier and less costly to fix, according to a press release. The technology can also help assess the risks posed by legacy software.

The Ounce deal comes on the same day that IBM announced it has agreed to buy business analytics software firm SPSS for approximately $1.2 billion in cash. Ounce is the technology behemoth’s 13th Bay State acquisition since 2003, joining the ranks of Rational, Ascential, Cognos, Diligent, and a host of others. We will be updating our map of IBM’s Massachusetts purchases soon.

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