IBM to Team with Software Firms to Offer Leading e-business Applications

Delivering solution excellence for e-business customers

WHITE PLAINS, N.Y (November 10, 1999) – IBM today announced that it is entering into a new range of strategic alliances that will couple applications from leading software firms with IBM’s hardware, software, services, financing and unmatched industry expertise to deliver the best e-business solutions available to customers worldwide.
IBM will enter into strategic alliances with select software developers, including leading independent software vendors (ISVs), and propose their applications with IBM offerings to meet growing customer demand for end-to-end solutions. As an example, IBM cited its recent global strategic alliance to integrate Siebel Systems’ multi-channel customer relationship management (CRM) software applications with IBM’s e-business capabilities.
As part of these alliances, ISVs will gain access to new customers and revenue opportunities through IBM’s extensive marketing, sales, and solutions resources. At the same time, ISVs will commit to increased use of IBM’s leading middleware, server platforms and services.
The worldwide market for application development will grow from nearly $72 billion this year to about $132 billion by 2003, according to Dataquest, making the revenue opportunity of today’s announcement for both ISVs and IBM substantial.
“This is another significant step in IBM’s march to become a solutions company,” said William A. Etherington, Senior Vice President and Group Executive, IBM Sales and Distribution. “Our commitment to bring customers e-business solutions does not end at IBM’s borders. We’re reaching out to combine the industry’s best software applications with IBM technologies, services and knowledge of our customers’ business issues to create powerful new solutions that no other IT company can match.”
Today’s announcement is reflected in the newly updated IBM Business Partner Charter. The charter, introduced in 1996, signaled a major commitment to work with Business Partners as the primary way to expand IBM’s customer reach. Since 1996, the percentage of IBM’s revenue going through Business Partners has doubled. Today’s commitment to developers marks the beginning of another significant chapter in Business Partner cooperation, to the benefit of both ISVs and IBM.
Software developers who partner with IBM as part of this initiative gain access to extensive marketing resources available through PartnerWorld for Developers. This is a dedicated track of the PartnerWorld program that consolidates IBM’s entire portfolio of offerings and marketing programs for all IBM Business Partners. These resources include:
IBM’s on-line Global Solutions Directory with 36,000 ISV applications on IBM platforms, most hot-linked directly to the application vendor; the site gets millions of hits each month.
IBM’s 45,000 hardware and software distribution channel partners worldwide;
IBM’s direct sales forces, 27,000 strong, organized by industries such as Banking and Retail, and solution areas such as Customer Relationship Management (CRM), Supply Chain Management (SCM), and Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP);
joint advertising, direct marketing, and other campaigns
flexible offerings from IBM Global Financing to finance Developer sales to their customers.

Source: IBM

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