IBM Maximo Positioned in Leaders Quadrant for Three Enterprise Asset Management Industries

IBM (NYSE: IBM) today announced that Gartner Inc. has positioned IBM’s Maximo asset management solution in the leaders quadrant in three of its reports, including the “Magic Quadrant for Enterprise Asset Management for Manufacturing, 2007,” “Magic Quadrant for Enterprise Asset Management for Transmission and Distribution, 2007,” and “Magic Quadrant for Power-Generating EAM Software, 2007. (1)”

Gartner evaluates vendors in its Magic Quadrant on “Completeness of Vision” and “Ability to Execute.”
In each of the reports, the analyst firm qualifies leaders as having a global presence, a large installed base in each of the areas being evaluated, and “a combination of rich features including: functionality, interfaces to different ERP applications and a capable and global implementation partner community.”

IBM Maximo is a suite of software products that helps customers manage their business assets -- including planning, procurement, deployment, tracking, maintenance and retirement -- through a web-architected platform. With customers in a multitude of industries, from packaged goods to heavy manufacturing and oil and gas production, IBM Maximo is designed to improve production reliability, labor efficiency, material optimization, software license compliance, lease management, warranty and service management and provisioning across a company’s assets.

“We are extremely pleased with Maximo’s most recent positioning in Gartner’s industry EAM Magic Quadrant reports,” said Jack Young, Vice President, Maximo Development, IBM Tivoli Software. “With the focus on specific industries, we believe these reports highlight Maximo’s ability to meet a wide variety of requirements based on our understanding of and commitment to solving the challenges our customers face. With the resources we’ve been able to add to our development and implementations teams, we are confident Maximo will continue to be a leading solution for a variety EAM markets.”

The Gartner reports include a market description for Enterprise Asset Management (EAM) solutions, stating, “EAM functionality evolved from the CMMS applications that encompass work and materials management for fault repair, regular preventive maintenance and service activities, and from the work management applications that catered to reactive, short term work planning arising from customer or failure requirements. An EAM solution includes work order creation, planned maintenance, maintenance history, MRO inventory and procurement, as well as equipment, component and asset tracking for equipment. In its most-evolved form, the functionality is extended by the addition of basic financial management modules, such as accounts payable, cost recording in ledgers, and human resource management for rostering and skill recording.”