IBM Unveils Software and Solutions to Advance Information on Demand Initiative

IBM (NYSE: IBM) today announced new software, industry solution frameworks and partner programs to help customers use trusted information in real-time to optimize their businesses, better compete and take advantage of emerging business opportunities.

IBM, the world’s second largest software company, introduced the new offerings to extend its global Information on Demand initiative, which is making it possible for customers to gain a competitive advantage in their industries through new and innovative uses of trusted business information.

The offerings introduced today help customers solve some of the biggest information-related challenges affecting businesses. These include real-time delivery of information for data warehousing, data integration, and master data management. Through these products and its global business consulting expertise, IBM is providing customers with tools and techniques that significantly reduce the expense and time required to use information technologies to address industry-specific requirements. For example, IBM’s software and solutions will enable retailers to make real-time, personalized offers to customers at the point-of-sale, maximizing the effectiveness of marketing campaigns and increasing sales and revenue generated per customer.

“The drive to use information as a strategic business asset requires companies to move beyond simply creating an infrastructure that manages and stores their data and content,” said Ambuj Goyal, general manager, IBM Information Management Software. “IBM is applying its software, hardware and industry expertise to help customers dynamically use trusted information to optimize business processes, become more competitive and capitalize on emerging growth opportunities.”

The Information on Demand offerings IBM unveiled today include new data warehouse, information integration, master data management and content management software that enable real-time insight and ensure that trusted business information is delivered and used to support critical business processes.

IBM also introduced new Information on Demand industry frameworks that combine software, strategic planning services, and a set of pre-configured templates that help customers use information as a strategic asset. Built with expertise gained from hundreds of customer engagements, along with proven data and process models, the industry frameworks address information-intensive challenges in the banking, retail, and telecommunications industries, as well as the public sector. These frameworks were designed to address more than 85 percent of customer data management requirements out of the box and can speed time to market by reducing solution analysis and design requirements by more than 40 percent.

To further the reach and impact of its Information on Demand offerings, IBM is expanding its collaboration with the global business partner community. IBM is empowering thousands of partners who are growing their businesses through IBM’s Information on Demand initiative via a new program that provides business partners with free access to sales, marketing and technical consulting resources. Through this program, partners will be able to rapidly develop and deliver Information on Demand offerings, bring them to market more quickly and expand into new geographies.

Strengthening the Pillars of Information on Demand
Today’s software announcements include significant improvements across the three pillars of IBM’s Information on Demand initiative: information, data and content.

IBM’s industry leading Information Server software platform now offers enhanced federation via support for more data sources, improved high-volume and real-time certified connectivity to SAP, and complete support for IBM System z. With its new desktop metadata search capabilities, Information Server also enables users to search key business terms and taxonomies from many applications, such as Microsoft Excel or modeling tools or reporting software, to understand how those terms are used within their information integration environment. Information Server also incorporates improved real-time change data capture and replication technology from the DataMirror acquisition, allowing integration, cleansing and analysis of high volumes of data from production systems without impacting performance.

IBM also announced the IBM Master Data Management Server, the first software product to allow companies to manage many types of master data -- such as customer, product, and account information -- supported by broad capabilities for defining, accessing, and using that data as a strategic business asset. The IBM Master Data Management Server will be available in beta in the fourth quarter of 2007, with plans for general availability in early 2008.

Additionally, IBM released DB2 Warehouse 9.5, featuring new extreme workload management capabilities enabled by the new DB2 9.5 “Viper 2” data server, which also was unveiled today. DB2 Warehouse 9.5 delivers industry-first advances that allow customers to analyze and gain real-time insight from both structured and unstructured information, and then use this insight to make critical business decisions.

To help database developers and administrators improve their ability to design, develop, deploy and manage their database and application environments from anywhere at any time, IBM today unveiled a Web-based, integrated data management environment called Data Studio, which is available as a free download. The Eclipse-based Data Studio was created as a development hub that will allow customers to plug-in tools from other vendors to seamlessly manager their data.

IBM also augmented its content management portfolio today with the introduction of the IBM Content Management 8.4 family -- a suite of content and document management software that enables customers to improve their ability to control, access and manage the vast amount of unstructured content stored across their enterprises.

Addressing Industry-Specific Information Needs
Customers using IBM’s new Information on Demand frameworks and Industry Models will benefit from proven sources of trusted information that accelerate deployment of strategic business initiatives, such as multi-channel marketing, consumer-driven merchandising and supply chain management, managing risk and compliance, accelerating new product introductions, ensuring a positive customer experience, and improving financial management.

The frameworks utilize the experience and reliability of IBM’s family of established industry models that provide a repeatable template that guide customers through the process, service and components needed to overcome their industry-specific information management challenges. IBM is also expanding and boosting its industry models portfolio with upgraded banking, insurance, retail and telecommunications offerings by introducing 11 new models available today.