DAILY NEWS AND INFORMATION FOR THE GLOBAL GRID COMMUNITY /    ( Table of Contents )

Systems/Enterprise:

INTENTIA STANDARDIZES ON IBM'S OPEN TECHNOLOGY PLATFORM

IBM and Intentia International AB announced a significant expansion of their strategic alliance designed to help customers integrate their business processes for enterprise and supply chain management through a consolidated software offering. As part of the alliance, Intentia will standardize and ship its J2EE-based Movex collaboration applications on IBM's open middleware and hardware running on Linux, OS400, UNIX and NT. The companies will also expand their joint sales, marketing and development activities.

With more than 3,500 customers in 40 countries, Stockholm, Sweden-based Intentia is one of the world's leading enterprise and supply chain application vendors and second-largest specializing in the mid-market. Intentia's strategic focus to grow and extend its mid-market and enterprise share by strengthening the Movex application suite with an open, scalable foundation is achieved with the decision to standardize on IBM infrastructure software. Intentia's J2EE-based Movex applications running on IBM infrastructure can enable customers to develop and implement collaborative enterprise solutions across different computing platforms at a lower cost.

"The ability to collaborate, anticipate opportunities and respond quickly to changes transparently throughout the supply chain is an important element of an on demand environment," said Bjorn Algkvist, president and CEO of Intentia International. "Customers can have the flexibility to integrate solutions both within and across the enterprise with their suppliers, partners, customers and other members of the extended value chain."

Intentia will pre-integrate its Movex applications with IBM's WebSphere Application Server, WebSphere Portal -- Express and DB2 Universal Database. As such, every order from a medium-sized business will be shipped with IBM's enterprise-proven technology embedded inside the Intentia application suite. The Movex suite is built on proven Java-based technology that is unique to the enterprise applications industry. Intentia will also develop an optimized version of Movex for Linux, a low cost and reliable platform that continues to gain momentum in the mid-market. The Movex collaboration application groups include Enterprise Management, Customer Relationship Management (CRM), Supply Chain Management (SCM), Business Performance Measurement, Value Chain Collaboration and e-Business.

"Leading ISVs are crucial to IBM's strategy for supporting mid-market customers with on demand solutions," said Marc Lautenbach, general manager of Global Small and Medium Business at IBM. "Together, IBM and Intentia can deliver the benefits of best-in-class application functionality on a secure, solid foundation in a convenient, user-friendly package to customers. Through this strategic initiative, IBM and Intentia have united to better serve our customers by providing collaborative commerce solutions that meet the requirements of an on demand environment."

Under the terms of the agreement, IBM and Intentia will jointly market and sell the solution to target segments and customers worldwide. IBM's industry-largest sales force will market the combined offering, further extending Intentia's market reach. IBM will have dedicated consultants in Intentia's IBM Competency Center to support application development and testing, and optimization, tuning and other development activities. Intentia will work with IBM Global Services in marketing and sales activities in selected cases.

Intentia will promote IBM's eServer iSeries, xSeries and pSeries hardware and middleware as its technologies of choice and optimal reference platforms in marketing and sales activities.

Companies in bellwether industries, such as manufacturing and retail distribution, are integrating key business processes and experiencing tangible productivity gains. Industry observers have noted that after years of cost- cutting, these companies are starting to benefit from the integration of marketing, sales and fulfillment processes through ERP, SCM and CRM applications, contributing to overall market expansion. Others are being asked by their supply chain partners to deliver information on demand so they can better manage their own business processes.

"Standardizing our enterprise applications on IBM's infrastructure technology can help us reduce development costs, increase development productivity and take advantage of the growing opportunity created by the on demand era," said Algkvist. "Intentia's customers are seeking open and dynamic applications that can run across a variety of computing platforms, as well as flexibility and a lower cost of ownership over time. Partnering with IBM and jointly selling the solution enables us to provide our customers with an integrated, powerful and high quality offering that is reliable, and easy to install and maintain."

"TAL was looking for an integrated supply chain system that could help us better manage our relationship with suppliers, customers and distribution centers, seamlessly," said Dr. Harry Lee, managing director of The TAP Group.

TAP owns and operates garment manufacturing plants in China, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Malaysia, Taiwan, Thailand and Mexico, and its customers include department stores, specialty stores, branded labels, catalogue buyers and retailers throughout Asia, Europe and the United States. "This business is all about services, and with the joint IBM and Intentia solution, we will be able to get to the next level," Lee said.

Since Intentia's founding nearly 20 years ago, Intentia and IBM have successfully delivered enterprise management systems to more than 3,000 customers worldwide. "We are choosing IBM's infrastructure technology as the foundation for our applications because of their leadership position in the middleware market and strong support of Linux," said Algkvist.

"The ability to access data and view inventory quickly, while a customer is still on the phone, is a major improvement. We couldn't do that before," said Dave Hoover, global director of information services at Mission Hockey.

The California-based company manufactures and distributes roller and ice hockey skates, hockey equipment and apparel for amateur and professional players and teams. "This alone has improved efficiency and customer service, in addition to reducing excess inventory, because customers now know what's available and when, at the time they place their orders," he said. "We see the joint IBM and Intentia solution helping us further increase efficiency in moving orders through the warehouse and out to customers."

"We're in an era when speed of communication and supply chain agility are prerequisites to fulfilling customers' needs," said Roel Bakker, director of information management at Nutreco, a Netherlands-based global food company. "The integrated solution will provide us with visibility throughout the supply chain, and fast access to accurate information from the businesses to give us a complete picture to make informed decisions. The main payback areas will include improved business processes, reduced stock and debtor days, improved procurement, lower cost of IT ownership and increased sales."