IBM steps up efforts to reach small and midsize businesses

IDG News Service - SAN FRANCISCO -- Stepping up its efforts to reach small and midsize businesses, IBM announced last Thursday new hardware and software bundles based on Linux that are designed to help smaller companies build an e-business more quickly. The company also extended a program that should help independent software vendors build closer ties with IBM channel partners.

About 20% of IBM's revenue last year came from small and midsize businesses, or companies with fewer than 1,000 employees. At the second day of IBM's developerWorks conference here, company executives said they hope to do more to reach that market, which is expected to spend $300 billion on IT products and services this year.

The bundled offerings are based on hardware and software combinations that have been pretested and preconfigured by IBM and will be sold by its channel partners worldwide. They include IBM xSeries servers running Nuremberg, Germany-based SuSE Linux AG's Linux distribution and IBM's WebSphere Application Server and DB2 database, along with directory and security software.

Also included are applications for the finance, retail, e-commerce, telecommunications, distribution and manufacturing industries, IBM officials said. Initial application partners include eOneGroup LLC, Selectica Inc., MarCole Enterprises Inc. and Rational Software Corp.

"This is a set of blueprints we've created which help business partners integrate the various components of a Linux-based e-business solution," said Rich Michos, a vice president at IBM's server group. "Instead of doing the integration and trying to reach customers we don't have a relationship with, we use the business partner community."

IBM didn't disclose pricing for the bundles, which will be available first in the U.S., then internationally later this year. More information is at www.ibm.com/servers/eserver/linux/integrated/.

Executives here stressed their continued faith in Linux, which they said will be one of two high-volume operating systems that continue to grow in the years ahead, along with Microsoft Corp.'s Windows.

"The tone when talking to customers [about Linux] has changed radically from last year," Irving Wladawsky-Berger, vice president of technology and strategy in IBM's server group, told reporters here. "Last year, people said, 'Is this real? Should I do it? Who is this Linus Torvalds guy?' This year, no one is asking those questions anymore. I think people realize that Linux is incredibly important."

The company also announced a program to help independent software vendors reach more customers by working with IBM's channel partners. The program extends an existing initiative called Start Now, which provides around 900 IBM resellers, systems integrators and other channel partners with technical help to deploy products like WebSphere