IBM AND MATRIXONE SIGN GLOBAL STRATEGIC ALLIANCE TO PROVIDE COLLABORATIVE PRODUCT COMMERCE SOLUTIONS.

IBM and MatrixOne, Inc. have entered into a global strategic alliance to deliver and market advanced Collaborative Product Commerce (CPC) solutions. The companies will initially target the consumer packaged goods and life sciences industries with solutions that speed the most competitive products to market at reduced costs.

The joint solutions, leveraging MatrixOne's CPC applications and IBM's e-business infrastructure technology and services, will address industry specific requirements at stages of a product's lifecycle. From concept and design to manufacturing and ongoing services, these solutions will enable customers to address critical time-to-market and cost issues involved in product innovation and development.

"The IBM and MatrixOne alliance is further evidence that product lifecycle management solutions have emerged as a critical component of innovative companies' business strategies," said Kevin O'Marah, Research Principal, Supply Chain Strategies for AMR Research. "The significance of this partnership is that it brings together a product collaboration technology from MatrixOne that has many loyal users in the field with a powerful sales and delivery capability in IBM."

MatrixOne has a strong focus on CPC solutions that accelerate development and reduce costs at various stages of product lifecycle management (PLM). These solutions unify the efforts of a company's development, procurement and production teams through access to improved product data, design collaboration, process management and decision-making tools.

Under the terms of the agreement, IBM Global Services will provide consulting, customization and integration services. The two companies will develop and market MatrixOne's eMatrix(1) collaboration platform on IBM hardware, software and middleware, including: IBM eServer(2) pSeries(3) UNIX systems; the IBM DB2 Universal Database(4) and the WebSphere infrastructure software platform, including WebSphere(4) Application Server and the WebSphere MQ family.

"Delivering new products on-time and on-budget are among the major challenges companies face," said Murray Mitchell, vice president of IBM Global Services' Buy & Supply consulting practice. "We look forward to working with MatrixOne, a recognized leader in the Collaborative Product Commerce market, to offer customers significant opportunities to improve revenues and reduce costs through advanced product collaboration, strategic sourcing and program management solutions."

"Global corporations are recognizing the business value of Collaborative Product Commerce solutions to increase the innovation, speed and effectiveness of bringing products to market," said Mark O'Connell, president and CEO of MatrixOne. "Our customers have a long history of realizing the benefits of product collaboration to improve financial performance. MatrixOne's technology and expertise integrated with IBM's commitment to leadership in each of these targeted industries creates a tremendous opportunity for both companies to expand those benefits to a broader set of customers."

The MatrixOne strategic alliance is another example of IBM's commitment to go-to-market with leading independent software vendors through the PartnerWorld for Developers program (www.developer.ibm.com). Under this initiative, IBM has signed agreements with recognized software leaders. These alliances target industries such as financial services, retail, and manufacturing, and solution segments including enterprise resource planning, supply chain management, customer relationship management and business intelligence. The goal is to provide developers with access to new customers and revenue opportunities through IBM's marketing, sales, and solutions resources. In return, developers commit to lead with IBM's middleware, server platforms, and services.