IBM Launches Major E-Business Initiative Emphasizing Business Intelligence; Worldwide Campaign Backed by $30 Million Marketing Push.

SOMERS, N.Y.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Sept. 22, 1999--

IBM launched a major e-business initiative today spearheaded by a $30 million integrated marketing campaign and backed by numerous product announcements from across the corporation.

The worldwide initiative, which establishes business intelligence (BI) as the next major wave of e-business, also includes: Y A new program that delivers complete relationship marketing solutions for small and medium businesses, starting at $60,000.

- New industry and consulting offerings that help companies manage

relationships with customers, monitor business performance, and

establish a foundation to run BI projects.

- New advanced software for analyzing and integrating customer,

product, and services data.

- IBM's newly announced servers: The RS/6000 S80 Enterprise Server

excels at processing the large amounts of data used for BI, and

the S/390 Multiprise 3000 provides a BI solution capability for

midrange companies.

- New financing options.

BI is the fastest growing segment of the enterprise IT sector; it's growing more than 50 percent a year on average and is expected to reach $113 billion by 2002, according to the BI/DW Research Program at Survey.com (formerly World Research Inc.).

Business intelligence is the gathering, management, and analysis of large amounts of raw data on a company's customers, products and services, and all the transactions in between. BI solutions combine server and storage hardware, database software, analysis tools and consulting services. Marketers, business executives, strategists, salespeople, financial analysts, and customer service managers across all industries prize the results of analyzed data, which reveals what products and services to sell, to whom, how, and when. This information helps companies boost speed to market, gain market share, pursue closer customer relationships, improve margins, and reduce costs.

The new global marketing campaign consists of strategic and brand print, TV, radio and Web site advertisements, a special BI Web site, direct mail, and business partner education, as well as new programs and services.

The campaign emphasizes IBM's expertise of working with customers to determine the best technology solution for a specific business problem. It features real-life BI examples from customers as diverse as L.L. Bean, Kiwi Brands, and the National Basketball Association.

"IBM's mantra these days is `Do what's right for the customer'," said Wayne Eckerson, an analyst for Patricia Seybold Group, in his recent report, IBM Leads the Pack: Big Blue Has Discovered a Winning Formula for Business Intelligence. "From a practical perspective, this means that IBM is working customer accounts from the outside in, preferably leading with professional services to assess customers' requirements before selling products."

The Business Intelligence Market Growing... and Growing

"The fact that IBM has designated BI as the next wave of its high-profile e-business campaign means that it recognizes BI as a very lucrative and major market opportunity," said Ben Barnes, general manager, IBM Global Business Intelligence Solutions. "Customers want these sophisticated technologies to be integrated and optimized. This speeds implementation, lowers risk, guarantees high quality at lower coast, and provides quick return on investment."

"IBM's future in business intelligence looks promising," said Eckerson in his report. "Because IBM plays in so many diverse areas of business intelligence, it has the potential to easily create custom and packaged solutions that leverage its consulting experience, products, technologies, and partner relationships."

New from IBM

The new integrated IBM BI portfolio being unveiled today comprises many elements. All offerings will be available worldwide by the end of October.

BI Solution - Fast Start - This new program delivers complete BI solutions for

small and medium businesses, enabling them to build and manage

relationships with customers while continuing to grow their

enterprise. Priced from $60,000.

Services Offerings - BI Services for Telecommunications Companies 

BI Services for Retailers

BI Services for Insurance Companies

Three new industry-specific BI services offerings from IBM Global

Services help companies create high-quality customized

relationship marketing solutions based on IBM intellectual

capital and methodologies. These new services join the existing

portfolio of BI services introduced by Global Services in June.

- BI Services for Data Quality Improvement -- Helps identify and

eliminate potential problems caused by poor data quality.

- BI Services for Balanced Scorecard Deployment -- A BI solution

tailored to a specific business that captures and reports key

measurements (i.e., revenue, profit, customer satisfaction),

enabling senior management to see a snap-shot of the business on

a regular basis.

Data Management - DB2 Intelligent Miner for Data V6.1 - DB2 Intelligent Miner for

Data Version 6.1 brings IBM's core data-mining technology to a

broader range of users, helping them uncover intelligence from

large amounts of enterprise data, including information from

transaction and e-commerce applications. A new feature makes it

easier for business analysts to interpret information using

visual techniques in addition to statistics.

- DB2 Intelligent Miner for Relationship Marketing Version 6.1 --

Delivers a suite of Web-enabled data-mining applications that

focus on managing customer relationships.

- DB2 OLAP Server Version 1.1 -- An enterprisewide online

analytical processing system that supports multidimensional 

reporting and analysis. It enables users to quickly build

analytical applications using built-in math, financial and

statistical functions. These users can now interact with business

data quickly with conventional query languages and procedures,

instead of using spreadsheets, Web browsers and other intuitive

interfaces.

- DB2 DataJoiner Version 2.1.1 -- IBM's technology for

heterogeneous data access, replication and business intelligence

data management now provides access to NCR Teradata. DB2

DataJoiner makes database queries more powerful by allowing users

to send one query to access, find and join IBM, non-IBM,

relational or non-relational, local or remote data from 55

sources.

- Business Intelligence Partnership Initiative for DB2 --- IBM is

teaming with business partners to provide the industry's most

complete, integrated business intelligence solutions. IBM's

partnership program includes more than 350 business partners

delivering over 580 applications to customers worldwide.

Servers - RS/6000 S80 - Announced Sept. 13, IBM's most powerful SMP server

excels at processing the large amounts of data that are used in

BI applications.

- S/390 Multiprise 3000 - Announced Sept. 20, offers midrange

companies an integrated solution capability for running business

intelligence applications.

IBM Global Financing - For enhanced affordability, customers can select from a wide

variety of financing options through IBM Global Financing such as

Preferred Rate Financing, with rates as low as 6.9 percent APR(a).

IBM Global Financing's flexible offerings make IBM's Business

Intelligence solutions more affordable for customers with fixed

monthly payments that enable them to acquire more technology and

conserve capital for other investments.

(a) Other rates available based on credit ratings, terms and options. Offer may be withdrawn or modified without notice. Other restrictions may apply.

More information on IBM's BI portfolio can be found on the IBM Business Intelligence home page at www.ibm.com/solutions/businessintelligence

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