IBM Extends Enterprise Content Management Software Portfolio With Business Content Services

Market Wire, June, 2008

IBM (NYSE: IBM) today unveiled an integrated approach to managing enterprise content with software that helps customers control and derive value from all types of content created and shared by workgroups across an organization.

IBM's new Business Content Services strategy helps businesses of all sizes to address the explosive growth of content, including business documents created individually and collaboratively across diverse, and often global, workgroups. As part of the company's Enterprise Content Management (ECM) software portfolio, this approach combines IBM's market-leading ECM capabilities with a variety of collaboration and social software options.

Organizations can select the convenience of a complete solution from IBM featuring the social software and collaboration capabilities of Lotus Quickr and also use IBM's ECM offerings to manage business content created in a variety of applications, such as IBM Lotus Notes, Microsoft Office and Microsoft Office SharePoint Server, in a secure, scalable ECM platform.

"IBM's commitment to delivering market-leading ECM infrastructure solutions allows workers to create content in familiar desktop applications and document collaboration tools, while enabling organizations to more efficiently and cost-effectively meet their content management and compliance goals," said Lee Roberts, general manager, IBM Enterprise Content Management. "Our Business Content Services approach is focused on bridging the gap between the simple management of business documents and a comprehensive ECM infrastructure."

AMEC Paragon, the oil, gas and pipeline subsidiary of AMEC, the international engineering and project management company, relies on IBM ECM offerings to improve management of its project document lifecycle.

"Today, we populate Microsoft SharePoint with documents controlled and managed by our IBM ECM infrastructure, then use the SharePoint interface to collaborate on these engineering and design documents with other groups in AMEC, outside agencies and partners," said Marc-Henri J. Cerar, Project IT & Information Systems Manager, AMEC Paragon. "IBM's strategy for extending SharePoint will enable AMEC to address current business content management needs within our ECM infrastructure and allow us to meet upcoming challenges -- including integrated records and email management -- while streamlining business processes."

The flexibility of IBM's ECM strategy also represents a significant opportunity for IBM Business Partners. Ascendant Technology, a leading technology integrator, is ready to help their customers bring together key collaboration and social networking features within their larger enterprise content management strategy.

"The advanced Web 2.0 capabilities and easy-to-use interface of Lotus Quickr combined with IBM's world class ECM capabilities will offer businesses unmatched flexibility and features set," said Jim Deters president of Ascendant Technology. "We expect tremendous demand from our customers for this type of flexible ECM strategy."

IBM's Enterprise Content Management Offerings

IBM ECM Services for Lotus Quickr will enable customers to collaborate on business content, leveraging IBM ECM for business process optimization, auto-classification and regulatory compliance. The new services allow IBM customers to mix the Web-based collaboration and desktop integration of Lotus Notes, IBM Lotus Sametime, Microsoft Office, and Windows Explorer with IBM ECM capabilities. The IBM ECM Services for Lotus Quickr are the subject of a Design Partner Program with customers and Business Partners and are available in beta release today.

Also introduced today are IBM FileNet Connectors for Microsoft SharePoint version 2.2, which allow a seamless flow of content between IBM ECM repositories and Microsoft SharePoint servers. Content can be automatically moved or copied from Microsoft SharePoint to IBM ECM repositories and business processes can be accessed from SharePoint using IBM Web Parts. The IBM FileNet Connectors for Microsoft SharePoint version 2.2 will become generally available June 6.

To help customers develop a plan to effectively deploy these new offerings in conjunction with existing collaboration technologies and applications, and to educate customers on how to effectively advance ECM technologies throughout their organizations, IBM is offering design and consulting services. Led by knowledgeable and experienced architects, these services help customers expedite the implementation of ECM products across the enterprise, supporting ECM technologies in a way that helps ensure a cost-effective, flexible business solution.

For more information on IBM's Business Content Services, visit: http://www.ibm.com/software/data/content-management/business-content.html .

IBM, Lotus and Quickr are trademarks of IBM Corporation in the United States, other countries, or both. Microsoft is a trademark of Microsoft Corporation in the United States, other countries, or both.

For a list of additional IBM trademarks, please see www.ibm.com/legal/copytrade.shtml .