IBM and Intuit® Eclipse™, a leading provider of business management software solutions for wholesale distributors, today announced a marketing and technology agreement that will help small and medium sized business customers better manage critical business components, including order processing, inventory control, accounting, purchasing and customer service.
The agreement with Intuit Eclipse, covering the United States, Canada and Mexico, is among the first such deals under IBM's new ISV Advantage Initiative, which is designed to provide select mid-market ISV business partners with an open infrastructure platform, as well as technical and marketing support, to help meet the specific needs of small and medium business customers.
As part of the agreement, Intuit Eclipse will optimize its Distribution Management Solutions (DMS) application suite for IBM's WebSphere* Application Server Express, which will more tightly integrate the two companies' technologies. The agreement, announced today at IBM's developerWorks Live! conference in New Orleans and at the Intuit Eclipse Users Conference in Denver, expands on an existing commitment to IBM in which Intuit Eclipse is built upon the IBM Universe database, and runs on IBM eServer* pSeries* and xSeries* hardware. Under terms of the agreement, Intuit Eclipse will continue to deliver DMS solutions with IBM hardware and middleware.
IBM will also be promoting Intuit Eclipse's product as part of a leading e-business SMB Solution for Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP), Supply Chain Management (SCM) and Customer Relationship Management (CRM) Extensions for Wholesale Distribution in the following sub-segments:
- Industrial Maintenance Repair Operations (MRO)
- Plumbing, Heating, Ventilation, Air Conditioning
- Specialty Industrial
- Building Materials
- Electrical
- Bearings and Fasteners
"Tight integration between Intuit Eclipse's applications and IBM's software and hardware platforms provides the power and flexibility for wholesale distributors to automate their business processes, penetrate new markets and improve their ability to serve existing customers," said Mark Ouellette, Vice President, SMB Software Sales, IBM. "We consider this to be an exciting and important collaboration and, together, we extend our ability to help customers implement customer-centric solutions that closely fit their business requirements."
"Optimizing Intuit Eclipse DMS for IBM WebSphere Application Server Express will help us better serve wholesale distributors with solutions that are right for their business," said Michael Honig, Director of Business Development for Intuit Eclipse. "Teaming with IBM enables Intuit Eclipse to better deliver solutions that are easy to implement and integrate with existing applications, freeing them to focus on meeting the needs of their customers."
