IBM Adds To Express Lineup For Midmarket
The company on Friday unveiled software products: WebSphere Business Integration Connect, designed to facilitate partner-to-partner connections; DB Everyplace Express, for embedded database applications; and WebSphere Business Integration Express For Item Synchronization for supply chain management.
The offerings, packaged and priced for companies with 100 to 1,000 employees, are part of IBM Software's big push into the midmarket, where it competes head-on with Microsoft. IBM's strength has historically been in larger enterprises.
"We score all these offerings, and they don't get the Express moniker unless they meet our criteria for ease of use, ease of installation and price," said Mark Ouellette, vice president of SMB at IBM Software, Somers, N.Y.
In this market, IBM is pushing Linux and Windows versions of its server infrastructure software adapted for smaller customers. The longwindedly-named WebSphere Business Integration Express For Item Synchronization product, for example, "brings the supply chain focus of larger enterprise use with their downstream partners and customers to smaller companies," Ouellette said.
The item synchronization software costs $35,000. IBM said that compares favorably with a variety of Microsoft offerings that are functionally similar, including BizTalk Server Enterprise edition ($25,000), the Microsoft SAP adapter ($15,000) plus SQL Server and customer support, which add to the total.
WebSphere Business Integration Connect Express, designed for up to 999 people, will ship later this quarter for Linux and Windows and weigh in at $625 per connection plus $625 per server, compared with Microsoft's BizTalk Server at $499 per seat and $7,000 per CPU, IBM said.
DB2 Everyplace Express, for embedding into mobile devices, costs $4,329 for 50 users and competes with Oracle 9i Lite and SQL Server for Windows CE. The IBM database is available now for Windows and Linux.
IBM's Express push into the midmarket arena began about a year ago (see story). And some solution providers say IBM Express is making a credible charge into that market.
NetCom Systems, for one, is working with WebSphere Integration Express to connect partners and suppliers through EDI channels and "connect old legacy systems with new systems to cut down on errors," said Scott Jones, account executive at the Edison, N.J.-based solution provider.
"This reduces the old fax-and-phone two-step," Jones said. In supply chain applications that run beyond firewalls, there's typically a lot of manual data re-entry, a huge source of errors, he noted.
IBM has stated and restated that it is leading its SMB push with channel-friendly offerings and recruiting ISVs to develop applications atop its infrastructure. IBM executives also stress that the company isn't in the applications business, making it less of a conflict for ISVs to work with IBM than with Microsoft.
However, whether IBM is in the apps business is the matter of some debate and depends on who is defining applications.
One analyst, while generally positive on IBM's Express push, said some offerings are blurring that application line. IBM's new product life-cycle management offering, PLM Express, is an application developed in conjunction with ISV partner Dassault Systemes. So while there is a third-party ISV partner involved, What if I'm AutoDesk? Why would I build on WebSphere if IBM is competing with me?" asked James Governor, principal analyst at Redmonk, a Bath, Maine-based research firm.
Some industry observers also argue that DB2 Content Manager, also now available in an Express version, could be considered an application as well.