Agile Seeks New Channel Ties In Support Of New Product

Agile Software, whose products help companies manage the specifications and instructions used to build complex electronics and other products, intends to unveil Monday a forthcoming application called Product Service and Improvement [PSI].

Since a proposed $2 billion deal to merge with Ariba was scuttled last spring, Agile has been largely flying under the radar, but it has not been idle.

The PSI application, slated to be released in the first quarter of 2002, will offer "the ability to leverage the product information and expose it" to sales personnel, partners and customers, said Simon Parmett, vice president of industry marketing at the company, based here.

Systems integrators with expertise in CRM will likely play a significant role in PSI's rollout, Parmett said.

"As we get closer to delivering the new solution, I would expect conversations [with solution providers] to become more important," he said.

Agile is not new to building channel relationships. Sierra Atlantic, a Fremont, Calif.-based solution provider, has worked closely with Agile for about four years, said Mark Hebert, executive vice president of marketing and alliances at Sierra Atlantic.

Despite the economy, "there continues to be good demand for [product life-cycle collaboration] products, largely in the high-tech" area, Hebert said. He noted that from one-fourth to one-third of Sierra Atlantic's clients are technology companies, while so-called "process industries",including chemical manufacturers and food and beverage companies,are the next largest area of focus for the integrator.

Agile maintains a sales force of 50 or so quota-carrying sales representatives, said Lou Unkeless, vice president of solutions marketing. But having that number of direct salespeople "creates bandwidth issues," he said. "That gives me the opportunity to have other people sell my software for me."

The PSI application is one element in Agile's efforts to capture mind share in the strategic sourcing space. Agile hopes to exploit the model of a private e-business exchange in which primary and secondary suppliers, buyers and distributors are all in close contact with one another.

Certain features of Agile's software may or may not be applicable to companies in some industries, Parmett noted. For example, a chip maker would have little use for the software's inclusion of FDA guidelines around which a medical device manufacturer plans its products, he said.

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