IBM Pairs ISVs With Channel Partners

Twenty software companies in IBM's ISV Advantage program are participating in the initial IBM "teaming workshops," which essentially serve as networking and educational sessions between ISVs, resellers and/or services partners, and IBM staffers, according to Debra Thompson, vice president of marketing for IBM's global SMB business. The goal is twofold: to introduce the channel distribution model to ISVs, many of whom have only sold direct, and to help resellers add new types of software solutions to their repertoire.

Such synergy is the only way to effectively tap into the needs of SMB customers, Thompson says.

"Two-thirds of SMB customers want to buy solutions, both business and infrastructure. And these companies cannot integrate the solutions themselves," she says. "So they need to outsource. By pairing the ISV and the regional integrators, we try to make it an easy process."

The idea behind the teaming workshops, which began in August and September, is to pair ISVs and solution providers together in ways that match their domain skillsets. IBM brings the parties to the table, assists with go-to-market plans and distribution strategies, but ultimately the ISVs and resellers choose whom to work with.

IFS is one such ISV. The $328 million Swedish purveyor of back-office business applications such as ERP, supply-chain management and CRM software, historically sold only direct to its core SMB customer set. But IFS wants to grow and concluded that it could not do so organically. It needed a channel. The other factor driving IFS toward resellers was the ongoing consolidation in enterprise software, from PeopleSoft buying J.D. Edwards, to Oracle now breathing down the neck of PeopleSoft.

"We found that as consolidation in industry happened, we were seeing strong distributors of competing products to ours getting nervous," says Dave Eager, director of strategic alliances at IFS. "And we saw an opportunity to increase footprint in North America by picking up some of these traditionally competitive distributors and partnering with them."

Eager notes correctly the trend away from overcommitting to one software vendor on the part of resellers, particularly in the enterprise applications space. He says he saw an opening among J.D. Edwards and PeopleSoft VARs to push the IFS software.

As for IBM, Eager says the teaming workshop helped IFS make crucial contacts with solution providers and begin to build out the indirect channel by identifying appropriate market segments to pursue and programs to put in place. In just a couple months, IFS has signed with three partners: MSS Technology, Corning Data and Brij, all of which are doing both resales and implementation. The model is paying off, Eager says: MSS Technology closed the first IFS software deal in just 35 days.

"Indirect gives you almost immediate feet on the street," he says. "And these companies know the industry and the software market."

The biggest challenge at present, he says, is making sure partners continue to keep up to speed with training and certification.

On IBM's end, Thompson says she hopes to expand the program to more ISVs in the future, depending on ISV interest.