SAN DIEGO, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Oct. 8, 2003--IBM and Siebel Systems (Company
Profile, Past
Stories, Case
Studies), Inc. (Nasdaq:SEBL - News) announced today during Siebel User Week 2003 that they have expanded their global strategic alliance to include
dedicated IBM Business Consulting Services (BCS) practitioners focused on Siebel Analytics Applications and the broader enterprise business intelligence marketplace. In
addition, both companies are collaborating in the development of industry specific business intelligence solutions and infrastructure optimization across the full range of IBM
software and hardware solutions to deliver highly scalable and reliable business intelligence solutions.
IBM Business Consulting Services has built one of the world's largest Siebel practices -- with more than 1,000 engagements -- to help leading business organizations
achieve significant returns on CRM investments. While companies have documented real business successes in terms of reducing wait times in the call center, improving
service levels, and tracking opportunities and pipeline, the focus has largely been on operational data. Until recently, organizations have not been able to access the rich
repositories of customer data in a meaningful and intuitive manner and use them to drive more fact-based interactions with their customers.
These companies understand that maximizing organizational effectiveness in today's competitive marketplaces requires new thinking, management approaches and analytic
approaches that go beyond traditional business intelligence tools.
"IBM shares a vision with Siebel that on-demand insight is the new source of competitive advantage and differentiation," said Adam Klaber, global CRM leader for
IBM Business Consulting Services. "In our work with clients across all industries, we have witnessed first hand the need for business intelligence solutions that provide
deeper insight to a much broader set of users. Siebel's analytics applications and next generation business intelligence solutions, combined with IBM's business consulting,
hardware and software platforms, uniquely meet the emerging need for enterprise-wide customer and business intelligence."
To address the emerging market of customer and business analytics, IBM BCS has formed a global practice and Center of Excellence focused on Siebel Analytics. With
more than 2,000 business intelligence consultants, IBM is a leading provider of business intelligence solutions, and IBM's software and hardware platforms are an industry
standard for reliable, scalable business intelligence deployments. Siebel and IBM are involved in joint technical development initiatives to provide optimal performance and
integration between the Siebel Analytics products and numerous IBM platform technologies including WebSphere, DB2, AIX and IBM's OnDemand computing
model/architecture.
"We see this global strategic alliance with IBM, a leading provider of consulting services and infrastructure technologies for business intelligence, as an important
validation of Siebel's analytic applications and next generation business intelligence platform products," said Larry Barbetta, Group Vice President for Siebel Analytics.
"Through this relationship, we are providing our joint customers with best-in-class analytic products, infrastructure, and expertise, enabling them to achieve the highest
levels of ROI and business results."
Siebel Analytics along with IBM BCS, IBM Data Management, and IBM eServer have significant project experience and solutions across a broad range of industries with
major implementations at General Motors, AXA Financial, British Columbia Automobile Association, Warner Home Video, ABN Amro Private Banking, and Nissan North
America.
Another important aspect of the relationship is collaboration on industry specific solutions, leveraging the Siebel Analytics products and IBM's analytic products and service
assets and expertise. Significant efforts in this area have been underway, with solutions now available for banking, insurance and consumer goods. IBM and Siebel Systems
are integrating Siebel Analytics with IBM's Banking Data Warehouse (BDW) and Insurance Information Warehouse (IIW) products. These integrated industry solutions will
deliver best-of-breed customer and business insight focused on customer and product line profitability, asset and liability management, risk assessment, and operational
effectiveness. IBM and Intel have also developed a Trade Funds Management solutions offering featuring Siebel Analytics to help customers better manage and optimize
trade planning and spending and facilitate the deduction and settlement processes in the consumer goods industry. This application can drive dramatic improvement in
revenues and marketing ROI through more effective promotions.
Next-generation business intelligence (BI) solutions demand a reliable and scalable infrastructure to support exploding amounts of data and the on demand analytic
requirements of thousands of end users. IBM and Siebel Systems have optimized the scalability of Siebel Analytics across IBM's full range of Information Management and
hardware products. This includes native access to IBM DB2 Universal Database to exploit BI-platform features for optimized scalability and performance, as well as certified
support for DB2, a leading choice for large data warehouses and complex decision support applications.
"DB2 provides a strong foundation on which to build a business intelligence solution to help businesses gain insight into their customers' needs," said Karen
Parrish, vice president, Worldwide Business Intelligence Solutions, IBM. "When combined with Siebel Analytics, which truly exploits DB2's architecture and BI
features, IBM and Siebel Analytics offer an even more powerful and compelling platform for customers looking for a competitive advantage."
The latest version of Siebel Analytics has also been enhanced to improve security, performance and clustering on IBM pSeries running AIX and seamless integration with
IBM WebSphere to exploit the full range of analytics functionality through Web Services APIs. IBM and Siebel Systems plan to collaborate on additional technology
initiatives to deliver the most complete and highly scalable platform for business intelligence applications.
About IBM
IBM is the world's largest information technology company with more than 300,000 employees worldwide. With consultants and professional staff in more than 160 countries
globally, IBM Business Consulting Services is the world's largest consulting services organization. IBM Business Consulting Services provides clients with business process
and industry expertise, and the ability to translate that expertise into integrated, adaptive, on demand business solutions and services that deliver bottom-line business
value. For more information, visit www.ibm.com.
About Siebel Systems
Siebel Systems, Inc. is a leading provider of eBusiness applications software, enabling corporations to sell to, market to, and serve customers across multiple channels and
lines of business. With more than 3,500 customer deployments worldwide, Siebel Systems provides organizations with a proven set of industry-specific best practices, CRM
applications, and business processes, empowering them to consistently deliver superior customer experiences and establish more profitable customer relationships. Siebel
Systems' sales and service facilities are located in more than 30 countries.
Except for the historical information contained herein, this press release contains forward-looking statements that involve risk or uncertainties. Future operating results of
Siebel Systems may differ from the results discussed or forecasted in the forward-looking statements due to factors that include, but are not limited to, risks associated with
customer relations, such as the availability of Siebel Systems' products and services, customer implementation of products and services, relationships with customers,
third-party vendors and systems integrators, concentration of revenues in a relatively small number of customers, existence of errors or defects in products, ability to
successfully manage growth, significant current and expected additional competition, and the need to continue to expand product distribution and services offerings. Further
information on potential factors that could affect the financial results of Siebel Systems are included in Siebel Systems' Annual Report on Form 10-K, Quarterly Reports on
Form 10-Q, and its other filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, which are available at www.sec.gov. Siebel Systems assumes no obligation to update the
information in this press release.
Siebel is a trademark of Siebel Systems, Inc. and may be registered in certain jurisdictions. All other product and company names mentioned are the property of their
respective owners and are mentioned for identification purposes only.
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