IBM and Ironside Ink E-Business Agreement
Following closely on the heels of its move into the AS/400 market late last year, Ironside Technologies Inc. announces a co-marketing agreement with IBM to integrate IBM Net.Commerce with Ironside Powered solutions, according to published reports.
Ironside's Ironside Powered solutions for the AS/400 are expected to extend the capabilities of Net.Commerce. "As more companies realize the benefits of e-business, reliability, speed and security become even more crucial," says Scott Armour, director of worldwide ISV software sales and marketing for IBM's Software Group.
Ironside Powered products are designed to provide real-time integration with a manufacturer's or distributor's existing host order-management system. This is done to provide customers with access to the more current product, pricing, inventory and ordering information.
"IBM's Net.Commerce product enhances the capabilities of Ironside Powered solutions by providing additional extended functionality that many not exist on a host system today," says Bill Lipsin, president and CEO of Ironside, whose U.S. headquarters is Pleasanton, Calif. "The combination of Net.Commerce's outstanding flexibility and Ironside's advanced speed and real-time integration will enable us to offer manufacturers and distributors a very powerful business-to-business e-commerce solution."
Net.Commerce is part of IBM's expanded WebSphere family of applications servers and will assume WebSphere branding in 1999.
--L. Greenemeier