Lawson and IBM Target Small and Midsize Businesses in Key Vertical Markets
Lawson Software (Nasdaq:LWSN) today announced an expanded relationship with IBM (NYSE:IBM) to better serve small and midsize businesses (SMBs) in select industries. New Reseller Agreement Focuses on Financial Services, Fashion, and Food and Beverage Industries
ST. PAUL, Minn. (February 01, 2007) – Lawson Software (Nasdaq:LWSN) today announced an expanded relationship with IBM (NYSE:IBM) to better serve small and midsize businesses (SMBs) in select industries. Through the agreement, in North America, IBM will co-develop, sell and implement solutions based on Lawson’s enterprise software for SMBs, specifically designed for the needs of banking and insurance companies and for manufacturing firms in the fashion and food and beverage industries.
According to leading IT analyst firm IDC, the worldwide SMB opportunity is $404 billion, with the mid-market alone representing roughly half the total.(1) The objective of the expanded relationship is to allow both IBM and Lawson to capture a larger piece of this market opportunity by leveraging both companies’ software and industry-specific expertise. Under the agreement, IBM Global Business Services consultants will apply their knowledge of financial services, fashion and food and beverage manufacturing, and midsize businesses to develop industry vertical solutions based on Lawson enterprise applications. Lawson will collaborate with IBM hardware, software and sales experts to solve critical business and technology issues for SMBs in these targeted industries by developing and selling end-to-end packaged solutions.
The expanded agreement builds on IBM and Lawson’s current relationship which is focused on helping clients move to an open standards based service-oriented architecture (SOA), which allows organizations to automate business processes with their customers, partners and suppliers. The Lawson M3 and S3 enterprise management applications are being tailored specifically for mid-market customers in these industries, and will be integrated with IBM’s hardware, software and services, including IBM WebSphere, DB2, Tivoli, System i, System p, System x and System z. In addition, IBM has a broad array of go-to-market and sales resources in place, including SMB-focused sales territory managers, providing a quick and efficient way of reaching this client base. IBM and Lawson already have approximately 3,000 joint customers and look to expand upon that.
“IBM has a great track record of packaging solutions attractively for the SMB market, while Lawson offers enterprise applications specifically designed for financial services and manufacturing,” said Brian Sterrett, vice president of channels and partners for Lawson. “Our customers need industry-tailored solutions and business partners that they can trust to deliver simpler solutions with lower total cost of ownership.”
“IBM continues to increase its commitment to the mid-market by providing high value solutions to meet our customers’ industry-specific needs,” said Mark Hanny, vice president of worldwide ISV alliances, IBM. “By partnering with Lawson, we can now offer SMBs in these industries with a neatly packaged solution designed to automate business processes and enable them to take advantage of the powerful combination of IBM hardware, middleware and services.”
“Lawson’s solutions are designed to be simpler to own, implement and use,” said Sterrett. “This relationship with IBM will make it even simpler for customers in our service sector and manufacturing markets to make Lawson a part of their overall IT strategy. It also strengthens the base of delivery resources to support the adoption of Lawson M3 applications by manufacturing firms in North America.”
IBM is a worldwide leader in providing complete technology solutions – including hardware, software and services – to small and midsize businesses. IBM understands how to harness the power of innovation to help mid-sized clients enhance performance and drive growth, and collaborates with Business Partners and clients to generate new ideas and innovative solutions that deliver sustained business value.
Source: Lawson
