IBM focusing on ISVs to boost middleware sales

KOCHI: With an aim to shoulder responsibilities along with the independent software vendor (ISV) community, IBM has decided to add go-to-market capabilities to its set of ISV partnerships in the Asian region. This is expected to boost sales through its software business partners.

"India presents a huge market opportunity for us. The whole idea is to help the ISV community in this region leverage on our expertise as a middleware vendor and help them excel in their own domain in terms of designing and deploying various applications," informed, Steve Wilkins, director, ISV & Developer Relations and Ecosystem Project, IBM Asia Pacific.

Speaking at the IBM ISV Leadership summit 2005 here, Steve said that the company is now moving towards third generation of relationship with the channels. "Our first generation started about 10 years back when the software group was formed. The second generation was about building value channels and now we are moving towards the third generation, which is about integrating value for channels."

As part of its increased focus towards ISVs, the company has earmarked an investment of close to $22 million for the Asia Pacific region.

In a strategic decision, IBM has kept itself away from the software application side of things. It has encouraged ISVs and solution providers to develop and deploy applications and move tap new opportunities.

"We have realized that we cannot build best-of-breed software applications. We are best recognized as a middleware player and that is what we are going to focus on. But our middleware expertise has provided great opportunities to a lot of ISVs in this region. Moving forward we would focus our efforts in order to better utilize our expertise in the interest of a growing ISV community in this region," Steve said.