29
Fri, Nov
0 New Articles

IBM Expands Express Advantage Program

Development Tools / Utilities
Typography
  • Smaller Small Medium Big Bigger
  • Default Helvetica Segoe Georgia Times

At its PartnerWorld 2007 Conference, IBM announced the significant global expansion of its Express Advantage program for mid-sized businesses. IBM Express Advantage combines a comprehensive set of mid-market offerings, IBM Business Partner resources, and customer experience capabilities to create a unified, end-to-end approach to helping mid-market companies innovate and grow.

Launched last year in North America, IBM is introducing Express Advantage in 23 additional countries providing a platform for continued growth in the mid-market. IBM also announced a range of new and enhanced Express Advantage systems, software, and services offerings to complement its industry-leading mid-market portfolio, new end-to-end IBM Business Partner resources to fuel growth in the mid-market, as well as simplified access to IBM and IBMÆs Business Partners to make innovation easy for customers. To support the global expansion of Express Advantage, IBM also will spend more than $200M to generate demand through its new integrated mid-market program framework.

A recent survey conducted by IBM polled 1,200 mid-market firms from around the world in various industries and found nearly two out of three businesses plan to make more than one change in their business model over the next two years in order to better compete and drive expansion. Around the world, mid-sized businesses are increasingly looking beyond traditional markets and lines of business to expand their operations.

"IBM Express Advantage is the foundation of IBM's mid-market strategy and the catalyst that enables 'innovation made easy' for our customers," said Surjit Chana, vice president of Marketing for IBM global small and medium business. "This significant expansion of Express Advantage to 23 additional countries demonstrates our companywide commitment to providing the offerings, business partner ecosystem, and tools that mid-sized companies need to solve their toughest business challenges, innovate and grow."

The newest Express Advantage offerings include:
  • Servers: IBM System i 515 Express, IBM System i 525 Express
  • Storage: IBM System Storage TS2340 Tape Drive Express Model
  • Software: IBM Lotus Complete Messaging Express Starter Pack, IBM Lotus Complete Collaboration Express Starter Pack

In addition to the new Express Advantage offerings, IBM is also announcing many new resources for IBM Business Partners, designed specifically to provide them with end-to-end support as they deliver solutions to their mid-sized customers.

New resources and tools for IBM Business Partners include enhanced PartnerWorld Express Advantage web portals around the world, new and enhanced Solutions Builder Express starting points and an enhanced Solutions Consultant Express Tool.

IBM also introduced a new Business Continuity specialty offering market insights, technical enablement, go-to-market support and sales linkage to help IBM Business Partners deliver business continuity solutions.

Mid-sized customers around the world will also benefit from an expansion and enhancement of the Express Advantage Concierge/customer support team providing easy access to live mid-market skilled representatives from IBM who can respond to a variety of customer needs. This support team is available to any mid-sized company regardless of whether or not they are a current IBM customer and can help companies find the answers needed to solve business problems, find a local IBM Business Partner, or help them connect to the right IBM resources and technology.

"IBM Express Advantage enables Connectria, and other IBM Business Partners, to offer our clientsÆ valuable business and technology solutions that are specifically designed to meet their needs. With Express Advantage products and services we know it's been designed for and will solve our customers' problems and allow them to continue to focus on the growth and expansion of their business," said Chris Miller, director of messaging and collaboration technologies at Connectria.

IBM Express Advantage was designed to ensure mid-market businesses have simple solutions to tough problems based on a comprehensive line of offerings that are priced and designed specifically for mid-sized companies with support from our vast network of IBM Business Partners. Additionally, IBM Financing Advantage is available for IBM Express Advantage offerings and solutions. It offers small and mid-sized clients easy access to the capital they need to grow and innovate, great rates and easy to understand contracts.

The latest round of Express Advantage offerings address pain points mid-sized companies have named as primary challenges to growth and profitability.

The System i 515 Express for 5-40 users is a complete, simple IT infrastructure designed to keep pace with a growing enterprise. It has built-in virus resistance, database, storage and systems management technology as well as a built-in workload manager that allows clients to run and manage multiple applications independently on one system instead of deploying a new server every time they need another application.

The system i 525 Express for mid-size clients offers all the benefits of the System i 515 along with expansion options to easily accommodate more applications and users. Clients can start small and grow the system to meet new business demands thanks to Capacity on Demand, which provides the ability to purchase the system with one processor activated to run current applications and then activate a second processor to meet new application demands.

IBM System Storage TS2340 Tape Drive Express Model is an external stand-alone or rack-mountable tape drive incorporating the latest generation of IBM LTO technology. ItÆs a complete package for networked servers or individual workstations, archiving and retrieving data dependably and consistently.

The new IBM Lotus Complete Messaging Express Starter Pack and the new IBM Lotus Complete Collaboration Express Starter Pack pair IBM Lotus Domino Express and IBM Lotus Sametime in a single package available in 10-user license increments. These offerings are designed to be a new low-cost, high-value solution that provides IBM Business Partners with a compelling package for mid-market companies that need a complete collaboration solution to run their business more effectively.

The Lotus Complete Messaging Express Starter Pack makes it faster, easier and less expensive for mid-market companies to deploy secure and reliable e-mail, calendaring and scheduling, document libraries, blogs, Voice Over Internet Protocols (VoIP), instant messaging, point-to-point video and Web conferencing. The IBM Lotus Complete Collaboration Express Starter Pack includes all these capabilities and adds online team rooms and support for thousands of existing third-party Lotus Domino applications -- many of which are designed to support core business processes for mid-size companies spanning a wide variety of industries.

Express Advantage IBM Business Partner Ecosystem

In addition to new offerings, IBM has strengthened its network of IBM Business Partners with new tools designed to help partners expand their capabilities to sell to the mid-market.

IBM is expanding the PartnerWorld Industry Networks resources and support to provide a new mid-market IBM Business Partner Business Continuity Specialty. IBM Business Partners will be provided with:

  • Market Insights: Resources to help identify client pain points, business challenges and opportunities to sell IT infrastructure solutions including marketplace assessments and reason of call and client requirements identification
  • Technical Enablement: Extensive set of education and training for solution offerings including a comprehensive outline of solutions elements with starting points to accelerate solutions design
  • Go-to-Market support: Proactive ônurturersö, local marketing resources, free telemarketing, discounted advertising, and much more
  • Sales Linkage: Access to IBM industry field reps with established client relationships to help close deals.

IBM is also expanding and enhancing Solutions Builder Express to include new solution starting points. Solution starting points are just as their name suggests û starting points for the top IT solutions requested by mid-sized customers to which IBM Business Partners add their high value customization and services to complete the solution.

New starting points include, "Search for Diverse Data v1" which enables IBM Business Partners to develop solutions with a powerful enterprise search application to quickly locate information scattered through out the business and "Automating Business Processes with eForms," which enables IBM Business Partners to develop electronic forms to help customers streamline business processes.

Express Advantage: Customer Experience

IBM Express Advantage Concierge was introduced last year at PartnerWorld 2006 in March as a new customer support team that provides simplified access to IBMÆs extensive arsenal of people and resources. This year the customer support team concept will be extended to many new countries across the world providing mid-sized customers with a dedicated service that quickly and simply connects them with the right person to answer their questions. In the US, mid-sized customers can dial 1-877-IBM-ACCESS for support.

For more information about the Express Advantage initiative and the new Express Advantage offerings visit www.ibm.com/expressadvantage. For more information on PartnerWorld Express Advantage, the new IBM Business Partner Business Continuity Specialty, and Solutions Builder Express, please visit PartnerWorld Express Advantage. .

IBM is a leading global hybrid cloud and AI, and business services provider, helping clients in more than 175 countries capitalize on insights from their data, streamline business processes, reduce costs and gain the competitive edge in their industries. Nearly 3,000 government and corporate entities in critical infrastructure areas such as financial services, telecommunications and healthcare rely on IBM's hybrid cloud platform and Red Hat OpenShift to affect their digital transformations quickly, efficiently, and securely. IBM's breakthrough innovations in AI, quantum computing, industry-specific cloud solutions and business services deliver open and flexible options to our clients. All of this is backed by IBM's legendary commitment to trust, transparency, responsibility, inclusivity, and service.

For more information, visit: www.ibm.com.

BLOG COMMENTS POWERED BY DISQUS

LATEST COMMENTS

Support MC Press Online

$

Book Reviews

Resource Center

  • SB Profound WC 5536 Have you been wondering about Node.js? Our free Node.js Webinar Series takes you from total beginner to creating a fully-functional IBM i Node.js business application. You can find Part 1 here. In Part 2 of our free Node.js Webinar Series, Brian May teaches you the different tooling options available for writing code, debugging, and using Git for version control. Brian will briefly discuss the different tools available, and demonstrate his preferred setup for Node development on IBM i or any platform. Attend this webinar to learn:

  • SB Profound WP 5539More than ever, there is a demand for IT to deliver innovation. Your IBM i has been an essential part of your business operations for years. However, your organization may struggle to maintain the current system and implement new projects. The thousands of customers we've worked with and surveyed state that expectations regarding the digital footprint and vision of the company are not aligned with the current IT environment.

  • SB HelpSystems ROBOT Generic IBM announced the E1080 servers using the latest Power10 processor in September 2021. The most powerful processor from IBM to date, Power10 is designed to handle the demands of doing business in today’s high-tech atmosphere, including running cloud applications, supporting big data, and managing AI workloads. But what does Power10 mean for your data center? In this recorded webinar, IBMers Dan Sundt and Dylan Boday join IBM Power Champion Tom Huntington for a discussion on why Power10 technology is the right strategic investment if you run IBM i, AIX, or Linux. In this action-packed hour, Tom will share trends from the IBM i and AIX user communities while Dan and Dylan dive into the tech specs for key hardware, including:

  • Magic MarkTRY the one package that solves all your document design and printing challenges on all your platforms. Produce bar code labels, electronic forms, ad hoc reports, and RFID tags – without programming! MarkMagic is the only document design and print solution that combines report writing, WYSIWYG label and forms design, and conditional printing in one integrated product. Make sure your data survives when catastrophe hits. Request your trial now!  Request Now.

  • SB HelpSystems ROBOT GenericForms of ransomware has been around for over 30 years, and with more and more organizations suffering attacks each year, it continues to endure. What has made ransomware such a durable threat and what is the best way to combat it? In order to prevent ransomware, organizations must first understand how it works.

  • SB HelpSystems ROBOT GenericIT security is a top priority for businesses around the world, but most IBM i pros don’t know where to begin—and most cybersecurity experts don’t know IBM i. In this session, Robin Tatam explores the business impact of lax IBM i security, the top vulnerabilities putting IBM i at risk, and the steps you can take to protect your organization. If you’re looking to avoid unexpected downtime or corrupted data, you don’t want to miss this session.

  • SB HelpSystems ROBOT GenericCan you trust all of your users all of the time? A typical end user receives 16 malicious emails each month, but only 17 percent of these phishing campaigns are reported to IT. Once an attack is underway, most organizations won’t discover the breach until six months later. A staggering amount of damage can occur in that time. Despite these risks, 93 percent of organizations are leaving their IBM i systems vulnerable to cybercrime. In this on-demand webinar, IBM i security experts Robin Tatam and Sandi Moore will reveal:

  • FORTRA Disaster protection is vital to every business. Yet, it often consists of patched together procedures that are prone to error. From automatic backups to data encryption to media management, Robot automates the routine (yet often complex) tasks of iSeries backup and recovery, saving you time and money and making the process safer and more reliable. Automate your backups with the Robot Backup and Recovery Solution. Key features include:

  • FORTRAManaging messages on your IBM i can be more than a full-time job if you have to do it manually. Messages need a response and resources must be monitored—often over multiple systems and across platforms. How can you be sure you won’t miss important system events? Automate your message center with the Robot Message Management Solution. Key features include:

  • FORTRAThe thought of printing, distributing, and storing iSeries reports manually may reduce you to tears. Paper and labor costs associated with report generation can spiral out of control. Mountains of paper threaten to swamp your files. Robot automates report bursting, distribution, bundling, and archiving, and offers secure, selective online report viewing. Manage your reports with the Robot Report Management Solution. Key features include:

  • FORTRAFor over 30 years, Robot has been a leader in systems management for IBM i. With batch job creation and scheduling at its core, the Robot Job Scheduling Solution reduces the opportunity for human error and helps you maintain service levels, automating even the biggest, most complex runbooks. Manage your job schedule with the Robot Job Scheduling Solution. Key features include:

  • LANSA Business users want new applications now. Market and regulatory pressures require faster application updates and delivery into production. Your IBM i developers may be approaching retirement, and you see no sure way to fill their positions with experienced developers. In addition, you may be caught between maintaining your existing applications and the uncertainty of moving to something new.

  • LANSAWhen it comes to creating your business applications, there are hundreds of coding platforms and programming languages to choose from. These options range from very complex traditional programming languages to Low-Code platforms where sometimes no traditional coding experience is needed. Download our whitepaper, The Power of Writing Code in a Low-Code Solution, and:

  • LANSASupply Chain is becoming increasingly complex and unpredictable. From raw materials for manufacturing to food supply chains, the journey from source to production to delivery to consumers is marred with inefficiencies, manual processes, shortages, recalls, counterfeits, and scandals. In this webinar, we discuss how:

  • The MC Resource Centers bring you the widest selection of white papers, trial software, and on-demand webcasts for you to choose from. >> Review the list of White Papers, Trial Software or On-Demand Webcast at the MC Press Resource Center. >> Add the items to yru Cart and complet he checkout process and submit

  • Profound Logic Have you been wondering about Node.js? Our free Node.js Webinar Series takes you from total beginner to creating a fully-functional IBM i Node.js business application.

  • SB Profound WC 5536Join us for this hour-long webcast that will explore:

  • Fortra IT managers hoping to find new IBM i talent are discovering that the pool of experienced RPG programmers and operators or administrators with intimate knowledge of the operating system and the applications that run on it is small. This begs the question: How will you manage the platform that supports such a big part of your business? This guide offers strategies and software suggestions to help you plan IT staffing and resources and smooth the transition after your AS/400 talent retires. Read on to learn: