IBM Pledges $500 Million for SMB Initiative
By Lisa Vaas |
Posted 2003-01-29
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IBM aims to help its 90,000 business partners snag a chunk of the $300 billion small-and-medium business marketplace.
IBM on Wednesday made a $500 million pledge to helps its 90,000 business partners snag a chunk of the $300 billion small-and-medium business marketplace.
Big Blue is putting the money into a broad initiative, called the IBM SMB (Small and Medium Business) Advantage, that will consist of channel-enablement activities, incentives, demand-generation tools and teaming opportunities, all provided under IBMs PartnerWorld program and all set to formally roll out at PartnerWorld 2003 in New Orleans in February.
IBM plans to launch other channel enablement initiatives at PartnerWorld 2003, including the IBM SMB Advantage Web Portal and SMB education via PartnerWorld University. These programs will offer materials to help partners deliver IBM offerings that are designed with SMBs in mind.
IBM also announced three new incentives geared to increase profit potential of sales to SMB customers. eServers and Storage is a set of incentives pertaining to eServer lines and storage products. The incentives allow business partners to target new, competitive and dormant accounts as well as existing customers. In addition, IBM in April will release a new Web-based tool to make it faster and easier to claim incentives from SMB sales.
Value Advantage is another new incentive program that revolves around software. Its designed to reward partners that deliver applications and services from solution providers. For customer-facing business partners, Value Advantage offers a new incentive called Value Advantage Plus, which rewards qualified participants when they sell applications and services together with IBM software to SMB customers. These incentives will be available globally in May.
Finally, Services incentives will feature a higher base discount for business partners in Europe, Middle East and Africa when they sell services with IBM hardware into the SMB market, starting July 1.
IBM has invested in tools to allow partners to leverage IBMs investment in demand generation. One tool, called Campaign Designer, has over 130 ready-to-use industry-specific marketing materials. IBM will also give partners access to prospect data in selected countries to assist in co-marketing campaigns, which also include teleprospecting offerings.
SMB Advantage is the latest of IBMs recent efforts to kindle the flame under those of its partners that cater to the SMB market. Other recently launched SMB offerings include WebSphere Application Server Express and WebSphere Portal Express, a line of eServers for SMBs that includes the new eServer iSeries integrated servers from IBM Global Services, which are packaged for business partners to resell and customize.
Another new program is Insight Exchange, a program
announced last week that is designed to help business partners swap ideas and glean insights into industry knowledge and trends.
Lisa Vaas is News Editor/Operations for eWEEK.com and also serves as editor of the Database topic center. Since 1995, she has also been a Webcast news show anchorperson and a reporter covering the IT industry. She has focused on customer relationship management technology, IT salaries and careers, effects of the H1-B visa on the technology workforce, wireless technology, security, and, most recently, databases and the technologies that touch upon them. Her articles have appeared in eWEEK's print edition, on eWEEK.com, and in the startup IT magazine PC Connection. Prior to becoming a journalist, Vaas experienced an array of eye-opening careers, including driving a cab in Boston, photographing cranky babies in shopping malls, selling cameras, typography and computer training. She stopped a hair short of finishing an M.A. in English at the University of Massachusetts in Boston. She earned a B.S. in Communications from Emerson College. She runs two open-mic reading series in Boston and currently keeps bees in her home in Mashpee, Mass.
