IBM Seeds Cloud for B2B Integration 
IBM continues with projects to ‘seed the cloud’ for mission-critical B2B integration. Just weeks after acquiring cloud appliance integrator Cast Iron Systems, IBM said it will buy longtime B2B provider Sterling Commerce, and will work with Ariba to tie their B2B offerings with IBM LotusLive for better cloud-based deal-making.
IBM continues with projects to ‘seed the cloud’ for mission-critical B2B integration. Just weeks after acquiring cloud appliance integrator Cast Iron Systems, IBM said it will buy longtime B2B provider Sterling Commerce, and will work with Ariba to tie their B2B offerings with LotusLive for better cloud-based deal-making.
Integration Developer News looks at the details and deliverables from IBM’s latest ‘cloud seeding’ projects
Ariba and IBM: B2B ‘Social’ Clouds
Ariba Inc. and IBM signed an agreement to integrate the Ariba Commerce Cloud and its Ariba Discovery service with IBM LotusLive. The idea is drive better commerce by matching B2B buyers and sellers in the cloud using collaboration and social networking, company officials said.
Integrating Ariba’s B2B commerce technologies with IBM’s Lotus collaboration tools, including web conferencing, instant messaging, social networking and file sharing, will let buyers and sellers better communicate and share information, especially in real-time. In turn, this will lead to better business decisions, more rapid information exchange about products and RFPs, and in the end lead to less waffling, along with more and quicker deals.
Ariba CTO Bhaskar Himatsingka put it this way: “Finding the right trading partners is hard. Collaborating with them to do business better is even harder. Our plans with IBM LotusLive [will] make it easier for buyers and sellers to collaborate in new ways by taking advantage of IBM’s powerful set of web-based tools for real-time collaboration within Ariba’s sourcing and sales process solutions.”
Sean Poulley, Vice President, IBM Cloud Collaboration said combining LotusLive and the Ariba Commerce Cloud will help partners, suppliers and customers more easily work together across company boundaries to help employees do their jobs more efficiently and cost-effectively.
LotusLive’s business networking and collaboration capabilities are available as cloud-based services hosted by Lotus Software...
There are several LotusLive offerings:
- LotusLive Connections provides an integrated set of collaboration tools for business networking, instant messaging, sharing files, managing collaborative tasks called "Activities," visualizing data, and sending out surveys.
- LotusLive Meetings is a full-featured, web-based online meeting service.
- LotusLive Engage combines the functionality of LotusLive Connections and LotusLive Meetings.
- LotusLive Events adds event management (such as automatic e-mail announcements and event rehearsal) to LotusLive Meetings.
- LotusLive Notes is a service where a customer uses its installation of Lotus Notes to access an installation of the Lotus Domino e-mail and calendar server that is hosted and managed by IBM Lotus.
Sterling Commerce with its heritage of electronic data interchange (EDI) and more recently B2B trading partner management software, brings IBM a formidable installed base to build on for its B2B cloud efforts. Sterling brings a customer base of some 18,000, according to figures provided by the companies.
IBM’s Cloud To Get a ‘Sterling’ Silver Lining
IBM will purchase Sterling Commerce from AT&T for about $1.4 billion. The all-cash deal will expand IBM WebSphere’s ability to help organizations create what Big Blue called “more intelligent and dynamic business networks,” by simplifying and automating the way they connect and communicate with customers, partners and suppliers. The Sterling technologies will be applied to both on-premise and cloud-based solutions.
Sterling enables more than 1 billion business interactions a year for clients in the financial services, retail, manufacturing, communications and distribution industries. IBM officials said they see this number “growing dramatically,” largely due to the proliferation of electronic business transactions banks, manufacturers, retailers and other sectors.
Sterling’s portfolio handles much of IT, integration and support issues that comprise the ‘trading partner lifecycle,’ including on-boarding; partner (end-to-end) IT and data compatibility; governance, trust and validation (among partners); transaction validation; and identity management
Sterling Commerce’s technology offerings will also “strongly complement IBM's middleware portfolio,” said Craig Hayman, general manager, WebSphere, IBM in a statement.
By acquiring Sterling’s portfolio and trading partner network, Hayman noted that IBM will get 3 main benefits:
- Design and deliver powerful new cross-channel solutions.
- Leverage Sterling’s expertise in key verticals sectors to compliment IBM's industry-specific frameworks for the WebSphere middleware portfolio.
- Accelerate availability of mission-critical B2B cloud-based solutions. To allow customers to manage their business partner and supply chain networks.
"This acquisition will give IBM new tools to help clients build dynamic business networks that connect partners, suppliers and clients and deliver a consistent customer experience across channels. In addition, the fact that much of this can be done in the cloud will make it compelling to large numbers of our customers,"
Hayman did not provide specific details on how Sterling’s portfolio would be integrated with IBM WebSphere offerings. IBM expects that the purchase will close in the second half of 2010, pending regulatory approvals.
UPCOMING EVENTS
