Expanding their long-term partnership, Siebel Systems Inc. and IBM Corp. Tuesday announced a new deal that will see Siebel applications supporting IBM’s WebSphere platform.
While the two companies have been jointly selling Siebel CRM (customer relationship management) offerings since the late ’90s, the new arrangement focuses on four initiatives to more seamlessly integrate Siebel applications with key products in IBM’s portfolio.
Siebel eBusiness Applications will now support J2EE and Web Services running on the WebSphere Application Server and Portal Server, the companies explained, to enable better and faster application customization. Engineers from both companies are set to test Siebel’s eBusiness Applications on WebSphere ensuring availability, performance and reliability.
Through the joint support of business process integration via the standards-based combination of Universal Application Network (UAN) and WebSphere Business Integration Server, customers will be able to integrate CRM applications with other enterprise applications, reducing cost and complexity, the companies said.
Tighter integration of Siebel’s eBusiness applications with IBM Lotus messaging, calendaring and e-learning technologies means that users will have access to data stored in disparate systems and applications through familiar tool sets.
The companies have also increased the availability, reliability and scalability of Siebel’s eBusiness applications to support IBM’s Tivoli management software, DB2 database software, and Big Blue’s operating systems and servers including AIX, and zSeries.
In addition to the new deal, IBM and Siebel also announced Tuesday the launch of the Siebel Teller Application based on WebSphere technology. The branch teller offering for retail banking combines Siebel eBusiness Applications’ CRM functionality with the performance and integration features of WebSphere to enable banks to reduce costs while morphing into customer-focused financial centres, the companies said.
The expanded alliance will include joint sales, marketing and services for financial services, communications, automotive, electronics and technology, hospitality, life sciences, consumer goods, retail and government verticals. For more information, visit www.siebel.com. Big Blue can be found at www.ibm.com.