IBM And Extricity Team For Business-To-Business Integration

IBM is turning to Extricity Software Inc. to buttress its MQSeries enterprise application integration software offerings with business-to-business integration capabilities. IBM will co-market and resell Extricity's AllianceSeries integration products.

While IBM has a dominant stake in the integration market with its MQSeries messaging middleware and related enterprise-application integration software, analysts say the products are still primarily infrastructure, which limit the appeal to some IT shops. "MQSeries is not that close to the final solution," says John Mann, an analyst with the Patricia Seybold Group. "It's the plumbing, the foundation. People are more likely to buy houses than the foundation."

The Extricity alliance, much like a previous agreement with CrossWorlds Software, will help IBM demonstrate a clear business value for integration technology. And that business-to-business integration is critical as companies move increasingly into transaction-heavy E-business, Mann says.

The partnership will focus on three areas: supply-chain integration, integration of E-commerce sites to back-end systems, and formation of electronic marketplaces for buying and selling. The companies say no further software development is necessary for Extricity AllianceSeries to work with IBM, since Extricity had already built in support for MQSeries.