The centre, which cost "north of five million dollars" to create, is designed to encourage independent software vendors (ISVs) and developers to port their applications to IBM hardware and middleware by helping them test and optimise the software across the range of IBM technology. It is also a benchmarking and education facility, and provides a location for end-user customer demonstrations.
Andrew Baker, director of Global Business Partners, IBM Australia/New Zealand, told ZDNet Australia IBM regards its business partners as being vitally important to its business, citing figures such as 47 percent of new opportunities being sourced through ISVs.
As part of this strategy to work closely with ISVs, IBM exited the application market in 1997. "We made an absolute commitment to open standard, in things like Java, XML and Linux, which of course are areas IBM didn't invent but we're extremely strong in," said Baker.
"Customers are clearly looking for choice in the marketplace, and the way that we sought to deliver that is getting right behind open standards, such as Linux and Java, and that is fuelling our growth," said Baker. "That's why IBM is so heavily behind open standards in the market...it really opens up the partnering landscape for our business partners as well."
