IBM Acquires Bowstreet, Inc. to Help Customers Quickly Create Portals that Integrate Existing Business Applications

IBM today announced the acquisition of Bowstreet, Inc.,a Massachusetts-based provider of portal-based tools and technologythat helps companies bring together corporate applications, documents,databases and other enterprise information into a single, integratedportal application, without requiring significant technical skills. Bybringing together assorted data and information into a single"composite" application, businesses can more easily share and connecttheir data with customers, partners and suppliers, which increasescollaboration and leads to increased organizational productivity.

Bowstreet will help further IBM's strategy around service orientedarchitectures (SOA), a standards-based framework that enablesenterprises to more effectively integrate data and applications withcustomers, partners and suppliers. Bowstreet will enable customers tomore easily combine a wide variety of pre-existing data and enterpriseapplications seamlessly with their WebSphere Portal environments andleverage the benefits of an SOA architecture.

"For a global corporation with offices in many countries it is achallenging task to coordinate all aspects of its business operations.It soon became obvious that we needed a centralized, portal-basedframework that would allow groups around the world to easily accessand share business data," said Thomas Berrang, vice president ofeBusiness Enabling at Bayer Business Services. "We chose a combinedWebSphere Portal and Bowstreet solution to build a secure standardizedand adaptable framework. It provides a common user interface andincludes tools to create customized workplaces that may integrate allkinds of systems and applications. This solution helped tosignificantly accelerate processes within the company and increaseefficiency, particularly in the area of customer service. Today,employees at Bayer can easily access important information and arethus able to react with greater flexibility to the needs of theircustomers."

As more organizations move away from "one size fits all" software,demand for tailored, customizable software has dramatically increased.By adding Bowstreet technology to IBM's software portfolio, IBMcustomers can now quickly and easily develop tailored, integratedportal solutions designed to meet the specific business needs of theirmarket or vertical industry. Based on results of more than 100 jointcustomer engagements over the last three years, customers usingBowstreet technology with IBM Rational software built portalapplications between 2 to 12 times faster than when using otherportlet tools, drastically reducing development costs and producingbusiness benefits in less time.

"Companies are looking for new ways to combine their various silosof information and applications into a single view that can help themmake better business decisions, reduce costs and improvetime-to-value," said Mike Rhodin, general manager of IBM's Workplace,Portal and collaboration business. "We believe the combination ofBowstreet, Rational and IBM WebSphere Portal offer the best in marketcapability for building and running composite applications. Thecombination of Bowstreet and WebSphere Portal provides customers witha simple way to blend assorted data and information into a singleapplication, allowing customers to more quickly react to changingbusiness needs and market events, help lower their IT maintenancecosts, and more easily tailor business processes to meet their needs,"he added.

"As organizations have to manage an increasing amount ofinformation on multiple and disparate systems, the combination ofBowstreet and WebSphere Portal can make it easier for them to takebusiness information from a variety of sources and quickly assemblecomposite portal solutions," said Michael George, Bowstreet CEO. "Bycombining the integration capabilities of WebSphere Portal with thesimplicity, versatility and speed of Bowstreet, IBM is givingcustomers the ability to quickly and easily build flexible,data-centric portal solutions that maximize the value of their legacyapplications and help them better compete."

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