IBM and Vignette Corp Announce Strategic Alliance

IBM and Vignette Corp, two leading e-business solution providers, announced a global strategic alliance to meet growing e-marketplace demands in retail, financial and NetGen (dotcom) sectors.

The alliance integrates Vignette's V/5 e-business applications with IBM's industry-leading WebSphere e-business platform. Together, the two companies will supply customers with e-business solutions that grow market share, reduce deployment times and provide the infrastructure for each stage of e-business development.

The integration will enhance the family of WebSphere products, including WebSphere Commerce Suite and WebSphere Application Server, which currently provides a fully integrated middleware solution. The Vignette V/5 e-business suite will be tightly integrated into the WebSphere family, adding the necessary applications that enable businesses to create and extend relationships with prospects and customers and ease high-volume transaction exchanges with suppliers and partners on the web, ultimately enhancing customer satisfaction.

"The Vignette and IBM alliance is the perfect combination for calming the chaos in today's competitive e-business marketplace. With Vignette's innovative software and IBM's leadership, technology and global reach, we have developed a winning team so that all customers can have the best e-business solutions in the market," said Greg Peters, president and CEO, Vignette Corp.

The multi-year agreement is an aggressive e-business strategy by two industry leaders and includes joint marketing, services and helping Vignette to integrate on WebSphere Application Server. IBM and Vignette's initial focus will be in the retail, financial and "Netgen" (dot.com) industries, and both plan to expand to other industries in the coming months. New York Life, LexMark, Vitea AB (Sweden) and PaineWebber are among the organizations and companies that run their e-businesses with the combined forces of IBM and Vignette.

"The combination of IBM's WebSphere e-business platform and Vignette's V/5 e-business applications is unmatched in today's marketplace. Key customers are demanding the IBM/Vignette combination to run their e-business," said Steve Mills, senior vice president and group executive, IBM Software. This alliance will give e-businesses the competitive advantage they need to decrease time to deployment." The two organizations will jointly market Vignette V/5 e-business applications and the IBM WebSphere Application Server Platform, WebSphere Commerce Suite, IBM's DB2 Universal Database and are optimized for IBM's RS/6000 and Netfinity servers. Dedicated engineering, product marketing and quality assurance teams will manage the integration and optimization of the entire integrated e-business solution. The Vignette V/5 e-business applications will fully support the IBM Application Framework for e-business -- a roadmap for integrating Internet technologies with traditional information technologies.

Earlier this year, Vignette announced a comprehensive, three-tiered Java technology strategy that will provide deep support for the J2EE standard, including JAVA Server pages (JSP) as a native scripting language for rapidly developing applications.

"PaineWebber's clients have strongly embraced our online services, and we have selected Vignette's e-business software and IBM's WebSphere application server to help us provide them with a more personalized and high performance online experience," said Phillip K. Hsu, corporate vice president and manager of on-line personalization initiatives for PaineWebber's Private Client Group.

In addition, IBM Global Services will grow its worldwide services practice focusing on Vignette V/5's support of eCRM and e-commerce from 100 IBM services professionals to in excess of 500. Prospective customers will be able to visit IBM's Business Innovation Centers that will feature Vignette V/5 e-business applications. IBM experts in Vignette products will help customers identify, build, integrate, and deploy solutions that meet their specific business needs.

The IBM -- Vignette alliance is part of a developer initiative through PartnerWorld for Developers in which IBM forms strategic relationships with leading application developers. Under the initiative, developers gain access to new customers and revenue opportunities through IBM's extensive marketing, sales, and solutions resources. At the same time, developers lead with IBM's middleware, server platforms and services.

About IBM PartnerWorld for Developers

Software application developers receive support from IBM's PartnerWorld for Developers (PWD) - a worldwide program designed to help software developers reach broader markets, lower their costs of doing business, and take their products to market faster. Developers may contact IBM via: PWD at www.developer.ibm.com or 1-800-627-8363 in North America (NA), 1-770- 835-9902 outside North America.

About IBM

IBM is one of the world's largest information technology companies, with 80 years of leadership in helping businesses innovate. The fastest way to get more information about IBM is through the IBM home page at www.ibm.com.

About Vignette

Vignette Corporation is a leading supplier of e-business applications. Vignette's products enable businesses to create and extend relationships with prospects and customers and ease high-volume transaction exchanges with suppliers and partners, all of which enhances customer satisfaction. Vignette powers more than 900 leading e-businesses. Headquartered in Austin, Texas, Vignette Corporation has offices located throughout Europe, Asia, and in Australia and can be found on the Web at www.vignette.com.