Vendor Spotlight:

IBM WINS EIGHT OVERALL CATEGORIES IN VARBusiness AWARDS

Recognized by its own solution providers for outstanding satisfaction levels, IBM walked away with eight overall category wins during the VARBusiness Annual Report (ARC) Awards ceremony at the XChange '04 Conference.

For the sixth year in a row, IBM eServer iSeries secured a category win in Midrange Servers and again won all three sub-categories for product innovation, support and partnership. Other IBM product families sweeping their respective categories were DB2 for Data Management Software, Tivoli for Enterprise Storage Management Software, WebSphere for Web Infrastructure Software, and IBM TotalStorage for Network Storage.

Winning enough subcategories to win the overall category honors were IBM eServer xSeries for Entry Level Servers, ThinkPad for Mobile Computing, and ThinkCentre and IntelliStation for Advanced Desktops & Workstations.

"IBM is honored to receive this vote of confidence from its Business Partners," said Donn Atkins, general manager, IBM Global Business Partners. "Business Partners play an integral role in the overall success of our company and these awards tell us that we are providing the technology solutions and consistent support our partners need."

Now in its 19th year, the VARBusiness ARC Awards recognize outstanding partner programs in 18 product and service categories. Winners were selected based on the survey results of more than 5,000 systems integrators, IT consulting organizations, value-added resellers (VARs), solution providers and software developers. Research was conducted by Bernett Research Services, a Boston- based data collection company, and Answers Research, the market research and consulting firm in Solana Beach, Calif.

"The VARBusiness Annual Report Card is the industry-defining research on vendor/partner relationships," says Editorial Director Robert C. DeMarzo. "It is a significant benchmark because the winners are selected by their own customers."

About IBM

With 80 years of leadership in helping businesses innovate, IBM is the world's largest information technology company. IBM is a leading provider of e- business solutions and is dedicated to helping companies, Business Partners and developers leverage the potential of the Internet and network computing across a wide range of businesses and industries. The company offers a host of cross-industry and industry specific solutions designed to meet the needs of companies of all sizes. For more information on partnering with IBM, please visit: http://www.ibm.com/partnerworld.