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IBM inks software pacts
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May 3, 2000: 4:18 p.m. ET
Big Blue sees $1 billion in revenue from four separate deals over next three years
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NEW YORK (CNNfn) - Taking aim at the burgeoning market for electronic financial services, IBM on Wednesday said it has entered into four separate software alliances which it expects to bring in roughly $1 billion in revenue over the next three years.
The announcements are part of a broader strategy through which IBM has been partnering with financial services firms to broaden its product offerings in that area, according to a company spokesman.
"This is the same initiative that's brought us Siebel Systems, I2 and Ariba," the spokesman said. "And you'll see a variety of other partners coming on line in the next few weeks and months."
 With the largest of the alliances announced Wednesday, IBM is teaming with TiG, a unit of Canada's Fairfax Financial Holdings, to create software that promises to reduce claims-management costs by 10-to-20 percent.
The other deals include pacts with S1 (SONE: Research, Estimates) and privately-held Yojna, each of which specializes in Internet banking systems, and an alliance with privately-held CommercialWare, a Boston-based software provider in the online retail market.
These deals are the latest in a string of alliances with business software suppliers through which IBM is executing a strategy it hopes will increase sales among all its business units by as much as $5 billion over the next three years.
The partnerships forged with Siebel Systems (SEBL: Research, Estimates), I2 (ITWO: Research, Estimates) and Ariba (ARBA: Research, Estimates) in recent months were part of that same strategy, the spokesman said.
As the companies jointly market the applications that are made by those software providers, IBM picks up revenue through the associated sale of middleware - software that functions as a conversion or translation layer - hardware and services.
The strategy takes aim at competitors such Oracle (ORCL: Research, Estimates), Sun Microsystems (SUNW: Research, Estimates), Microsoft (MSFT: Research, Estimates), and services and consulting firms Anderson Consulting and Ernst & Young.
IBM did not break out the revenue expected from each of the alliances.
Big Blue shares were down 4-1/2, or 3.9 percent, at 107 in light-volume trading on the New York Stock Exchange late Wednesday afternoon. 
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