IBM Corp expects to have consolidated its distribution channels for all of its and Lotus’s software by the first part of next year, according Mark Elliott, vice-president, software for IBM Europe, Middle East, Africa at the EuroChannels ’95 conference last month. 100% of all Lotus and IBM Unix and Intel software will be sold through our channels and there will be one relationship for all Lotus-IBM by the first part of 1996. We will move to a common set of terms and conditions and have people working on a consolidated set of marketing programmes. Lotus is almost there; IBM in the US is about 80% there. In addition, he said, we expect that 85% of our services will also be delivered through the channel. For example, systems integration for medium-sized businesses and other corporate departments is not a target market for IBM and we want to help you exploit that. To that end, IBM has turned a systems management software development lab in Sweden into an integrated system support centre for IBM and non-IBM products. Elliott urged IBM-Lotus partners to send their comments and suggestions to software@fr.ibm.com. Of the overall integration with Lotus, Elliott said there was so little redundancy in terms of the vision and expertise, we have been able to move much faster than anyone imagined. For example, he said IBM has taken the time and place departmental organiser from OfficeVision and made it the basis of a Notes departmental server. The move is welcome for the 6m to 7m OfficeVision users who would like to move to a more distributed system, but have had difficulty getting there, he said.
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