IBM today announced that 25 Business Partners have gained certification for the IBM Dynamic Infrastructure Specialty Program, enabling them to help clients build a new, more dynamic infrastructure that will bring greater intelligence, automation, integration, and efficiencies to the digital and physical worlds.

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Today, we are seeing the second wave of partners become certified, with 25 newly certified Business Partners in the Dynamic Infrastructure Specialty Program - including Fritz & Macziol Software und Computervertrieb GmbH, MSI Systems Integrators, Inc., Key Info Systems, Meridian IT Inc., thinkASG, Levi, Ray & Shoup, Inc., Futuregen Co., Ltd., Sycomp, A Technology Company, Inc., ABF Data Systems and Mainline Information Systems, Inc. - who are now in a strengthened position to go to market with a consultative, solutions-led approach. And more than 150 Business Partners are currently in the process of gaining IBM Dynamic Infrastructure Specialty Accreditation.

The program is designed to enable customers to use powerful computing systems to manage and gain insight from an increasing number of things in their physical infrastructure that are being instrumented with intelligent sensors. IDC estimates the market opportunity for the software, servers, technologies and services to manage the world's converged IT and physical infrastructure to be $122 billion by 2012.

"The need for IT professionals to build a dynamic infrastructure in order to fully benefit from their data center technologies is undeniable," said Mike Gerentine, IBM Global Vice President of Channels and Solution Marketing. "Our Business Partners' dedication to fueling the adoption of the dynamic infrastructure model only helps them deliver more powerful, intelligent and secure data center solutions to their customers."

The IBM Dynamic Infrastructure Specialty Program for Business Partners includes:

  --  Comprehensive skills, training, technical enablement, marketing and
      business development capabilities
  --  A Business Development Fund with up to $100,000 upfront for investment
      in marketing and business development activities
  --  IBM Lab services mentoring
  --  Assessment Toolkits to provide insight into clients' business issues
      in specific areas of need
  --  Increased sales support

  --  Training for specialties in Consolidation & Virtualization, Energy
      Efficiency, Business Resiliency and Information Infrastructure.

These Business Partners' participation in the Dynamic Infrastructure Specialty Program better positions them to assist businesses in managing challenges presented by today's globally integrated planet. They have been able to deepen their skills in areas such as consolidation, virtualization, energy efficiency, business resiliency, information infrastructure. These enhanced skills will enable IBM's Business Partners to more accurately respond to their customers' multi-faceted IT challenges and help customers with the creation of dynamic infrastructures.

In order to achieve this certification, IBM's Business Partners have invested many hours in IBM training classes; achieved brand, system architecture and project management based certifications; and built new offerings to help customers evaluate their environments and implement robust solutions for their dynamic infrastructure environments.

  Media Contact
  Cary Barbour
  IBM Communications
  Phone: 917-472-3564
  Email: barbour@us.ibm.com

First Call Analyst:
FCMN Contact: barbour@us.ibm.com

SOURCE: IBM Corporation