New Packaging, Pricing Makes IBM Visual Warehouse Attractive to VARs, SIs

General Availability Set for November 17

SOMERS, N.Y., October 18, 1995 . . . A new pricing and packaging initiative
for the Visual Warehouse Solution, announced today by IBM, will allow VARs
and system integrators to more efficiently tailor their services to
customer needs. IBM also announced that Visual Warehouse, its
cross-platform data warehousing product, will be generally available on
November 17.

The repackaging expands IBM's presence within the VAR and system integrator
channels, giving resellers an out-of-the-box data warehousing solution.
The new product configuration was developed to more easily tap into the
reseller channel and promote sales of Visual Warehouse.

The new packaging is part of a continuing effort by IBM to work closely
with channel partners said Tim Negris, vice president, sales and
marketing, IBM Software Solutions Division. "We not only formulated this
initiative because of channel interest, we actively solicited the input
from VARs so we could best serve their needs," Negris added.

Visual Warehouse provides an easy-to-use OS/2-based solution that automates
the process of bringing diverse data together to create a data warehouse
on OS/2, AIX, or OS/400, or any combination of these platforms. The
product also enables transparent access to warehouse data using almost any
front-end tool. In addition, any combination of client applications on
DOS, Windows, OS/2, or AIX platforms may access the warehouse data.

IBM also announced a 17 percent price reduction in Visual Warehouse as a
stand-alone product, from $24,000 to $19,950. IBM also dropped the price
for the Visual Warehouse Solution to $22,950 and changed the components to
include everything required to install a Visual Warehouse system in an
OS/2 LAN environment: Visual Warehouse, DATABASE 2 (DB2) for OS/2, DDCS
for OS/2, DataGuide, Visualizer Query, and Visualizer Charts, OS/2 Warp
Connect, and Communications Manager/2. The Visual Warehouse host adapters,
required for access to IMS, VSAM, and host-based flat files, are now
available separately at a cost of $9,450 each.

According to Bob Forman, president of IMI Systems, a New York City-based
systems integrator, Visual Warehouse is vital to easily accessing and
using corporate data. "It affords us an opportunity to expand client
relationships by assisting them in converting data from diverse systems to
useful information," said Forman. "The multi-product solution packaging
gives us all the products we need in a single box to rapidly get a client
up and running with a data warehouse."

In addition, IBM announced support by Visual Warehouse for DB2 for OS/400
as a target database plus updated its support of Version 2.1 of DB2 for
OS/2 and AIX. These improvements expand Visual Warehouse's capacity to
help customers use and analyze data from within the workgroup or across
the enterprise from a variety of source databases, including the DB2
family, Oracle, Sybase, IMS, and a variety of host and LAN-based flat
files.

Through adding support for DB2 Version 2.1 and running on OS/2 Warp
Connect, IBM strengthened Visual Warehouse's position as the leading
solution in LAN-based data warehousing. In addition, the Visual Warehouse
Solution can serve as the fundamental building block for an
enterprise-wide warehouse solution.

IBM Software Solutions provides data management, application development
and workgroup solutions for mission-critical applications on PCs,
workstations, LANs and host systems. For Internet users, IBM offers
complete information about the company, its products, services and
technology on the World Wide Web. The IBM home page is at
http://www.ibm.com. The fastest, easiest way to get information about IBM
software is to go to the IBM Software home page at
http://www.software.ibm.com. For more information about the IBM Visual
Warehouse Solution, go to the Data Management section of the IBM Software
home page.
 
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