i2 and IBM Join Forces to Deliver Transportation Management Solution Through a Software as a Service Model

Delivering on its commitment to provide customers with new generation solutions to meet both current and future business needs, i2 Technologies, Inc. (NASDAQ: ITWO) today announced the expansion of its strategic partnership with IBM (NYSE: IBM). As part of the agreement, i2 and IBM are increasing sales and marketing, implementation services, hosting and development investments to deliver the i2 hosted and subscription-based transportation management solution, i2 FreightMatrix.

Under the agreement, IBM's Global Business Services consultants will apply their knowledge of hosting services and transportation best practices to implement the i2 FreightMatrix solution. i2 and IBM will also collaborate on commercial development through both companies' worldwide sales organizations for industries including manufacturing, retail, and third-party logistics providers in both the enterprise and small-medium business markets.

“We have shared several joint transportation engagements with IBM that have resulted in the successful delivery of our solutions to our customer base,” said Razat Gaurav, vice president of global transportation solutions, i2. “With our combined assets, IBM and i2 can jointly deliver domain and industry expertise.”

As part of the expanded alliance, IBM will provide server and infrastructure management support for i2 FreightMatrix to help automate application hosting and management and provide a scalable platform for hosting the solution. The i2 offering is delivered to customers in a subscription pricing framework and is available globally in both the enterprise and small-to-medium business markets.

“Subscription-based pricing, which tends to be linked with SaaS deployment, is growing much faster than traditional pricing in the transportation management systems (TMS) market. On average, TMS vendors predict that 63 percent of their installed customer base will be on-demand by 2011,” said Adrian Gonzalez, director, Logistics Executive Council ARC Advisory Group. “IBM’s expertise with selling and managing SaaS deployments will enable i2 to scale its FreightMatrix solution and reach a broader customer segment. For IBM, this partnership provides the company with a technology platform to grow its Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) services in transportation.”

i2 FreightMatrix is an internet-based software as a service (SaaS) solution designed to enable companies to procure, plan, execute, monitor and measure freight movements across multiple modes, borders and enterprises. With the rising fuel costs and logistics capacity issues companies are faced with in the current market environment, managing transportation costs has become a top priority. The solution helps companies reduce costs and improve product availability, as well as automate the transportation process. With this SaaS offering, companies can not only implement the solution quickly, but do so at a cost that makes it appealing to both large and small-to-medium-sized customers.

IBM Software as a Service Initiative

The news is another major step in IBM's commitment to helping business partners take advantage of the growing SaaS opportunity. IBM has collaborated with more than 150 business partners helping them transition their software solutions to a subscription-based delivery model, and more than 2300 ISVs have joined the IBM SaaS partner community.

“IBM and i2 are making it easier for companies to leverage critical information to support quick decision-making and better responsiveness,” said Rick McGee, vice president, software as services, IBM. “We are dedicated to the success of our partners - we're collaborating to help them understand the business benefits of transitioning to a SaaS model and find new ways to manage change and support our joint customers, while lowering the costs of doing business to maximize profits. Today’s news is a significant endorsement for the future of hosted services, a key element for driving technology innovation.”

About i2

i2 helps business leaders make better supply chain decisions. i2's flexible new-generation solutions are designed to synchronize demand and supply across ever-changing global business networks. i2's innovative supply chain management tools and services are pervasive in a wide cross-section of industries; 20 of the AMR Research Top 25 Global Supply Chains belong to i2 customers. Learn more at www.i2.com

About IBM

To learn more about IBM Software as a Service initiative, go to http://www-304.ibm.com/jct09002c/isv/marketing/saas/. To learn more about IBM's partner programs go to http://www-1.ibm.com/partnerworld/pwhome.nsf/weblook/index.html