ARMONK, N.Y., Sept. 23 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- In the first half of 2009, IBM (NYSE:IBM) logged thousands of new customers, bringing the total to 15,421 companies that have chosen IBM over Microsoft since 2008 in the $3.1 billion dollar Worldwide Integrated Collaborative Environment market.* (Logo: http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20090923/NY80771LOGO ) (Logo: http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20090416/IBMLOGO ) In addition, many customers have expanded their investments in IBM Lotus software. Among the new or expanding customer base are BASF, Chrysler, The Coca-Cola Company, Colgate-Palmolive, Continental AG, Finishline, General Motors, GlaxoSmithKline, Gruppo Amadori, KBC Bank, Nationwide, Novartis, Phillips Electronics and PNC Bank. IBM momentum in collaboration software is being driven by the success of Lotus Notes and Domino against Microsoft Exchange; Lotus Connections and Quickr against Microsoft Sharepoint; and the millions of businesses and individuals that are using Lotus Symphony. "Lotus Notes 8.5 is not just a standard email client. It is truly an amazing piece of software," said Tim Lorge of the New Jersey Department of Health & Senior Services. "It helps facilitate a much more integrated work environment and allows our teams to share information wherever they are. During our recent response to Novel H1N1 Influenza, we found having all of our collaboration tools integrated into one application enables our teams to work more effectively and cohesively. Lotus Notes 8.5 helps us work together in real time, enabling our employees to connect quicker and solve problems more effectively." Chief information officers (CIOs) from across the private and public sectors cite a variety of reasons for either choosing IBM Lotus software over Microsoft or purchasing additional Lotus software licenses. These include lower cost, more innovative design, Web 2.0 roadmap, growing preference for open standards, and the ability to easily plug-in additional applications. The option to enrich Lotus software with third-party applications or widgets helps explain why the number of IBM Business Partners packaging Lotus Notes and Domino software with their own products has more than doubled since the beginning of 2009. "Lotus Notes and Domino 8.5 has allowed Elguji Software to increase the speed and quality of the software that we create for our customers," said Bruce Elgort of IBM Business Partner Elguji Software LLC. "With incredible ease of deployment that only Lotus Domino applications can offer, a company can be up and running within 15 minutes." "IBM collaboration software is winning against Microsoft worldwide. We've expanded our customer and partner base significantly, and our footprint within companies with both environments," said Bob Picciano, general manager, IBM Lotus Software. "Companies are looking at the aggregated value of IBM's Web 2.0, collaboration, and social software for their own roadmap to the future." Several leading companies such as U.S. Bank, PNC Bank and Continental Tire that traditionally used both IBM and Microsoft, are migrating away from such Microsoft staples as Microsoft Exchange and Microsoft Sharepoint to Lotus collaboration, unified communications and social software. Key Microsoft reference accounts GlaxoSmithKline and Novartis increasingly rely on the enterprise strengths of Lotus Notes to run their businesses. "Our industry has undergone unprecedented changes in recent months," said Mark Dickelman, senior vice president, innovation, research and development for U.S. Bank. "Keeping up with economic developments and policy changes and the need to quickly communicate while innovating for growth would be nearly impossible with traditional methods, and that's why Lotus collaboration software will continue to be incredibly useful to us, especially in today's ever-changing banking environment." "Lotus Notes 8.5 is a great e-mail client, which is its primary use at our company. Also, it has integrated application tools that enable our application development team to work more effectively as those needs arise," said Andy Reed, Business Development Services, Cheshire Police, UK. Industry observers are documenting the shift to IBM Lotus. Recently Forrester Research selected IBM Lotus as an overall leader in its Wave(TM) report on collaboration platforms. IBM's LotusLive cloud services won the Enterprise 2.0 Cloud Computing Technology Buyers' Choice Award, beating other leading cloud computing providers in side-by-side comparisons at the Enterprise 2.0 Conference in Boston. More than half of the global 100 corporations use IBM's flagship collaboration offerings, Lotus Notes and Domino, including the top nine aerospace and defense organizations, the top nine automotive firms, the top eight banks, the top four makers of consumer products, the top seven electronics firms, the top eight insurance companies, the top seven pharmaceutical organizations, and the top nine telecommunications carriers. For more information, visit http://www.ibm.com/software/lotus. *IDC Worldwide Collaborative Applications 2008 Vendor Shares (Excerpt from IDC #218330), August, 2009 Contact: Mike Azzi 914-766-1561 http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20090416/IBMLOGO http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20090923/NY80771LOGO http://photoarchive.ap.org/DATASOURCE: IBM CONTACT: Mike Azzi, +1-914-766-1561, Web Site: http://www.ibm.com/

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