ATLANTA, July 30, 2003 (PRIMEZONE) -- CES International Inc., a leading provider of network and outage management solutions for distribution utilities, has signed an agreement with business partner IBM (NYSE:IBM) to support IBM's efforts to develop and market a set of adapters for CES International's Centricity Operations Resource Management (ORM) system.
The Centricity integration adapters enable more efficient and affordable integration between Centricity and complementary enterprise applications, thereby supporting accelerated return on investment and reduced cost of ownership. The adapters, available in IBM's Energy Business Integration Hub, leverage CES International's MQ Series gateway and several years of CES investment in an IBM-based technology strategy.
CES International is an IBM alliance partner, and Centricity is compatible with a wide range of IBM hardware and software. CES had a previous alliance relationship with PricewaterhouseCoopers Consulting's utility practice, now part of IBM's Business Consulting Services group.
Don McDonnell, CES International chief marketing officer, said, "Perhaps like no other vertical, the utility market demands 'best-of-breed' application environments. With this initiative, IBM is removing a lot of the headaches, costs and risks that prevent utility CIOs from driving a more compelling level of integration between their engineering operations and front -- and back-office applications. IBM and its energy and utility ISV partners including CES are all committing to a long-term, product-based integration approach that will deliver significant ROI and competitive advantage to our common customers."
Under the recently forged agreement, IBM, with cooperation from CES, will develop, market, distribute, test and support the IBM Adapters. The Adapters will benefit CES and its customers by enhancing the interoperability of Centricity with IBM and other leading software solutions.
"Outage and network management solutions are vital to meeting the core business imperatives of today's utility market -- namely meeting customer satisfaction and network asset performance objectives -- both of which translate almost directly into improved utility rate case performance," said Koustuv Ghoshal, solutions strategy executive, IBM Global Energy & Utilities Industry. "The IBM Adapters developed for CES International's Centricity solution are a key part of IBM's Business Transformation and On Demand strategy, specifically in terms of enabling CES' customers to meet their business goals through rapid integration with other complementary enterprise software systems."
The IBM WebSphere Business Integration Adapters for Centricity are generally available now from IBM.
About IBM
IBM is the world's largest information technology company, with 80 years of leadership in helping businesses innovate. Drawing on resources from across IBM and key Business Partners, IBM offers a wide range of services, solutions and technologies that enable customers, large and small, to take full advantage of the new era of e-business. For more information about IBM, visit http://www.ibm.com.
About CES International
CES International supplies real-time software solutions to utilities on five continents, serving more than 35 million metered accounts. CES International is the developer of the Centricity operations resource management (ORM) system, which includes the market's leading outage-management system, and the newly developed Energy Delivery Management (EDM) suite of network-management software. For more information, visit www.ces.com or call 1-(800) 450-0266. CES International --Redefining Connectivity.
Trademarks: CES International, its 'network-sweep' logo design, and Centricity are registered trademarks of CES International.