IBM Unveils Product Information Software

The direct byproduct of Big Blue's acquisition of Trigo Technologies 90 days ago, WebSphere Product Center 5.0 is specifically designed to manage all product-related information--including descriptions, promotions, pricing decisions, logistics and marketing campaigns for the entire life cycle.

IBM formally launched WebSphere Product Center 5.0 Monday. Dan Druker, director of product information management solutions at Armonk, N.Y.-based IBM, said it will be available to channel partners immediately; pricing begins at $300,000.

The software's repository, data syncing and workflow capabilities make it well-suited for large enterprise initiatives around radio frequency identification, global data synchronization, B2B e-commerce and partner portals.

"We had found a market where there was no enterprise software yet," Druker said. "This is all about how customers take their products to market, right up to the end of the product's life."

According to Druker, WebSphere Product Center 5.0 can be used as an authoring environment with the tightly integrated IBM WebSphere Commerce server. Here, customers can amass all the information they need about products they want to promote, create campaign messages, upload advertising and marketing-related images and send results to WebSphere Commerce server to preview how those promotions will look.

"You can use Product Center to build the e-commerce site, and use Commerce Center to run the site," said Druker.

IBM's Trigo-based software also features tight integration with IBM's WebSphere Portal server. IBM envisions customers will use this combination to initially clean and synchronize all product information and then publish that information over portals to large supplier and partner communities.

IBM WebSphere Product Center 5.0 includes WebSphere Application Server, DB2 Information Integrator, WebSphere MQ and WebSphere Business Integration Adapter.

ROCHELLE GARNER contributed to this story.