INDUSTRY

Strategic Computer Solutions, Inc., an IBM Premier and On Demand Business Partner with more than 1,500 customers in the northeast, announced today the acquisition of Principle Software, a New England eBusiness and portal solutions innovator, by its related company, Strategic Computer Services, LLC. Based in Waltham, Mass., Principle Software will join Strategic Computer's Software and Solutions LLC, strengthening the company's ability to deliver collaborative enterprise portal solutions to its customers in government, retail, manufacturing, financial services, healthcare and other markets. With more than 25 years of experience, Strategic Computer Solutions delivers IT solutions specializing in eCommerce, eBusiness and portal applications, as well as security and infrastructure solutions. Recently accredited as one of only 39 IBM On Demand Business Partners worldwide, the company is headquartered in Syracuse, New York, with offices throughout New England, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Ohio. Principle Software is a six-year-old IBM Premier Business Partner recognized for its innovative design and implementation of highly successful enterprise portals. Key customers include UNICCO Services, Neighborhood Health Plan, Biogen Idec and the Environmental Protection Agency. Under the agreement, Strategic Computer Solutions will also acquire Principle Software's IBM Business Partner Innovation Center, delivering education and local demonstration of IBM software to hundreds of New England companies. The company will expand the center in order to showcase the entire IBM Middleware portfolio carried by Strategic Computer Solutions, including WebSphere, Lotus, Tivoli, Rational and DB2/UDB. According to industry analysts, enterprise investment in portal software upgrades is second only to security upgrades, while IBM Corp. holds the top position in the portal market. “Portals are becoming a key component for our customers' businesses across the board, regardless of size or focus,” said Jim Carrick, CEO of Strategic Computer Solutions. “Principle Software brings a tremendous experience in implementing Web portals, from basic dashboards for managing content or applications to sophisticated employee-centric or external customer-facing tools, all the way to some of business' leading portals frameworks for intra- and cross enterprise collaboration.” Carrick added that as portals have become more complex, solutions providers with a portal focus, such as Strategic Computer Solutions, increasingly benefit from the ability to mange complex integration and interoperability between numerous multi-vendor components. Said Jim Murphy, president of Principle Software, “Portals truly have become hot again, particularly as line-of-business buyers have realized they're one of the best technology investments they can make to support business initiatives. Strategic Computer Solutions is one of the top solutions providers in the industry, offering essentially the entire IBM hardware and software portfolio. We'll now be able to extend this support to our customers, while enabling Strategic to better deliver portal solutions to their broad customer base.” Ken Bisconti, vice president of IBM's Workplace, Portal and Collaboration products, added, "In today's business environment, the ability to seamlessly blend applications, data, and business processes is a critical part of driving results and user productivity -- and portal technology is a key aspect to this type of integration. Strategic Computer Solutions and Principle Software have been excellent IBM partners and share our vision of high-performance, standards-based portal solutions. We're looking forward to working with Strategic Computer Solutions to deliver WebSphere Portal-based technology solutions to help deliver business results for our mutual customers." 5 Star VAP from IBM, Expanding Security and Government Practices Strategic Computer Solutions separately announced today a new security solutions practice, as well as the appointment of former COO of the New York State Office of Technology David Swits as vice president of its State & Local Government Practice. Earlier this month, the company was awarded IBM's 5-Star Value Advantage (VAP) badge recognizing technical and business excellence for selling and implementing IBM software solutions in all five IBM software brands, including WebSphere, Lotus, Tivoli, Rational and DB2. The VAP initiative is a highly successful IBM enablement and incentive program designed to reward solution providers that sell IBM software to small and medium-sized businesses. Said Darrin Nelson, leader of Strategic Computer Solutions' eBusiness Practice and vice president of Software & Professional Services, “Bringing Principal Software into the SCS fold will augment our ability to continue to differentiate ourselves as the preferred IBM software provider in our target geographies. We're especially pleased to be recognized as one of only five IBM Software partners worldwide to have a VAP 5-Star relationship with IBM.”