Sterling Commerce Announces IBM Global Partnership to Help Retail Clients Transform Their Business Processes

NEW YORK, NY--(Marketwire - January 12, 2009) - Sterling Commerce, an AT&T Inc (NYSE: T) company, today announced it has selected IBM as a global partner to help clients in retail and other industries simplify their IT infrastructure, reduce costs and transform business processes. Sterling Commerce and IBM are now defining go-to-market projects based on several IBM industry Frameworks to be supported by Sterling Commerce software solutions.

"Businesses today demand information technology that will help them streamline and evolve their business processes to make their organization more flexible and efficient," said Tom Rosamilia, general manager, IBM WebSphere software. "The combination of Sterling Commerce solutions and IBM technology and services can help our joint clients realize these goals and better serve customer needs."

As part of today's announcement, Sterling Commerce also announced that the Sterling Selling and Fulfillment Suite is validated with the IBM Retail Integration Framework, an SOA-based enterprise software platform based on industry best practices and open standards that can create flexibility while accelerating the deployment and integration of multiple retail solutions. Sterling Selling and Fulfillment Suite is a unique set of applications for managing the entire inquiry-to-cash process and provides a single inquiry-to-cash process of multi-channel selling and fulfillment operations.

The companies will extend their retail experience to other industries using additional IBM industry Frameworks specifically designed for the manufacturing, financial services, communications and media and entertainment sectors.

"Sterling Commerce solutions help our customers connect, communicate and collaborate with their customers, partners and suppliers better than anyone else," said Joel Reed, senior vice president, Corporate Marketing and Strategic Alliances, at Sterling Commerce. "Partnering with IBM, we can enable companies in multiple industries across multiple regions to work within their business communities in a productive, secure and effective manner that drives positive business results for all involved."

Sterling Commerce products include Sterling Selling and Fulfillment Suite and Sterling Commerce integration solutions for managed file transfer and business-to-business (B2B) connectivity and collaboration. These solutions are now enabled on IBM's System p servers, DB2 database and WebSphere middleware products including WebSphere Commerce. Sterling Selling and Fulfillment Suite also comes embedded with IBM Cognos 8 Business Intelligence to enable customers to leverage data within the Suite to make key decisions at critical points in time, respond more quickly to changing business conditions, and drive better cross-functional alignment and collaboration through timely performance monitoring and alerts.

About Sterling Commerce

Sterling Commerce, an AT&T Inc (NYSE: T) company, helps customers thrive in a global economy by connecting their business communities, processes, people and technology. More than 30,000 customers worldwide use Sterling Commerce solutions for business process integration, multi-channel selling, and supply chain fulfillment, and payments management to optimize business performance inside and outside their enterprise. Headquartered in Columbus, Ohio, Sterling Commerce has offices in 24 countries around the world. More information can be found at www.sterlingcommerce.com