IBM Unveils New Offerings for the Open Source Community

Reinforcing the company’s strategy around open source business models, IBM (NYSE: IBM) today announced new software and resources to help customers leverage their investments in open source development tools and resources. The new offerings will help software development teams build Eclipse-based open integrated development environments that are technologically diverse and vendor neutral.

IBM is also unveiling today a new customer support program, IBM Rational Elite Support for Eclipse, that will provide hands on technical assistance to the more than 2.3 million users* of Eclipse worldwide. Available in Q4 2006, users of Eclipse-based tools, including those distributed by eclipse.org or other providers, can purchase world-class support for Eclipse — a service no other major software vendor currently provides.

“IBM is responding to the growing needs of customers and the open source development community, by addressing the requirement for commercial vendors to complement the current open source community model,” said Bola Rotibi, Senior Analyst, Ovum. With today’s set of announcements, IBM is nurturing the next phase of Eclipse adoption — expanding its focus on development tools to now include the development of standards-based cross platform business applications for desktops and servers.

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