Thunderhead Joins IBM’s ISV Advantage Initiative to Help Customers in Financial Services Companies to Offer Open, e-business on Demand Solutions

Sydney, Thursday 27th October, 2005.

Thunderhead, the provider of business user controlled, standards-based document generation technology, announced today that it has joined IBM’s ISV Advantage Initiative. This program is designed to provide independent software vendors (ISVs) with technical and marketing support to help meet the specific information technology needs of today’s companies. Customers are seeking solutions that help them better integrate processes and applications internally and externally and allow them to quickly respond to changing market opportunities on demand.

Thunderhead’s involvement in IBM’s ISV Advantage Initiative will allow a range of business users to develop and manage personalized communications faster and with reduced costs. Using next-generation business user controlled document automation technology pioneered by Thunderhead, financial services companies will be able to execute the creation of multi-channel dynamic, highly-regulated documents, such as customer correspondence, insurance proposals, loan contracts and trade confirms.

Faced with the challenge of delivering personalized communications that also comply with regulated language, financial institutions will now be able to deliver automated, targeted communications to any channel, without investing in disparate technology or IT specialists since the company’s software is built on open standards and integrates with existing front and back-office systems.

Enabling Thunderhead on IBM’s DB2 and Websphere, as well as Open Power Serversrunning AIX and Linux operating systems, will help Thunderhead expand into the enterprise market faster and more effectively than is possible with proprietary platforms.

“The impact of mismanaging communications can be serious for any business. Our continued collaboration in the ISV Partner Program directly addresses the need among businesses to improve the clarity, speed and efficiency of multi-channel communications and customer facing processes,” said Matt Elliott, VP Asia-Pacific, Thunderhead. “Together with IBM, Thunderhead offers a fully scaleable communications software remedy that automates regulatory compliance while also ensuring that communications remain focused and targeted to individual preferences. Not only does this protect legacy investment, it will set any organization apart from the competition when it comes to personalized customer service.”

"IBM is excited to partner with Thunderhead as it is a truly open standards technology to its core in contrast to other legacy players in the customer correspondence industry. Their certification on the full IBM stack will allow IBM customers to implement business user driven correspondence on a proven platform,"commented Rod Duce, IBM A/NZ Country Manager, ISV & Developer Relations.

Thunderhead will also work closely with IBM to expand its visibility in target vertical industries through various co-marketing and sales activities. 

ISV Advantage is administered by PartnerWorld for Developers, the developer resource for IBM Business Partners.  It is a worldwide program designed to help software developers reach broader markets, lower their costs of doing business, and take their products to market faster. For more information, visit http://www.ibm.com/partnerworld, or call 1-800-426-9990 in North America, 1-770-863-2048 outside North America.

* IBM, the IBM Business Partner emblem, DB2, DB2 Universal Database, PartnerWorld and WebSphere are trademarks or registered trademarks of IBM Corporation in the United States, other countries, or both.