IBM Announces Agreement to Acquire Trigo Technologies

By CMSWire Staff Mar 14, 2004

The acquisition will add product information management middleware to IBM's industry-leading software portfolio.

IBM (NYSE: IBM) today announced it has agreed to acquire all the shares of Trigo Technologies, Inc., a leading provider of product information management middleware. Trigo Technologies is a privately-held company based in Brisbane, California. Financial details were not disclosed.

Trigo’s product information management middleware enables companies to integrate and centrally manage comprehensive product information that is typically scattered across an enterprise and a supply chain. Trigo’s middleware also links product-related information with terms of trade such as pricing and then synchronizes this information internally with existing enterprise systems and externally with business partners.

Sophisticated tools help make users highly productive in creating and managing product information. Trigo’s open, scalable infrastructure allows accurate, timely product information to be deployed across a variety of customer, partner and employee touch points, including web and commerce servers, printed documents, kiosks, point of sale systems, mobile devices, portals and industry-specific applications.

Global retailers, consumer products firms, manufacturers, distributors and other large enterprises have chosen Trigo to help them to increase speed to market, grow sales, reduce expenses, address industry mandates and enhance customer service by improving the content, quality and processes that support product information. For example, middleware from Trigo can be a foundation for strategic, standards-based initiatives such as global product data synchronization and radio frequency identification (RFID), which are revolutionizing modern commerce.

The acquisition of Trigo’s technology will further extend IBM’s broad portfolio of integration middleware as part of the WebSphere brand of products. It also will enhance the ability of IBM and IBM Business Partners to deliver industry-specific middleware solutions that can access a centralized source of integrated product information. By making key information, including product attributes, price and location, more accurate, Trigo can help enterprises save money at the point of sale, on a web site, in a call center or through improvements in internal operations.

“Trigo complements IBM’s middleware portfolio perfectly,“ said Steve Mills, IBM senior vice president and group executive, Software Group. “The benefit to our customers will be in our ability to deliver sophisticated, industry-specific middleware solutions that enable customers to introduce new products rapidly, improve their supply chain operations and customer service and enhance business performance.”

Based on its relationship with IBM as an award-winning IBM Business Partner, Trigo’s product information management middleware can provide product information for WebSphere Commerce solutions and can deliver multi-media content managed by DB2 Content Manager. It also can deliver detailed product information to customers, trading partners and employees through WebSphere Portal and can support industry standard, business-to-business connections, such as those used in the retail industry for data synchronization, through WebSphere Business Integration.

With operations in Brisbane, California, Amsterdam and Bangalore, India, Trigo has 150 employees and a wide range of customers, including Royal Philips Electronics, Staples, Sony and Unilever.

“I am excited that Trigo is becoming part of the IBM family. This is an important milestone in our strategy to deliver world class technology and is great news for our customers, employees, partners and the entire product information management category,“ said Tom Reilly, CEO, Trigo. “As a part of IBM, our customers will benefit from a more complete and integrated technology platform, we can create deeper cross-industry and higher ROI solutions, and we can leverage vastly broader global support and services for our customers.”

The acquisition is subject to customary closing conditions, including government regulatory approval. The two companies expect to close the deal in the second quarter of 2004.

About IBM Software

IBM is the world’s largest information technology company, with more than 80 years of leadership in helping businesses innovate. IBM Software offers a wide range of middleware and operating systems for all types of computing platforms, allowing customers to take full advantage of the on demand era. The fastest way to get more information about IBM software is through the IBM Software home page at http://www.software.ibm.com.

About Trigo Technologies

Trigo is the leading provider of Product Information Management software. Trigo Product Center is the first comprehensive Product Information Management solution that allows companies to manage, analyze and deliver comprehensive, relevant and unique product information via multiple channels across and beyond the enterprise, enabling key strategic initiatives such as Global Data Synchronization and RFID. For more information, contact info@Trigo.com or visit www.Trigo.com.

Source: Business Wire