SOMERS, N.Y., July 14, 2004 -- IBM today announced it has signed a definitive agreement to acquire Alphablox Corporation, a privately held company based in Mountain View, California.

The acquisition is expected to close later this month. Financial details were not disclosed.

Alphablox's operations will be integrated into IBM's Information Management software business and Alphablox products will be available from IBM and its Business Partners.

Alphablox software enables customers and business partners to embed analytics -- such as customer buying trends -- into existing business processes, and makes information available to a wide spectrum of users and applications. As a result, the software helps organizations boost business insight by accessing data from across the enterprise and then enables the presentation of that information to be viewed in a customized way.

The acquisition further strengthens IBM's leadership in the business intelligence space, a key strategic priority for its Data Management efforts and the company's on demand computing initiatives. According to IDC, the market opportunity for business intelligence software is worth more than $7 billion worldwide and is expected to double by 2006.

With the acquisition of Alphablox, IBM is strengthening its business intelligence platform by providing developers with the ability to build business applications that will enable them to gain multiple views of real-time information from a variety of data sources. This platform, which leverages IBM's middleware portfolio of offerings, is the foundation for delivering business intelligence solutions such as data warehousing and compliance as well as being an integral part of IBM's business performance management efforts.

Additionally, IBM's business intelligence platform serves as the foundation for helping business partners and ISV's deliver sophisticated business intelligence applications such as specialized reporting, ERP and industry-specific solutions such as financial and healthcare.

A combination of Alphablox and IBM software will enable front-line managers to make faster decisions impacting business strategies, plans and forecasts. For instance, by delivering a visual representation of business information, a brand manager can view up-to-the-minute sales figures for each region or be alerted to dips in inventory and make business changes based on these results on the fly.

In support of IBM's open standards infrastructure strategy, Alphablox software can work with both IBM and non-IBM data sources, including Oracle, Microsoft and Sybase, enabling organizations to build on their existing IT infrastructure.

"Businesses today are faced with the challenge to drive more value from their existing information assets," said Janet Perna, general manager, IBM Information Management Software. "The combination of Alphablox technology and IBM software will enable customers and business partners to deliver business insight and drive higher returns from their information assets."

"IBM is the leader in helping customers implement a comprehensive business intelligence infrastructure," said Joe Guglielmi, CEO, Alphablox Corporation. "Alphablox technology integrates seamlessly with IBM's middleware offerings, enabling customers to gain real-time insight on their business information so that they can make faster, more insightful business decisions."

Alphablox technology will be integrated into IBM's middleware portfolio of offerings in several key areas including:

-- IBM's Data Warehouse Edition -- Alphablox will complete the Business Intelligence platform by providing a complete toolset that will allow customers and business partners to build complete business intelligence applications.

-- IBM's WebSphere Business Integration Monitor -- Alphablox will allow customers to track key performance indicators in their business processes, thereby enhancing IBM's business performance management and business process management solutions.

-- IBM's Rational toolset - Alphablox will allow software developers to build applications that contain analytic components.

-- WebSphere Portal and IBM Workplace -- Alphablox technology will help deliver business intelligence to the desktop.

About IBM's Information Management Portfolio

There are more than 60 million DB2 users from 425,000 companies worldwide relying on IBM DB2 Information Management Solutions. IBM is the only data management software vendor to provide customers with integrated solutions for database management, tools, content management, enterprise information integration and business intelligence. For more information please visit http://www.ibm.com/software/data/db2/alphablox.

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IBM Media Relations
Lori Bosio, 914-766-1408
bosiol@us.ibm.com