IBM rolls out e-commerce practice

IBMs newly launched e-commerce practice, dubbed the Smarter Commerce, is set to connect retailers with customers and potential customers, by combining a number of customized IBM software products and associated services. Via its practice, IBM will provide customer tracking, automated marketing, selling and fulfilment.

IBM’s e-commerce practice incorporates software which the company has acquired from a number of e-commerce service providers over the past few years. In 2010, IBM made the following acquisitions in the e-commerce software field: Sterling Commerce, a provider of software for integrating back-end retail systems, for USD 1.4 billion; Coremetrics which offered a set of cloud services that analyse how well marketing campaigns worked and Unica which provides marketing campaign automation software. IBM has invested USD 2 billion in acquiring e-commerce software vendors in 2010.

IBM is also set to use its own WebSphere Commerce platform for its e-commerce packages. IBM WebSphere Commerce provides companies with a customer interaction platform for cross-channel and online commerce and supports all business models.

In recent news , e-Spirit and IBM have expanded their cooperation in the e-commerce field to integrate the former’s content management system FirstSpirit with the IBM WebSphere Commerce. The combined service enables online retailers to develop e-commerce platforms.