Five-Year, Five Million Euro Agreement for Public Authority e-Procurement Solution

STUTTGART, GERMANY -- (Marketwire) -- 10/06/08 -- German Healy Hudson GmbH and IBM (NYSE: IBM) have signed a five-year, five million euro Software as a Service contract. As part of the agreement, IBM will support Healy Hudson's e-placing solution "Deutsche eVergabe," which is an electronic tendering procedure that addresses public service clients. IBM business partner, Fritz & Macziol, will help distribute the solution.

As a result, customers of Deutsche eVergabe can upload their tenders and interested suppliers can answer electronically. The whole process is completely web-based, which means that no media disruption is necessary.

The demand for managing tenders via the Internet exists due to a new EU-directive, which aims at comprehensive deployment of such solutions by 2010. E-placing is attractive for tendering organizations as well as for providers, because they can save a lot of work, time and money compared to the conventional tendering process. "Customers can use powerful software, but they only have to pay a small fee for it," explains Christian Konhäuser, Chief Executive of Healy Hudson.

IBM will operate Healy Hudson's servers from an IBM data center and take care of the administration of their middleware-software. Utilizing the on demand model, Healy Hudson will only pay for the resources it consumes.

Haydar Celik, Strategic Outsourcing Business Partner Manager at IBM Germany, explains: "The advantage of a SaaS model is flexibility, especially for small and medium-sized businesses. We believe in the concepts and solutions of our SaaS partners. That's why we support them beyond technology, so that success is achieved quickly."

The contract was signed in June 2008.

About Healy Hudson

Healy Hudson is one of the leading providers of electronic procurement solutions designed to optimize the procurement processes of private companies and public authorities. With the aid of practical solution platforms, catalog procurement, catalog management and public and private tender preparation and publication can be processed quickly, transparently and automatically.

About Fritz & Macziol

Fritz & Macziol is the leading provider of software, systems and services in Germany, Austria and Switzerland. Together with affiliated INFOMA, FRITZ & MACZIOL develop and distribute software and system solutions for public clients, small and medium-sized businesses and large companies. Moreover, the company offers a wide range of hardware and services regarding consulting and system integration.

About IBM

For more information, visit www.ibm.com/services.

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