Alliances & Partnerships

MICROSOFT/ACORD

As part of integration between ACORD (Pearl River, N.Y.) forms and Microsoft (Redmond, Wash.) Office InfoPath 2003, part of the Microsoft Office System, standardized forms for processing insurance transactions between independent agents and insurance companies will be easier to maintain for ACORD Advantage agents.

AIT/FISERV CBS

AIT (Meriden, Conn.) and Fi-serv CBS Worldwide (London) expanded a relationship the two companies started in 1995. Under the terms of the partnership, Fiserv CBS Worldwide will adapt and integrate AIT's Portrait product into its end-to-end marketing, sales and servicing solutions for financial services clients worldwide.

FAIR ISAAC/DST ON BPM

Fair Isaac Corp. (San Rafael, Calif.) and DST Technologies, Inc., (Kansas City, Mo.) will combine business process management (BPM) and business rules management technologies for enterprise use. The two companies will bring together DST's Automated Work Distributor (AWD) solution for BPM, imaging and customer management with the business rules management capabilities of Fair Isaac's Blaze Advisor.

CRM ONDEMAND

Siebel Systems, Inc. (San Mateo, Calif.), and IBM Corp. (Armonk, N.Y.) have designed a new On Demand hosted customer relationship management service. The two companies will jointly develop, market, sell, deliver and service Siebel CRM OnDemand, which is designed to meet market demands for affordable CRM, according to the partners.

CGE&Y/CRYSTAL DEAL

Crystal Decisions (Palo Alto, Calif.), a provider of business intelligence software and services, has partnered with Cap Gemini Ernst & Young US LLC (New York) in a relationship that will encompass joint product development, co-marketing and reseller capabilities. As part of the agreement, CGE&Y will maintain a team of consultants certified in Crystal Decisions products, and market joint solutions to its customers.

TIBCO/INTEGRA EXTEND

London-based Integra SP, an integration solutions provider, and TIBCO Software Inc. (Palo Alto, Calif.), a business integration software company, extended their existing partnership and outlined plans to provide a series of co-developed solutions designed for the financial services industry. Specifically, TIBCO's technology will be integrated into Integra SP's MarketConnect, a recently announced financial messaging appliance product.

INSTAR/PRIORITYRATE

PRIORITY Data Systems, headquartered in Omaha, now integrates its Internet-based comparative rating system with InStar's (Kennewick, Wash.) agency management systems. The relationship enables single-entry functionality in an online environment. InStar users' information entered in their PriorityRate.com comparative rating system can now transfer directly to their InStar management system database.