Update: Alliances & Partnerships

IBM JOINS ACORD

IBM (Armonk, NY) has joined ACORD (Pearl River, NY). As an ACORD associate member, IBM will participate in the convergence of multiple industry standards into a common structure.

MICROSOFT CERTIFIES AQS

Commercial lines software and services provider AQS (Heartland, WI) has been named a Microsoft Certified Partner.

INSUREPOINT MERGES

Insurance e-commerce companies InsurePoint (South Pasadena, CA) and nekema. com (Jersey City, NJ) will merge. The new company will adopt the InsurePoint brand for its insurance offerings and will target the commercial lines marketplace for agents/ brokers and carriers.

RISK MGT. ALLIANCE

New York-based Tillinghast-Towers Perrin and Annuity Systems, Inc. (ASI, Toronto), announced an equity risk management alliance to provide risk management solutions for companies providing equity-based insurance products, including variable and equity-indexed annuities, segregated funds and unit-linked products.

INGENIX TABS CYCLONE

West Valley City, UT-based Ingenix, Inc., has chosen Cyclone Commerce Inc. (Scottsdale, AZ) to provide components to the Ingenix platform for secure transmission of patient-identifiable information.

MPO-FOCUS COLLABORATE

E-business products and services provider MPO (FortWashington, PA) has joined with Leamington Spa, UK-based Focus Solutions Group to provide Focus Solutions "goal: technlogy" product to North American insurance carriers.

XML PARTNERSHIP

Middleware providers iWay Software (New York) and XML Global Technologies (Seattle) agreed to jointly develop and market an XML-based e-business integration solution for enterprise environments. The product will be branded eBIX (e-Business XML Integration Server).

EXCELON NABS C-BRIDGE

Burlington, MA-based eXcelon Corp. and C-bridge (Boston) are merging. The new company will conduct business as eXcelon Corp., and will provide enterprise commerce mangement solutions delivered on a platform-based architecture.

BIOMETRICS ALLIANCE

Southborough, MA-based managed services provider eTrue has selected fingerprint technology specialist Precise Biometrics (Lund, Sweden) as a preferred partner.

AETNA GLOBAL/HTH PACT

Aetna Global Benefits (Hartford) has entered into a strategic alliance with information and interactive services company HTH Worldwide (Radnor, PA) to provide the carrier's overseas members access to global health information and services.

ACE USA ON EPOLICY SITE

Epolicy.com Insurance Services Inc. (Torrance, CA) has signed an agreement with Philadelphia-based P&C insurance and reinsurance carrier ACE USA to offer new lines of specialty professional liability insurance on the ePolicy site.