Technology company HarvestRoad today announced that it has completed a worldwide market teaming agreement with market leader IBM.
As part of the arrangement IBM will take an equity stake in HarvestRoad and the two organisations will establish a worldwide marketing and sales strategy for the commercialisation of the HarvestRoad Hive application as an integral part of the IBM Open Learning Framework.
HarvestRoad Managing Director, Grame Barty, commenting on the arrangement, said "Both companies will work through the IBM sales organisation to launch the Education Solution to the worldwide client base. Together we will work to recruit and educate global
business partners and work closely with existing partners in the USA and Europe.
"This is a significant opportunity for the Company." Mr Barty said, "Having developed a very advanced and marketable product, we have a great opportunity to work with IBM to commercialise in a very effective manner."
Mr Barty said this approach wass the first major step in the newly focused strategic commercialisation phase of the Company's development.
"We aim to create these alliances, preferably cemented with equity commitments, to gain access to organisations
which exercise control and influence over major world-scale market share in our key application segments. This one represents our commitment to the worldwide education market and our means of access," he said.
"We intend to use this access model in other key markets, such as publishing and notably defence/aerospace, an area in which we have been building relationships and expertise for some years. For each business application area, as our products become fully featured we will seek to embark upon a marketing and sales alliance which will provide growing access to major international customer bases," Mr Barty said.