ACCPAC Partnership 2003 Day 3 General Session By J

Scott Handy opened his presentation explaining that ACCPAC and IBM have formed an alliance to accelerate the momentum in the small and medium business arenas. He said that this was a long term commitment, he spoke at last year's conference and he plans on speaking at next year's conference as well.

Scott said that IBM delivers express versions of key products such as DB2, Web Sphere, Lotus, Thrall, etc. IBM would now like to focus attention onto products designed for SMB's, DB2, and Linux. The progress that IBM has made toward this goal is products enabled for Linux and DB2 in 2001, they added IBM Business Exchange Services in 2002, and in January 2003 they have licesned DB2 as the default database for ACCPAC products. Scott added that over 200 customers are running with DB2 at this time.

Scott stated that IBM is offering numerous support options for partners, including:

They will extend existing rebate programs until the end of December of 2003.
Offered a 50% extra rebate to those who got their rebate in by the end of that day (8-23-03).
Fund 5 IBM Linux application briefs highlighting your company and customer selected from references submitted to ACCPAC.
One $6000 campaign designer slot for any partner who closes 10 DB2 sales with at least one on Linux by October 30th.(North America, EMEA)
Leaders for Linux eligible to receive up to $5000 in matched co-marketing funding.

Scott gave several Business Partner Awards for outstanding customer references, including:

Synergy Plus Solutions, Inc - won $7,500 from customer reference, County of Essex .
CorpoNet Implements - won $4,500 from customer referece, Commercial Trevino, SA de CV .
Impac - won $1,500 from customer reference, Tooltronic Inc.

He added that awards were extended until the end of this year (2003). There is also one $6,000 campaign designer slot open for any company who closes 10 DB2 services with at least one on Linux by October 30, 2003.

Susan Sheridan's presentation was a motivational speech encouraging confidence. She explained that many times competent resellers lack the confidence in themselves to complete tasks in a timely manner because they are spending too much time examining every minor detail of a task. She explained further that people who are merely confident (even when they lack competence), accomplish many times more than their less-sure-of-themselves counterparts.

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