Sterling Commerce Announces IBM Global Partnership to Help Retail Clients Transform Their Business Processes

NEW YORK, NY, Jan 12 (MARKET WIRE) --
Sterling Commerce, an AT&T Inc (NYSE: T) company, today announced it has
selected IBM as a global partner to help clients in retail and other
industries simplify their IT infrastructure, reduce costs and transform
business processes. Sterling Commerce and IBM are now defining
go-to-market projects based on several IBM industry Frameworks to be
supported by Sterling Commerce software solutions.

"Businesses today demand information technology that will help them
streamline and evolve their business processes to make their organization
more flexible and efficient," said Tom Rosamilia, general manager, IBM
WebSphere software. "The combination of Sterling Commerce solutions and
IBM technology and services can help our joint clients realize these
goals and better serve customer needs."

As part of today's announcement, Sterling Commerce also announced that the

Sterling Selling and Fulfillment Suite is validated with the IBM Retail
Integration Framework, an SOA-based enterprise software platform based on
industry best practices and open standards that can create flexibility
while accelerating the deployment and integration of multiple retail
solutions. Sterling Selling and Fulfillment Suite is a unique set of
applications for managing the entire inquiry-to-cash process and provides
a single inquiry-to-cash process of multi-channel selling and fulfillment
operations.

The companies will extend their retail experience to other industries
using additional IBM industry Frameworks specifically designed for the
manufacturing, financial services, communications and media and
entertainment sectors.

"Sterling Commerce solutions help our customers connect, communicate and
collaborate with their customers, partners and suppliers better than
anyone else," said Joel Reed, senior vice president, Corporate Marketing
and Strategic Alliances, at Sterling Commerce. "Partnering with IBM, we
can enable companies in multiple industries across multiple regions to
work within their business communities in a productive, secure and
effective manner that drives positive business results for all involved."

Sterling Commerce products include Sterling Selling and Fulfillment Suite
and Sterling Commerce integration solutions for managed file transfer and
business-to-business (B2B) connectivity and collaboration. These solutions
are now enabled on IBM's System p servers, DB2 database and WebSphere
middleware products including WebSphere Commerce. Sterling Selling and
Fulfillment Suite also comes embedded with IBM Cognos 8 Business
Intelligence to enable customers to leverage data within the Suite to make
key decisions at critical points in time, respond more quickly to changing
business conditions, and drive better cross-functional alignment and
collaboration through timely performance monitoring and alerts.

About Sterling Commerce

Sterling Commerce, an AT&T Inc (NYSE: T) company, helps customers thrive
in a global economy by connecting their business communities, processes,
people and technology. More than 30,000 customers worldwide use Sterling
Commerce solutions for business process integration, multi-channel
selling, and supply chain fulfillment, and payments management to
optimize business performance inside and outside their enterprise.
Headquartered in Columbus, Ohio, Sterling Commerce has offices in 24
countries around the world. More information can be found at
www.sterlingcommerce.com

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