IBM has announced several new offerings aimed at the mid-sized business market.

The new offerings are many, but the message from IBM is fairly simple. The offerings are designed to help customers drive growth in the challenging economic environment and take advantage of the opportunities the Smarter Planet initiative offers. The overall strategic objective with the new products and services is to deliver the kind of value they need in a down economy, said Ed Abrams, vice president of marketing for IBM Express Advantage.

"If you look at what we talk about in terms of the Smarter Planet agenda, which really is not an IBM agenda but is an opportunity for all our customers to take advantage of, the offerings we're announcing today enable our partners, and by extension our customers, to take advantage of a Smarter Planet," Abrams said.

All of the new offerings were designed to be delivered, supported, augmented and expanded upon by IBM's business partners, he said. They're also meant to be meaningful solutions to real problems that customers are having.

"We are finding that partners are suffering just like everyone is suffering. Just like their customers are less eager to purchase. That's why this set of announcements is so beneficial to them," Abrams said.

>> Click here to read the full report