IBM is slated to announce new developers and customers for its ISV Advantage for Industries and SMB programs.

At the PartnerWorld conference in Las Vegas earlier this month, IBM announced that it will invest $1 billion this year in ISV programs, as well as its new ISV Advantage for Industries program. This week the Armonk, N.Y., company plans to announce its first entrant into that program, SPL WorldGroup Inc., of San Francisco.

J. Guerry Waters, senior vice president and chief technology officer at SPL, said his company joined the program "because we needed a global footprint, and we felt like we needed to find partners that had breadth from a technology and marketing point of view" that matched SPL's goals.

SPL delivers customer care and billing software for the energy and utilities industry but is branching into financial services, insurance and media, Waters said.

Buell Duncan, IBM's general manager of ISV and developer relations, said IBM will target some 15 industry segments by year's end with its new program.

While the ISV Advantage for Industries program is new, the IBM ISV Advantage for SMB (small and midsize businesses) is about a year old.

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