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2005 

interact with future products or services. The new IBM Product Design Consulting Services has 

been established in conjunction with IBM Engineering & Technology Services and IBM 

Business Consulting Services. 

IBM rolls out two new offerings that will help insurance companies transform complicated, 

manual processes into Web automated business components. (In the past 12 months, 850 

companies have joined IBM's PartnerWorld Insurance Network    software vendors and  

technology companies that have aligned themselves with IBM's insurance industry infrastructure 

offerings, middleware solutions and consulting services.) 

NiSource Inc. and IBM reach an agreement for IBM to provide a broad range of business 

transformation and outsourcing services to NiSource beginning in July. The ten year agreement 

is estimated to be worth $1.6 billion to IBM in service fees and project costs and is expected to 

deliver upwards of $530 million in operating and capital cost savings across NiSource's 15 

primary operating subsidiaries over the course of the contract. 

The company introduces Grid and Grow, a packaged set of software, hardware and services to 

deliver the benefits of Grid computing to businesses of all sizes. 

In August, IBM announces the first in a series of podcasts to expand on the traditional investor 

Web site content by discussing industry wide trends and IBM specific innovations in a variety of 

emerging business and technology areas. 

In October, the company rolls out 22 new IBM Express Portfolio offerings designed to help 

medium sized business with security, supply chain management, backup and recovery, enterprise 

resource planning and other critical applications. 

Alliances 

IBM and AT&T announce they will jointly offer a packaged team collaboration solution that will 

make it easier for small and medium sized businesses to buy and deploy collaboration software 

with integrated Internet access capabilities.  

IBM and Network Appliance announce a strategic storage relationship to drive information on 

demand solutions and to expand IBM's portfolio of storage solutions.  

Mercury Computer Systems, Inc., partners with IBM to integrate the  Cell  microprcessor 

technology to build new breakthrough computer systems for data intensive applications. 

Science & Technology 

U.S. President George W. Bush announces that IBM has been awarded the 2004 National Medal 

of Technology by the U.S. Department of Commerce and the Technology Administration in 

recognition of more than four decades of innovation in semiconductor technology. The award 

cites such IBM breakthroughs as the development of multicore processor integration, DRAM 

(Dynamic Random Access Memory), the use of copper on chip wiring, Silicon on Insulator 

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