IBM Ties with WiSpry - Analyst Blog

International Business Machines Corp. (IBM) announced collaboration with WiSpry, Inc., a leader in tunable radio frequency (RF) semiconductor products for the wireless industry. WiSpry's tunable RF devices deliver superior levels of performance with improved talktime and increased time for surfing the Web on a wireless mobile device. 

Under the partnership, WiSpry and IBM will build micro-electromechanical machine systems (MEMS) process technology and develop products consisting of tunable RF. WiSpry will integrate its tunable RF technology with IBM's RF-CMOS process capability to develop the next-generation, tunable wireless mobile terminal front-end technology.

With the aid of IBM's technology, WiSpry will be able to deliver the current generation of broadband tunability products at a lower cost to an important, tier-one handset OEM customer this fall, the company said.

IBM is a leader in the development and manufacturing of semiconductors and process technologies. Its digital, analog-mixed signal and specialty process technologies are gaining large-scale adoption.

IBM’s specialty technology solutions for the RF / wireless market and its Unified Communications (UC) and collaboration platform and services are on a rise. IBM Global Technology Services (GTS) is assisting clients such as, Avaya, Forterra Systems, VBrick, and IDEA Cellular, around the globe to exploit the convergence of voice, video and data.

IDC estimates that the unified communications market will reach $17 billion in global revenues by 2011, growing at 38.0% compounded annually from 2007. IBM foresees unified communications as the next significant frontier for technological development.

Gartner cited IBM as the leader in Magic Quadrant leader in UC for offering integrated and comprehensive solutions. To meet these demands, IBM is investing considerably in a wide range of resources, including software, services and research.

IBM has a partnership with ShoreTel Inc. (SHOR), a leading provider of Pure IP Unified Communications solutions, to integrate ShoreTel’s distributed unified communications solutions with its unified communications and collaboration platform, IBM Lotus Sametime.

IBM also announced a series of partnerships earlier in the decade with Orange group, Samsung and Verizon Wireless (VZ). Verizon Wireless and Orange will provide customers wireless mobile network access to IBM Lotus Notes and Domino software on their hand-held devices. This will help IBM expand Lotus email access to 85 million users across the U.S. on the Verizon network and 113 million users across Europe on the Orange network.

We believe IBM is well-positioned to benefit from the growth in the mobile wireless market and believes tunabilty to be an important driver of growth. These partnerships will help IBM further improve its supply-chain, strengthen customer focus and achieve many-fold growth.

We therefore maintain our long-term Neutral recommendation on IBM. Currently the stock is rated a Zacks Rank #3, which implies a short-term Neutral rating on the stock.