NEW ORLEANS and DENVER — IBM and Intuit® Eclipse™ are working together to help small- and medium-sized businesses better manage their order processing, inventory control, accounting, purchasing and customer service.

IBM's technical and marketing agreement with Intuit Eclipse, a provider of business management software solutions for distributors, covers North America. Intuit Eclipse will optimize its Distribution Management Solutions suite for IBM's WebSphere Application Server Express.

It is among the first of such deals under IBM's new ISV Advantage Initiative, which is designed to provide select mid-market ISV business partners with an open infrastructure platform and support.