"Working with ITI provides a significant opportunity to broaden IBM's reach to the financial services sector," said Al Zollar, general manager, IBM eServer iSeries. "ITI's decades of experience and substantial client-base make it an ideal business partner within this marketplace."

Southern Community Financial Corporation of Winston-Salem, N.C., a $1-billion organization, was the first financial institution to choose to convert to ITI's Premier product suite and run their operations on an IBM server platform. The conversion is scheduled for June.

"As leaders within their respective fields, a technology partnership between IBM and ITI is a great fit, and really the perfect fit for Southern Community Financial," says Merle Andrews, Executive Vice President. "We've been impressed with the powerful Premier suite of software and services for a long time, but we're also a longtime IBM shop. So when ITI announced that the new Premier was available on an IBM hardware platform, which had never been an option before, that became the deciding factor for us."

The $226-million Cornhusker Bank of Lincoln, Neb., was next to opt for the Premier iSeries solution. The 101-year-old, family-owned community bank's conversion is scheduled for late summer.

"Keeping up with technological advances helps Cornhusker Bank maintain the high level of personal service expected from a bank so deeply rooted in its community," explains Alice Dittman, Chairman of the Board. "We're looking forward to working with the nation's premier banking technology company, and to making the fullest use of the most advanced software products available. The fact that next-generation Premier now runs on the IBM iSeries platform made the ITI case even more compelling."

"ITI offers America's financial institutions the finest technology solutions available, and along with our Premier suite of software and services, we now offer a choice of the industry's best hardware," said ITI President & CEO Michael K. Young. "The iSeries server is a strong addition to our platform offerings, and we couldn't be more pleased to include IBM as our newest technology association."

Part of IBM's eServer product family, the iSeries system is a highly integrated, very secure, flexible server used for information technology consolidation and running mission critical e-business applications. It can help reduce total cost of ownership and deliver rapid ROI through management simplification, resource-sharing and improved availability. The iSeries server offers self-managing, self-healing capabilities for unmatched ease of use and systems management. In addition, capacity on demand provides iSeries users extra processing power as it's needed to meet business demands.

"The iSeries system's ability to virtualize resources across multiple operating systems delivers significant advantages for financial institutions seeking the benefits of an open, on-demand operating environment," said Zollar. "With its ability to simplify the IT infrastructure, the iSeries platform also reduces the total cost of operation and ease of management while providing innovative solutions."

"Providing integration, flexibility and scalability throughout an enterprise-wide suite of applications, Premier helps boost revenue with labor-saving products and services that anticipate the needs of the banking customer," explained Young. "It's a next-generation solution tailored to fit the needs of any financial institution, through a combination of software for virtually every banking function, a choice of the finest hardware platforms, and a full range of services that enable our clients to reap the greatest return on their technology investment."