Connectria And Curbstone In Payment Tie-Up
June 13, 2022 Alex Woodie
Connectria, which operates an IBM i cloud out of several data centers and is arguably one of the largest IBM i cloud providers in the world, has inked a deal with IBM i card payment firm Curbstone that will see the two company’s become business partners.
Curbstone is a Jasper, Georgia-based company that develops IBM i software that allows merchants to process debit and credit card transactions directly on the IBM i server. The software is fully PCI DSS compliant and features scores of integrations with various payment networks as well as IBM i applications like those from Infor, DPS, and Alliant Data Systems.
It was those integrations that caught the eyes of Connectria, the St. Louis, Missouri-based managed service provider (MSP) that runs more than 1,000 IBM i LPARs on behalf of its clients, according to Jeff Swartz, Connectria’s former director of channel sales.
“Curbstone’s payment integrations within IBM i applications complements Connectria’s industry leading IBM i skills and support beautifully,” Swartz said in a press release. “Their full seamless integration to ERP order entry eliminates double keying as well as potential fragmented payment handling, settlement, and posting.”
Connectria has been establishing partnerships with IBM i vendors in recent years. In 2018, it partnered with modernization tool provider Fresche Solutions, although that partnership may be in jeopardy following Fresche’s 2021 acquisition of Abacus Solutions, a Connectria competitor. Last year, it partnered with Profound Logic, a provider of application development and modernization tools for IBM i, and earlier this year, it was named a Premier Consulting Partner with AWS, the cloud giant’s top spot for partners.
Connectria has spent millions of dollars over the past couple of years to get Power systems in data centers close to AWS data centers. The proximity is important, as it gives Connectria’s IBM i and AIX customers “on-net” connections to their compute, data, and applications running in AWS.
Curbstone, which was acquired last year by a subsidiary of software juggernaut Constellation Software, appears to be increasing its market presence following the acquisition. In addition to a new website and a new logo, the preferred partnership with Connectria should give it further reach into Connectria’s installed base.
“With a shared background on the IBM i, Connectria has been a natural business partner for Curbstone,” Curbstone sales manager Russell Gilmer said in the statement. “Their hosting solutions allow our shared customer base to maintain the legacy benefits of the IBM i, with the added scale and flexibility of cloud computing.”
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