IDC Report Summary: Solution selling is recognized to be the correct approach to take to selling software of all types, yet the concept is not always well implemented. It is particularly challenging for vendors of infrastructure software to create a solution-selling strategy that fully exploits the potential business value of which their products are capable. This study uses as an example the vertical industry approach to solution selling created by IBM across its five brands of WebSphere, Rational, DB2, Tivoli and Lotus. The particular approach adopted by IBM is relatively recent, but its value seems to be becoming accepted by large enterprise users. It can be seen to achieve the desired results of reducing risk by presenting infrastructure configurations that are known to work for a particular set of circumstances, to reduce the implementation time by bundling templates and best practices, and in particular to connect the perception of business value to the selection of software infrastructure products. Full report