4.1 Introduction to IBM Software Delivery Center For the past several years, customers have been migrating their environments to Web-based environments and want products and services to integrate with them. With the proliferation of corporate TCP/IP and Web-based intranets, it is logical to use them to deliver software to and manage software on enterprise computers. Web-enabled applications have the following advantages: Single interface for all clients and platforms Consistent, easily learned interface On demand availability Low cost of implementation and ownership Many of the software delivery products in the marketplace are not Web-based or Web-enabled. The few Web-based software delivery solutions that do exist provide minimal functionality with a high degree of cost and complexity. They generally do not incorporate all the necessary requirements, or they are too expensive to implement just for distributing software. IBM Software Delivery Center is a cost-effective, full function, on demand, Web-based software distribution solution that delivers software updates and patches to networked and non-networked clients. Software Delivery Center helps administrators deliver to and manage software for a user, a group of users, or an entire organization through a single interface.