7th Street jumps teaming with IBM

7th Street.com Inc. (Nasdaq: SEVL) rose 23 percent, up 1 9/32 to 6 3/4, after announcing on Wednesday that International Business Machines Corp. (NYSE: IBM) will distribute 7th Street's learning content on the Internet and its internal intranet using 7th Street's streaming technology.

Big Blue, the world's largest computer maker, will distribute the content on Internet and intranets through its small business computers sales channel and IBM's learning services sales force. IBM's 291,000 employees will also have access to 7th Street's entire library of courses through the company's online campus. The online tutorials will be delivered using 7th Street's streaming technology.

"This extensive reselling agreement will ensure that our content, which includes our exclusive streaming technology, reaches a broad base of potential customers," said CEO Stephen Gott in a statement.

The small business training series will be a package of 43 online courses that teach users about PC desktops, Thinkpads and servers. The series will be added to the services sales business as a free feature and will be sold separately.

IBM gets one quarter of its revenue from services and the company said earlier this month that one-quarter of its sales would come from its online businesses. PC sales made up 18 percent of revenue for Big Blue last year.

7th Level, which made character animation software and streaming technology, merged with closely held Street Technologies Inc., an online IT tutorial provider, in February.

IBM isn't the first big name to pen a deal with 7th Street. In March, America Online Inc. (NYSE: AOL) signed up to resell its tutorials and GeoCities (Nasdaq: GCTY) added the company to its list of affiliates. RealNetworks Inc. (Nasdaq: REAL) tapped 7th Street for its character animation tools last April. 7th Street also has agreements with Broadcast.com Inc. (Nasdaq: BCST) and Wavephore Inc. (Nasdaq: WAVO).