Meridian IT Ltd (MITL) has become the latest major UK player to join the iManifest EMEA pressure group.

The Henley-In-Arden, Warwickshire-based company started off in the early 1990s as an IBM midrange reseller. Although it is now part of American IT giant Meridian Group which sells solutions from a number of vendors including IBM, Sun and Oracle, MITL sees its support for iManifest as a return to its roots.

MITL's Stephen Young says: "This move is really based on our pedigree as probably the only IBM business partner that can genuinely state that we are an IBM-only shop in the UK and that our heritage has instilled in us the deep skills that allow us to support our System i and Power i customers in their very best business interests."

iManifest EMEA was founded in July by LANSA's UK-based chief operating officer Martin Fincham in response to the launch of the original iManifest organisation in Japan. Like the Japanese group of 71 i-centric vendors, iManifest EMEA seeks to fly the flag for the Power i platform independently of IBM. The aim is to show the business world the depth of vendor support the platform enjoys, dispel legacy-type myths and hammer home its strengths. An iManifest U.S.A. has also been launched in recent weeks.

MITL's financial commitment to iManifest EMEA brings the organisation's fighting fund to €43,470 which is over half of its initial €81,000 target to buy advertising in the mainstream business press to declare its intentions. In October, iNEWSWire UK reported that industry heavyweights Avnet and Infor had got on board to join what are now 14 publicly declared members.

On his Midrange Meddle blog, Fincham writes: "It is hard to predict what the recruitment tempo will be leading up to the holidays but I am confident that, come early 2010, iManifest EMEA will be airborne. Several other major global ISVs are close to saying yes and I have found an ever-increasing number of IBMers who are helping to spread the word and activate their personal networks."

For his part, Young says his support underlines MITL's strategy to implement a platform that supports and benefits a business, not one that needs a business to support it.

"In this respect, we are very interested in the iManifest statement and the planning that is contemplated moving forward with this initiative to maybe get this story better told," he says. "After all, it is a platform that sustains many high-profile businesses -- and they actually may not even know it. So we have thrown our hat into the ring to help move this initiative forward and perhaps to also move MITL out from the shadows and declare our hand in supporting what we already do in so many ways, particularly with our customers in the UK and Europe."