Smaller Blue
IBM has announced plans for a software portfolio expansion geared to the needs of companies from five to 500 employees. IBM Lotus Foundations is a future line of small business software servers that is expected to be offered primarily through IBM Business Partners.
Big Blue also unveiled a managed beta of a Web-delivered service codenamed Bluehouse, which provides extranet services designed to allow secure collaboration between companies. The aim of these new products is to provide “enterprise-strength software” in an easy to use form for smaller businesses without IT staff. The server software is apparently able to manage and ‘heal’ itself.
Lotus Foundations is based on Linux and IBM announced further support for Linux products in the form of a Suse-powered integrated open collaboration client solution with support for Ubuntu and a new marketing initiative in collaboration with Red Hat – a Linux business software product.
IBM is also going to develop some software in collaboration with SAP for the first time. Codenamed Atlantic it will allow Lotus Notes users to access SAP’s Business Suite applications. The move comes at a time when Oracle and Sun Microsystems both strengthened their position in the business software market with big acquisitions last week as reported by HEXUS.channel and Microsoft makes a move into the red-hot virtualisation market.
