The Linux World Builds SMB Market Opportunity With Software Appliances From Lotus Foundations and ISVs
SOURCE:
IBM
2008-08-05 14:39:00
The Linux World Builds SMB Market Opportunity With Software Appliances From Lotus Foundations and ISVs
The Linux World Builds SMB Market Opportunity With Software Appliances From Lotus Foundations and ISVs
Challenging Microsoft Small Business Server: Novell, ISVs, Tapping Into IBM Appliance for Small Business
SAN FRANCISCO, CA–(EMWNews – August 5, 2008) – IBM (
software appliance initiatives designed to accelerate the adoption of Linux
in small and medium businesses (SMBs) and the deployment of Domino
applications on Lotus Foundations.
The new developments include a preconfigured version of SUSE Linux
Enterprise Server 10 from Novell in Lotus Foundations and a toolkit that
opens new opportunities for Domino software vendors (ISVs) to deliver their
applications on a software appliance to the smallest businesses. IBM is
also announcing a new strategy — the ISV Software Appliance Initiative —
designed to enable a wide range of ISVs to deliver Linux software
appliances to mid-market customers.
From Novell to local software firms, the Linux community is building a
broader market around IBM’s new computing appliance, Lotus Foundations
Start, girding for the battle to liberate small businesses from Microsoft’s
proprietary Small Business Server.
Lotus Foundations Start is the first product of IBM’s Blue Business
Platform initiative designed to simplify the acquisition and use of
information technology (IT) for small and medium businesses (SMBs). It
offers small and medium businesses a simple, affordable and integrated
solution for collaboration, file management, networking, office
productivity security, back-up and disaster recovery. Of particular note is
Lotus Foundations’ backup technology, which enables businesses to recover
their system settings and business files in just minutes. In addition, ISVs
can add solutions on top of the Lotus Foundations platform, creating
turnkey offerings tailored to specific vertical market requirements.
IBM’s first hardware and software bundle geared for businesses from five to
five hundred employees, Lotus Foundations is a line of self-managing
appliance servers that allow small companies to focus on running their
business instead of their IT operations. Now by agreement with Novell, it
just got even easier for SMBs to use Lotus Foundations and capitalize on
the cost-efficiencies, reliability and stability of Linux. Some will also
find appealing use of an operating system that eliminates the frequent
concerns over glitches, patches, crashes and security that small businesses
continually experience with Microsoft Windows. SUSE Linux Enterprise Server
10 is the first operating system preloaded and preconfigured in Lotus
Foundations.
SUSE Linux Enterprise Server is an enterprise-quality server designed to
handle a wide variety of workloads across the enterprise. SUSE Linux
Enterprise server can be deployed as a general-purpose server or can be
tailored to run a variety of specialized workloads. It offers seamless
interoperability with existing data center infrastructure and is backed by
a large ecosystem of ISVs developing applications that run on Lotus
Foundations. Preconfiguring SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 10 means that
buyers and sellers of Lotus Foundations need no Linux-specific skills to
deploy or maintain the operating system to industry best practices. It also
gives customers and business partners the flexibility to select and use
hardware they choose.
“In today’s environment, IT complexity is the unfortunate norm,” said Roger
Levy, senior vice president and general manager of Open Platform Solutions
at Novell. “The combination of SUSE Linux Enterprise Server and Lotus
Foundations represents a significant step forward in the simplification of
this environment. It provides an affordable, reliable, easy-to-use software
appliance for small and medium businesses and opens new opportunities for
business partners to simplify the development and deployment of software
applications for those same companies. We’re excited to further extend our
close partnership with IBM, and be selected as the first company to deliver
solutions for this important initiative. The next wave of software delivery
is here.”
In addition, IBM today announced the beta program
(https://www-304.ibm.com/usrsrvc/account/userservices/jsp/login.jsp?persistPage=truel)
for the Lotus Foundations ISV Developer Toolkit which simplifies the
packaging of Domino applications for the Lotus Foundations appliance. Lotus
Domino is the enterprise collaboration software platform of choice for the
majority of the FORTUNE 500 companies. Now the thousands of ISVs developing
applications for Domino can easily offer their products to the small
business market. Conversely, start-ups and local businesses will now be
able to access the enterprise class line-of-business applications that the
largest corporations use, but at a fraction of the price and specifically
tailored for their business.
“I was there from the beginning when IBM Lotus Domino was being considered
for a Nitix offering and provided input on the necessary steps to deploy
applications into an integrated Domino server. I never envisioned it to
become such a simple process with wizard drive interfaces,” said Scott Cook
of Lotus911, a long-time Domino partner.
“Domino ISVs are excited about this because it opens a new market
opportunity them to sell Domino applications to small businesses,” said
Kevin Cavanaugh, Vice President of IBM Lotus Software. “Because this is a
software appliance, these applications can be deployed into environments
that may not have on-site Domino administrators. Suddenly the sky is the
limit for Domino developers.”
The growing popularity of Linux and IBM’s collaboration software is a sign
of the times as businesses look for more open, innovative and
cost-effective technology than Microsoft legacy software. No wonder sales
of IBM Lotus Software grew 21 percent in the second quarter — a rate
higher than Microsoft’s — and increasingly at Redmond’s expense. In
addition to sales led by the accelerating adoption of Lotus Notes and
Domino around the world, Lotus Symphony is taking a bite out of Microsoft
Office sales with more than 1.3 million downloads by businesses and
consumers alike. Moreover, the combination off Lotus Notes, Domino,
Symphony, SUSE Linux Enterprise Server and a host of other features in
Lotus Foundations has put Microsoft on notice.
IBM enables ISVs to deliver Linux-Based Software Appliances
Software Appliances such as Lotus Foundations are part of IBM’s drive to
make available additional offerings targeted at the mid market. A related
initiative announced today will enable ISVs to deliver Linux-based software
appliances to mid-market customers through business partner channels.
Software appliances are ready-to-use, complete solutions that can be
delivered on DVDs or USB drives, reducing a company’s level of IT skills
required to deploy the solutions, which can be installed on a bare metal
server or virtual machine in a few clicks. This is a great benefit to
mid-market customers who are seeking ways to expand their IT infrastructure,
but find traditional software deployments are often too complex and
expensive for their limited resources and IT budgets. Linux-based software
appliances have all the necessary software components on a single,
easy-to-use package.
IBM is providing select ISVs with technologies to enable them to build
their own Linux-based software appliances, along with technical and
marketing support. “Mid-market businesses typically have lean IT
organizations, which can limit their ability to migrate their applications
as their needs grow,” said Jeff Smith, vice president, open source and
Linux middleware. “IBM’s Linux-based software appliances provide a fully
integrated solution from the operating system to the application and
everything in between for our business partners to deploy in each
customer’s environment. The software appliances reduce the complexity of
deploying new applications by minimizing the installation and configuration
process. Business partners can move into higher value services more
quickly, helping grow their revenue.”
StradaSoft, Inc., an IBM business partner specializing in Business Process
Management (BPM) software, is one of approximately two dozen ISVs piloting
IBM’s software appliance initiative because it’s helping the company expand
beyond it’s traditional large enterprise customer base to the rapidly
growing mid market.
“By working with IBM on a software appliance solution, StradaSoft can free
up its technical consultants from sales and train its business consultants
to do the job instead,” said Lou Esposito, President and CIO of StradaSoft.
“The appliance solution reduces installation time for our customers from
one to two days to only a few hours.”
The IBM middleware encompassed in this initiative depends on each ISV
solution and the market addressed, but may include, either individually or
in combination, WebSphere Application Server Express (WAS Express),
WebSphere Application Server Express Community Edition (WAS CE), DB2
Express, and DB2 Express C.
Contact: Mike Azzi 914-766-1561 [email protected] |
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