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 (NYSE: IBM) today announced new

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/software/earlyprograms/surveys/cust/nomination.wss?id=484)

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 Hooks

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]