IBM has announced that more than 200 partners are planning to sell LotusLive cloud services to their customers.  The news comes just two months after the introduction of the LotusLive partner program and is evidence of an increasing migration to the cloud for collaboration capabilities, IBM said.  

New integrated solutions from partners, including Silanis and Skype, are bringing LotusLive to new global customers in the insurance, banking, and other industries around the world.  In addition, LotusLive has many other market leading partners including  PGi, Intercall, Ascendant, Insight, and Integrasys to name a few.

As part of the news, IBM is also extending the capabilities of Lotus Foundations by integrating DB2 Express database software into the core appliance offering free of charge to better serve SMB customers.  There is no database size limit, no limit on the number of instances or databases per server and no restriction on the number of users.  

The news reinforces IBM's commitment to SMB customers who require IT solutions that are easy to use and acquire. These developments are appealing to Microsoft customers and partners in the wake of Microsoft's discontinuation of its flagship offering for SMB, Windows Essential Business Server. Microsoft announced its withdrawal on March 7, leaving partners and customers looking for alternatives.

"We can rely on IBM to address our midmarket customer needs unlike Microsoft who has left us in the cold with this abrupt withdrawal of Enterprise Business Server," said Bernie Leung, CEO of MESA Technology. "I will invest more with our IBM partnership and guide Small Business Server customers to move to IBM since I don't see how resellers can make money or avoid channel conflict with Microsoft Business Productivity Online Suite."

"Whether it's in the cloud with LotusLive or on-premise with Lotus Foundations, IBM is making information technology easier to use for customers and simpler to provide for partners," said Alistair Rennie, general manager, IBM Lotus Software, "through a hybrid cloud and on-premise delivery model."

A Cloudy Future

Many businesses are migrating to the cloud--the IBM cloud.  In fact, IBM's LotusLive collaboration cloud has attracted more than 18 million users from businesses of all sizes within its first year. LotusLive delivers a full range of collaborative services including  cloud-based email, web conferencing, instant messaging, file sharing, relationship management and project tracking, enabling people to work with anyone from anywhere, in any company or organization. Benefitting from the cost-efficiencies of the cloud, LotusLive also offers the reliable, scalable and private business support for which IBM is known.

"We saw what was already out in the market  and we wanted to offer the best-of-breed in a subscription-based model," said Shoby John, CEO of Integrasys.  "LotusLive represents that."

IBM is also offering clients and partners free trials of several cloud services.  Some trials have expanded from 15 to 30 days covering LotusLive Meetings, LotusLive Connections, LotusLive iNotes and LotusLive Engage, all of which are capable of working together as a seamless suite.    

• LotusLive Engage encompasses the full range of LotusLive collaboration services combining social networking, Web conferencing, file storing and sharing, instant messaging and activity management.  
• LotusLive Meetings is an integrated online Web conferencing service always available for use and designed with security as a top priority.  LotusLive Connections is an innovative set of Web-based collaboration services combined with social networking capabilities, featuring file sharing, business instant messaging, activity management and networking.  
• LotusLive iNotes, starting at just $3 per user per month, is IBM's flexible yet secure cloud mail service that blends reliability and privacy.

"LotusLive allows people to go to a hybrid model that allows you to collaborate within your company but also go outside the firewall.   Another key benefit of cloud technology is the immediacy of the service. You go online and within 13 seconds your collaborating with the world," said Raymond Sembler, senior vice president, PGi.

For more information on LotusLive, visit:  https://www.lotuslive.com/en/.

IBM Bolsters Support for SMB

IBM is announcing enhancements to Lotus Foundations with the integration of DB2 Express-C as part of the offering.  Software application providers can also take advantage of autonomic features making their applications easier to manage and deploy without on-site IT support.

Now business partners and application developers can develop and deploy, at no charge, applications that require a high performance, highly reliable and scalable database.  Along with support for all leading programming languages, development environments, and the open SQL standard, the DB2 software also includes advanced features such as native XML support, and enterprise grade security for compliance with demanding government and industry regulations. DB2 Express-C is fully integrated with Lotus Foundations user management and backup processes to deliver hands-off operations that are required for midmarket solutions.

IBM's hybrid solution platform allows application providers to rapidly build and integrate their applications,  delivering them on-premise using a hardware appliance and in the cloud through LotusLive.  This allows small business and midmarket users to focus on their business priorities and work smarter without worrying about  IT and where the content resides.