There are many ways to milk a cloud.
IBM (NYSE: IBM) is launching a
cloud-basedemail service that could end up stealing sales
from both
Microsoft (Nasdaq: MSFT) and
Google (Nasdaq: GOOG).
The IBM LotusLive iNotes service is a
cloud computingemail platform that's aimed squarely at
corporate customers. For a $3 monthly fee per license, you
can get a secure email application that's hosted by IBM and
available from anywhere. For starters, IBM will provide the
cloud hosting, but there may be an installable version later
on; many IT directors simply prefer to host their own private
clouds with full control over the environment. "It's fair to
say we're pretty trusted," says Sean Poulley, IBM's vice
president of cloud services.
iNotes takes systems management out of the equation and
presents a simple, direct way to get and send mail from
anywhere, including from smartphones like
Research In Motion 's
(Nasdaq: RIMM) BlackBerry or
Apple' s (Nasdaq: AAPL)
iPhone. And there are early signs that mobile mailing might
be what IBM really is shooting for here.
IBM holds up
Nokia (NYSE: NOK) as an early customer and
partner. Today, 1.5 million Nokia phones come equipped with
the IBM LotusLive messaging software, so it's an easy next
step to sign up for an iNotes email address right from the
phone without ever touching a computer. That sounds a bit
like IBM will market this service directly to consumers on
the street, but the real money is in the corporate
market.
The obvious target market is businesses that use Google's
Gmail and Apps services now. Google's platform costs $50 a
year per user and IBM's solution comes out to $36 a year.
Granted,
Google Apps accountsalso come with other bells and
whistles like online word processing, and Google's 25 GB of
storage is much roomier than IBM's 1 GB. But many small and
medium businesses may prefer the no-frills approach,
especially in these times of tight IT budgets.
This is also a direct attack on Microsoft's huge installed
base of Exchange email servers. At $36 a year, iNotes comes a
whole lot cheaper than a Microsoft platform that costs
thousands to install and maintain. The same is true of
Microsoft's Exchange Hosted Services, which provides a
similar cloudy experience starting at $4.50/month per user,
but includes additional layers of fees.
iNotes alone will hardly move
IBM's big, blue needlevery far, but the company is
showing
real commitment to the idea of cloud computing. IBM will
challenge cloud-computing powerhouses like Google,
Amazon.com (Nasdaq: AMZN), and Microsoft for
years to come.
I'm using Gmail every day. Which Web mail platform would
you trust with your business mail? Discuss in the comments
below.
This article was originally published as
You've Got Cloud-Mail From IBMon
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