IBM LotusLive Cloud Gets 200 New Partners

IBM lotuslive

The year-old LotusLive is a full-fledged collaboration suite aimed at the SMB space, with e-mail, conferencing, instant messaging, file sharing, relationship management, and project tracking functionality. Of course, it provides all the usual benefits of cloud deployments, including scalability and a low TCO.

Interestingly, Big Blue is positioning LotusLive as a replacement for Microsoft’s discontinued Windows Essential Business Server and a natural alternative to Microsoft Business Productivity Online Suite (which includes Exchange Online, SharePoint Online and other Microsoft SaaS apps).

LotusLive, unlike competitors like Google Apps, can be deployed on-premise as well as in the cloud.

Along with the new partners, IBM has announced that LotusLive has integrated DB2 Express database software into the core offering free of charge, with no limits on database size, databases per server, or number of users – a boon to application developers who need database support. Moreover, they’re offering customers and partners alike free trials of several LotusLive services.

I’ll be curious to see if MSPs begin to embrace LotusLive.

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