The Linux World Builds SMB Market Opportunity With Software Appliances From Lotus Foundations and ISVs

SAN FRANCISCO, CA, Aug 05 (MARKET WIRE) --
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/usrsrvc/account/userservices/jsp/login.jsp?persistPage=
ruel)
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
azzi@us.ibm.com

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