October 2008
IBM today extended its most widely used software, Lotus Notes, to new markets through delivery as a hosted service, Lotus Notes Hosted Messaging.

IBM has been driving Lotus Notes and Domino into new markets such as iPhone users, social networking and unified communications clients and many other new businesses around the world.

Lotus has led IBM into the nascent cloud services market with offerings such as Sametime Unyte Web conferencing software and IBM's "Bluehouse" extranet collaboration service. IBM is extending its cloud services strategy to its flagship Lotus Notes franchise to attract new customers including more retail, global manufacturing and insurance companies. Lotus Notes Hosted Messaging can be customized to the needs of each company by an IBM services team.

Using a hosting service, there is no need to purchase, house or supply energy to new hardware needed to run the software. Customers of Lotus Notes messaging software can instead focus their IT resources on other strategic business projects.

Priced starting at less than $10 per user per month, new IBM Lotus Notes Hosted Messaging is designed primarily for companies with 1,000 to 10,000 employees. However, IBM can tailor software and service plans for smaller and larger companies as well.

The new hosted Notes Messaging service is supported by a dedicated IBM team and features two service level agreement options, spam and virus filtering and back up and restore services.

"Software delivery models such as cloud computing, software-as-a-service and hosting are evolving because companies want flexibility," said Kevin Cavanaugh, vice president, IBM Messaging and Collaboration. "The new hosted Notes is another option IBM is providing to customers. There is high demand for this approach because of the way it is delivered, and its competitive pricing," he added.
 
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