Mick Moignard's Blog

A press release from IBM in the US just passed through my computer:

200+ Microsoft Partners Per Month Flocking to Sell IBM Lotus Foundations

Small Businesses say Foundations is Better, Cheaper, Smarter than SBS

ARMONK, NY -- June 4, 2009 -- Facing decreasing demand for Microsoft products, more than 1,000 Microsoft Business Partners have offered to sell IBM's Lotus Foundations (www.ibm.com/lotus/foundations) "office-in-a-box" appliance for small businesses (SMB) in the five months of 2009.  

According to Microsoft business partners, sales of Microsoft's Small Business Server (SBS) software bundle have stagnated due to lack of innovation and partner dissatisfaction with their inability to add solutions and services.   Microsoft partners are looking for an alternative that provides their small-medium business (SMB) customers with more collaboration computing power for less money and more reliability in these cash-strapped times.    
"Lotus Foundations is a complete, cost-effective solution that easily scales as a business grows.  When you add users, you know exactly what it will cost and the functionality you'll get," said Bernie Leung of Mesa Technology.   "With Microsoft SBS, you always have to worry about what additional licenses you will have to purchase - the SQL client is just one example."

In addition, some Microsoft partners have expressed disenchantment with Microsoft's new strategy against Linux by offering a skeletal version of Windows Server.    Named "Microsoft Foundation Windows Server," it can only be used as a loss leader to up-sell customers a variety of other Microsoft products.   Seeing rising customer demand for lower cost, more secure, and open source alternatives, many Microsoft partners are looking to sell Linux-based solutions, not bash them.  


There's quite a lot more in the release which I guess can be found in full at IBM.com. How the worm turns!