|
SAN FRANCISCO
—
IBM Corp.
has released its own version of Internet-based email for
businesses, in a move designed to compete with an
increasingly popular service from
Google Inc.
IBM
said its LotusLive iNotes service includes e-mail,
calendar and contact management, and is ideal for
employees that don't "require all the capabilities
of full-featured e-mail and collaboration software, or
for employees that currently have no access to company
e-mail."
"It's
going to be very competitive both functionally and from
an economic point of view," said
IBM
vice president of online collaboration services Sean
Poulley.
Providing
e-mail and other tools hosted online has been part of
Google's
expanded focus on providing services to businesses and
government agencies.
The
Mountain View, Calif.
-based company originally built its business around
offering search and other freely-available services to
consumers, but in more recent years began offering
businesses and agencies Google Apps, which includes
email, word processing and other tools for a
subscription fee.
Microsoft
recently began previewing its own Internet-based set of
software tools, Office Web Apps, though it doesn't
include a connected e-mail service.
More
broadly, computing in general has increasingly shifted
to a model that has data and tools stored and accessed
online, rather than locally in a computer or disk.
"There's
plenty of market data that says this will expand, and
we're certainly seeing it in our pipeline of
opportunities," Poulley said.
IBM's
Internet-based e-mail service is priced at what Poulley
called "a pretty aggressive starting point,"
as low as
$3
per user per month.
Google
prices its Google Apps service at
$50
per user per year.
Google
has touted the use of the technology by companies
including
Genentech Inc.
and
Salesforce.com Inc.
|
