IBM tweaks e-mail for midsize businesses

Taking aim at Microsoft's Exchange, IBM next week plans to introduce an e-mail server designed for medium-size businesses. Called IBM Lotus Domino Messaging Express, the e-mail software is the latest Express-labeled line of products meant to boost IBM's sales among smaller organizations.

The e-mail package, which also includes a group scheduling and discussion forum database, will be priced at $48 per user when customers drop a competitive e-mail product in favor of Lotus Domino Messaging. New purchases cost $96 per user.

IBM is missing the mark.

IBM seems to be missing the mark with their pricing if they're truly going to target the mid-sized businesses.

I've worked for several small to medium sized companies from 1992 until 2001 when I bagan working for a large multi-national. They couldn't afford Microsoft Exchange and I know that they couldn't afford IBM's pricing. Instead we relied on web-based solutions for workgroup collaboration.

Though I'm basing my opinion on my views of the midset of medium sized businesses as of 2001 (when I last worked for a company that size), IBMs pricerange for this market is still quite high. Additionally, what is the cost to continue. That is where they eventually get you.

There are always cost effective alternatives if you are intelligent and willing to investigate and test software and the companies behind them.

In software you have two types of companies.
1.) Great software with poor marketing
or
2.) Terrible software with great marketing.

You can find great cost effective alternatives with #1 as long as you know how to test software and can find out a little about the company behind the software.

Example: I had been watching a great little mail server for a number of years, Merak Mail Server ( http://www.MerakMailServer.com ), and they came out with GroupWare about 2 years ago. I recommended them to my previous employer and it has proven rock solid, and I mean ROCK SOLID.

With around 1250 users, their entire solutions ends up being $2.90 per users. That's for everything including the mail server, groupware, antispam, antivirus, webmail (which rocks), and secure instant messaging.

The only problem is, you'll never hear a commercial for them anywhere. They strictly rely on word of mouth and I've watched them grow quite fast, which is pretty impressive and says a lot about the product and them.

From my experience, it is the fastest windows -based mail server on the market, the most secure I've ever seen, and the most stable I have seen in years.

Ultimately, the price-per-user is a non-issue as their licensing is unlimited users per machine which translates to "The more users you can put on a single machine, the lower your software costs". Given that my previous employer is running it on a dual pentium server and CPU useage for 1250 users is around 2%, I don't see a ceiling.

THAT, is an affordable solution to medium sized businesses.