NEW ORLEANS — IBM Corp. announced more easy to install and specially-priced versions of its top products Tuesday as part of its continuing strategy to attract business from medium-sized companies.
Along with the software, marketed with the Express tag, IBM also announced at its PartnerWorld
conference here a new licencing program for volume software purchases, aimed at helping resellers purchase the products.
“”We’re providing enterprise-capable software engineered and deployable in mid-sized companies that provides the ability to grow as Web services and dynamic business processes grow,”” said Paul McErlearn, vice-president of software sales for IBM Canada.
The new products, which will be available to buy in the second quarter, include:
- DB2 Express, the company’s relational database, which it says can be installed with one mouse click and has self-tuning and self-configuring features. In beta now, it will be available on Windows and Linux. Company officials said the product is aimed at Microsoft’s SQL Server database, which is popular on the Windows platform.
- Tivoli Storage Resource Manager Express, for managing networks, can be installed in as little as 15 minutes, says IBM.
- Lotus Domino Collaboration Bundle Express combines Lotus Domino Server for messaging and either Lotus Notes client or iNotes for e-mail and collaborative applications.
- Lotus Domino Utility Server Express will allow unlimited access to collaborative applications by either a Web browser or a separately purchased Notes client.
Both Domino Express packages will have targeted licencing options for companies with fewer than 1,000 employees – IBM’s definition of mid-market.
The packages join WebSphere Application Server Express and WebSphere Portal Express announced late last year.
IBM said it will also release in the second quarter an upgraded version of Websphere Portal Express that will support Linux and SQL Server.
No prices were announced for the new products, but IBM said they will be similar to the pricing model for WebSphere Express to appeal to smaller companies, which is either per user or per processor.
Not to ignore hardware, the vendor also announced new storage solutions with enterprise features but aimed at mid-sized companies.
They include the TotalStorage FAStT 900, a mid-range disk storage system available next month, and the TotalStorage Linear Tape-Open Ultrium 2 drive, which doubles capacity and performance over the first generation Ultrium drives.
No prices were announced.