October 5, 2009 – (HOSTSEARCH.COM) –
IBM announced on Thursday it is introducing LotusLive iNotes, an affordable Web-based version of its Lotus Notes email service for businesses and organizations that will put it in competition with Google Apps and Microsoft Windows Live Hotmail.
With its new Web-based email, IBM hopes to steal away some of Google Apps' business customers whose patience may be running out after a year of several outages.
The most recent outage occurred last month. Caused by a miscalculation in a routine maintenance, which resulted in millions of business users being unable to access email for almost two hours.
Available next week, LotusLive iNotes service starts at $36 per user per year, which is approximately 25 percent less than Google's service. Meanwhile, Microsoft's Web-based email service costs $120 per year.
All LotusLive iNotes plans include webmail access, 1GB of storage per user, mobile device support, built-in spam and antivirus protection, around the clock monitoring, and administration tools. An additional 100GB of storage can also be added for an extra fee.
Though IBM's Web-based service is not nearly as rich with features as Google's, the company hopes it will draw more customers because on its extensive experience in the business market.
Lotus Notes is one of the most widely used email programs in the world.
IBM will be offering a free, 30-day trial period for those businesses that want to try the service before signing a contract.
