At this year's "Evening in the Cloud" session at Enterprise 2.0, IBM will showcase how it is helping businesses stay connected and remain competitive with tools from LotusLive, IBM's public cloud collaboration services. At last year's Enterprise 2.0, LotusLive was voted the winner of The Enterprise 2.0 Cloud Computing Technology Buyer's Choice Award in a side-by-side comparison with Google Apps, EMC and other vendors' cloud technologies. But oddly enough, the competition this year will fail to emerge.

Since LotusLive was honored last year, a lot has happened.

Last Fall, IBM LotusLive expanded with low-cost cloud email -- LotusLive iNotes -- for $3 per user, per month.  IBM knows that most serious businesses will maintain an intellectual curiosity about the cloud but will not make hasty decisions. There have been too many high profile outages, crashes, security and privacy concerns about consumer services to ignore. A trusted name, IBM provides the assurances of security, privacy and reliability the market requires as well as the traditional and cloud-based technology to allow companies to safely test and move to the cloud.

But, IBM also realizes that businesses will never move everything to the cloud, but will look to vendors who provide a mix of both public and private clouds (a hybrid approach).

Also in the past year, IBM announced the largest enterprise cloud computing deployment to date where Panasonic is adopting IBM's LotusLive services for Web conferencing, file sharing, instant messaging and project management. The company is also implementing LotusLive Connections for business social networking between employees, partners and suppliers to find and share the right insight when needed. As part of this investment in open IBM technology, Panasonic is migrating employees from Microsoft Exchange or other collaboration software to LotusLive for email, calendaring and contact management.

IBM has also been listening very closely to its customers in order to fully understand the collaborative needs of businesses of all sizes. No matter what, businesses have told IBM that they need all of their collaboration services integrated into one service and one platform. Because of this, IBM has partnered with companies like Ariba, UPS, Salesforce.com, Skype and Silanis in order to integrate essential business services into LotusLive and into the context of the work people do every day.

It's no wonder the competition isn't showing up this year at Enterprise 2.0.

LotusLive Connector : Links you to LotusLive by simple click

The IBM LotusLive Connector for Lotus Symphony plugin is a plugin which simplifies creating, updating, and sharing your LotusLive files. The IBM LotusLive Connector for Lotus Symphony includes a capabilities to launch a new meeting. This is an emerging plugin, and go under updates, and quality control.

Support OS: Windows, Linux and Mac

LotusLive Connections is only $84 a user for an annual subscription for existing Lotus customers.  Now comparing this to the premise-deployed Lotus Connections is not particularly fair because Lotus Connections has far more features than LotusLive Connections (micro-blogging, blogging, communities, wikis, dogears and more).  But I would argue for many small businesses, key features they wish to deploy are activities and file sharing.

To deploy Lotus Connections on premise, a business with Notes/Domino is looking at adding a minimum of two servers, as well as needing to develop competencies in Websphere Application Server, DB2, and put in place the back-up software, monitoring tools and other operational items standard for new applications deployed within a company.  None of that is required for LotusLive Connections.

Then take a look at licensing.  A Lotus Connections user license is $119 a user.  That is $35 more initially than a LotusLive Connections user, though in year two it will drop to $23.80 per user.  BUT to license your premise Connections environment to be shared externally, you would also have to purchase a Lotus Connections Extranet license, and that costs $292 per processor value unit (PVU).  Since you practically can't buy a new server that requires less than 200 PVUs, that's $58,400 year one ($19,500 year two).  There is no additional charge to share files or activities outside your company with LotusLive Connections because guest accounts are free.

Join a Web Conference from your iPhone!

Use the online meeting features of LotusLive Engage right from your iPhone! Join a Web meeting, chat with attendees and view shared content - all from your iPhone! Participants with 3G or Wi-Fi coverage can experience simultaneous voice and data for a full meeting experience on the phone.

FEATURES

Attendees can:
-Listen to the audio for the meeting in the background while viewing the meeting content
-View live shared desktop content, presentations and documents
-Browse through all the slides that have been shared during a meeting
-View and participate in group and individual chats
-Get the presenter's attention by virtually raising your hand in a meeting

IBM LotusLive: Smarter collaboration in the cloud

This half day briefing introduces cloud computing and explains how Software as a Service (SaaS) is part of this initiative. IBM has developed a brand called LotusLive that delivers collaboration services in the IBM cloud. We will go through the details and highlight competitive differences with other prominent cloud service providers.

The intended audience for this briefing is business leaders, business analysts and architects who want to learn more about cloud and SaaS and who want to investigate the collaborative services offered by LotusLive.

To enroll, select the desired date and location. There is no charge to attend.

12 May 2010 , Moscow, Russia

LotusLive, a cloud-based portfolio of social networking and collaboration services designed for business, now includes a new LotusLive Plus offering based on LotusLive iNotes and LotusLive Connections.

This new offering is perfect for companies who need collaboration and messaging capabilities such as:

• File sharing
• Instant messaging
• Activities (project management)
• Surveys and charts
• E-mail

IBM is also offering new LotusLive Engage for Enterprise Deployment and LotusLive Meetings for Enterprise Deployment at competitive price points for clients who would like to conduct Web conferences for up to 200 attendees and plan on using LotusLive services company-wide.

This new solution includes powerful collaboration tools such as file sharing, activities, instant messaging, and social networking for business along with IBM's new LotusLive iNotes e-mail service. LotusLive iNotes is a business-class Web-based messaging solution for everyone in an organization. With LotusLive iNotes, employees will have real-time e-mail access from a Web browser and Internet connection. Also, all e-mail accounts are enabled with POP, authenticated SMTP, and IMAP capabilities for use with e-mail clients such as Lotus Notes or Microsoft Outlook.

LotusLive Plus with LotusLive iNotes and LotusLive Connections is a great fit for companies who need both collaboration tools and messaging, thereby giving companies the ability to choose the right LotusLive offering for their business needs, whether it be a single service or a combined solution.

LotusLive services were also built for business, not for advertising, so an individual or company's identity is protected, not exploited.

LotusLive Engage for Enterprise Deployment and LotusLive Meetings for Enterprise Deployment are solutions that provide subscribers the ability to collaborate through LotusLive with anyone outside of their organization and with LotusLive subscribers inside of their organization for a lower, competitive price. Both of these offerings are sold as authorized user subscriptions and allow Web conferences of up to 200 attendees.

New Silanis beta Program lets Users Test-Drive Electronic Signatures on the IBM LotusLive Platform

Silanis Technology, the leader in electronic signature process management, today announced a new beta program for its online e-signature services offering, e-SignLive for LotusLive. Business users can now test-drive e-SignDoc and e-SignRoom for free and with no obligation to commit after the trial period is over.

Montreal, QC (PRWEB) March 23, 2010 -- Silanis Technology, the leader in electronic signature process management, today announced a new beta program for its online e-signature services offering, e-SignLive for LotusLive. Business users can now test-drive e-SignDoc and e-SignRoom for free and with no obligation to commit after the trial period is over. To register for the beta program, please contact customeradvocates@silaniis.com.

During the trial period, participants in this beta program will be able to electronically sign contracts and other business documents using the two integrated e-SignLive services with IBM’s LotusLive social networking & business collaboration environment. Participants will also receive a free one-hour training session on how to use the services with LotusLive in order to fully benefit from the beta program.

IBM ( IBM) today announced it has signed a five-year business transformation agreement with UTV Software Communications Ltd., India's first integrated global media and entertainment company. IBM will help UTV transform its business processes to provide customers with the highest quality content and services as it continues its rapid rate of expansion.

Under this agreement, IBM will perform various business transformation initiatives for UTV over the next few years to further sharpen UTV's focus on its core media business.

IBM will help UTV streamline the company's finance and accounts, rights management, procurement, projects, material management and other key functions with an enterprise-wide SAP solution. For UTV the objective of this deal is to provide a customer-centric operating environment that delivers quality, cost-effective information services, reducing total cost of ownership and providing security compliance while enabling the company to focus on its core business.

The contract also includes India's first cloud-enabled email system via LotusLive iNotes, a security-rich, Web-based email service. The LotusLive iNotes cloud service is well-suited for businesses of all sizes, many of which have discovered the convenience and savings of free or low-cost Web-based email services but have grown weary of service outages, distracting advertisements or security and privacy concerns that can impact employee productivity and confidence.  

Challenging Google in the cloud computing market for messaging and collaboration software, IBM landed Panasonic as a customer for its LotusLive SAAS programs. More than 150,000 workers at the Japanese electronics maker will use IBM's hosted e-mail, social networking Web conferencing, file sharing, instant messaging and project management applications. The company unseated Microsoft's Exchange e-mail server and a number of other collaboration solutions, including IBM's original on-premise Lotus Notes and Domino server. The news comes days before IBM kicks of Lotusphere in Orlando, Fla.

IBM has landed a major customer for its cloud computing initiative in Panasonic Corporation, with 150,000 employees of the Japanese electronics maker using IBM's LotusLive hosted, Web-based collaboration software.

When fully deployed this year, it could be the largest SAAS (software as a service) implementation ever. Panasonic employees will use LotusLive applications for e-mail, Web conferencing, file sharing, instant messaging and project management, all of which are hosted on servers in IBM's data centers.
Financial terms of the deal, which IBM closed in November, were not disclosed. However, the sheer number of employees using LotusLive puts the contract in the millions of dollars, Sean Poulley, vice president of online collaboration for Lotus Software, told eWeek ahead of the company's annual Lotusphere event, beginning Jan. 17 in Orlando, Fla.

...

Yet IBM didn't poach Panasonic from Google. Instead, the company unseated Microsoft's Exchange e-mail server and a number of other collaboration solutions, including IBM's original on-premise Lotus Notes and Domino server, Poulley confirmed.

IBM has 18 million paying client seats for its LotusLive cloud services, a jump that will result in a few double takes among IT industry watchers.

That LotusLive tally at the beginning of the year was nil so the growth is stunning. I double checked with IBM to make sure that those 18 million client seats were actually paying with a price of more than zero. I was told there are no asterisks here.

Now IBM isn’t forking over revenue data on LotusLive cloud services. Customers pay anywhere from $3 a month to $79 a month depending on the service. IBM recently launched iNotes to go after Gmail in the enterprise, but its range of services competes with everything from Microsoft Office to Cisco’s WebEx.

Assuming all 18 million seats are paying $3 a month [the lowest list price monthly subscription - for LotusLive iNotes] LotusLive could be bringing in and it’s $648 million a year. If there’s a higher blended price IBM’s cloud services could dwarf the annual revenue of Salesforce.com.

Looking for a great deal on cloud-based email, web meetings, file sharing, or online collaboration? For a limited time, existing Lotus software customers are exclusively eligible to purchase any combination of Lotus Live services up to the total number of active Lotus user licenses at the following prices:

    * Lotus Live iNotes email: less than $2/user/month
    * Lotus Live Web Meetings: less than $5/user/month
    * Lotus Live Connections: less than $7/user/month
    * Lotus Live Engage: less than $10/user/month