IBM Offers New Small Business Solution for Windows NT.LAS VEGAS--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Nov. 17, 1998--At COMDEX/Fall '98 today, IBM (International Business Machines Corporation, Armonk, NY, www.ibm.com) The world's largest computer company. IBM's product lines include the S/390 mainframes (zSeries), AS/400 midrange business systems (iSeries), RS/6000 workstations and servers (pSeries), Intel-based servers (xSeries) announced that, for the first time, it will offer an integrated software Separate software components or applications that have been combined into one package. See integrated software package. suite for Windows NT (Windows New Technology) A 32-bit operating system from Microsoft for Intel x86 CPUs. NT is the core technology in Windows 2000 and Windows XP (see Windows). Available in separate client and server versions, it includes built-in networking and preemptive multitasking. (Note B) targeted toward small and medium-sized businesses. The IBM Small Business Suite for Windows NT brings together the essential tools for implementing Internet Internet Publicly accessible computer network connecting many smaller networks from around the world. It grew out of a U.S. Defense Department program called ARPANET (Advanced Research Projects Agency Network), established in 1969 with connections between computers at the and intranet-based applications and e-mail services See Internet e-mail service. , including: -0-
-- E-mail, calendaring and scheduling capabilities;
-- A powerful relational database for managing information;
-- Fax and modem pooling services; and
-- Application templates for office directories, on-line
discussions, document management, and other business management
tasks.
"The IBM Small Business Suite offers everything small and growing businesses running on the Windows NT platform need to transform their businesses into e-businesses," said Steve Solazzo, vice president of Solution Developers and Small/Growing Businesses, IBM Software. "The suite also creates a tremendous opportunity for developers and channel partners to improve their profitability by bringing new e-business applications and services to the market faster." Pricing, features, and support programs are structured to make it easy for software developers, resellers and distributors to buy, use, support and sell the IBM Small Business Suite. For example, the suite server is priced under $500, and each organization can license up to 100 registered users. The suite client includes Lotus Notes Messaging and groupware software from IBM Lotus that was introduced in 1989 for OS/2 and later expanded to Windows, Mac, Unix, NetWare, AS/400 and S/390. Notes provides e-mail, document sharing, workflow, group discussions and calendaring and scheduling. Desktop(Note A), DB2(Note A) Universal Database, and Netscape Navigator An earlier Web browser for Windows, Macintosh and X Windows from Netscape that provided secure transmission over the Internet. Soon after its introduction in 1994, Navigator, or just "Netscape," as it was commonly called, quickly became the leading browser on the Web. (Note C), and is available for less than $100. The integration of IBM DB2(Note A) Universal Database and Lotus Domino(Note A) messaging and application server into the new IBM suite provides a reliable, secure and affordable technology base for building applications for small and growing businesses. DB2 is the industry's foremost relational database relational database Database in which all data are represented in tabular form. The description of a particular entity is provided by the set of its attribute values, stored as one row or record of the table, called a tuple. for linking business information with the Internet, managing business intelligence applications, and processing transactions. With Domino, users gain the leading messaging and collaboration platform An emerging category of computer software, collaboration platforms are unified electronic platforms that support synchronous and asynchronous communication through a variety of devices and channels. as their foundation for building and deploying small-business applications. "The IBM Small Business Suite gives us the best of all worlds: the fast development environment of Domino and real-time 1. real-time - Describes an application which requires a program to respond to stimuli within some small upper limit of response time (typically milli- or microseconds). Process control at a chemical plant is the classic example. access to the power of DB2 -- both packaged in a way that makes the technology extremely easy to use," said Herve Timsit, president of Peritek SA, a Paris-based software company that delivers mission-critical applications to companies of all sizes. The new IBM suite also includes innovative installation technology that allows solution providers to configure See configuration. (software) configure - A program by Richard Stallman to discover properties of the current platform and to set up make to compile and install gcc. Cygnus configure was a similar system developed by K. complete networks of clients and servers -- including Domino-based applications from third-party vendors -- quickly and easily. Using the Integrated Installation Pack, a small business can be operational -- with e-mail, messaging and collaboration, and fax capabilities -- often in less than an hour. This quick-installation tool maintains client/server profiles, saving software vendors time and effort with subsequent installations. "Installations can involve up to a hundred client seats, and visiting each desktop can take weeks or months of effort," said Bud Brasier, president of Emerging Technology Solutions. "The technology IBM has developed will significantly reduce the time required for installations and enable us to refocus Verb 1. refocus - focus once again; The physicist refocused the light beam" focus - cause to converge on or toward a central point; "Focus the light on this image" 2. our energies on building new business solutions for our clients." The IBM Small Business Suite also integrates FAXport(Note C) and WINport(Note C) technologies from LANSource Technologies Inc., making it intuitive for businesses to prepare, send and receive faxes, and enabling secure sharing of modems and data lines. IBM is making available a range of marketing, sales and technical support programs to help value-added distributors and resellers, systems integrators An individual or organization that builds systems from a variety of diverse components. With increasing complexity of technology, more customers want complete solutions to information problems, requiring hardware, software and networking expertise in a multivendor environment. and software vendors sell and support the IBM Small Business Suite for Windows NT. Included are free copies of the suite for qualified developers; product training; co-marketing programs; help-desk services, at no charge for the first 90 days; and on-line technical support. As a value-added reseller A value-added reseller (VAR) is a company that adds some feature(s) to an existing product(s), then resells it (usually to end-users) as an integrated product or complete "turn-key" solution. for IBM's Netfinity(Note A) line of Intel-based servers, Houston On-Site, Inc., serves a diverse group of small businesses, ranging from manufacturers to construction, legal and accounting firms. "Our customers don't have big I/T I/T Inner Tank budgets or staffs, so they're looking for Looking for In the context of general equities, this describing a buy interest in which a dealer is asked to offer stock, often involving a capital commitment. Antithesis of in touch with. total solutions that will do the work for them and that are easy to manage," said Sean Priddy, Houston On-Site president. "With so many software packages available today, the fundamental question we get from our clients is, 'Can you make it work?' With IBM's Small Business Suite, the answer is easy. This suite will definitely enable us to provide better support to our clients, and we know IBM will be there to support us." Pricing, Terms and Availability The Small Business Suite for Windows NT, Version 1.0, will be available exclusively through IBM and Lotus channel partners. Initial shipments of English language English language, member of the West Germanic group of the Germanic subfamily of the Indo-European family of languages (see Germanic languages). Spoken by about 470 million people throughout the world, English is the official language of about 45 nations. versions will begin in late November. Versions of the suite in other languages, including Chinese, French, German, Italian, Japanese, and Spanish, will be available in early 1999. Organizations, or groups of affiliated companies Affiliated Companies A situation that occurs when one company owns a minority interest (less than 50%) in another company. Also refers to companies that are related to each other in some way. Notes: An affiliated company is sometimes referred to as a subsidiary. , can obtain licenses for up to 100 registered users. The licensing charge per server is $499, and $99 per registered user. Five- and ten-user licenses are available for $469 and $899, respectively. A server and five registered users can be licensed for $968, and a server configuration with 25 registered users is available for $2,766. Lotus SmartSuite A suite of applications for Windows from IBM Lotus that includes the 1-2-3 spreadsheet, Word Pro word processor, Freelance Graphics, Approach database and Organizer PIM. Also included is a common toolbar for launching the applications and selecting predefined macros that provide tighter Millennium Edition(Note A) (excluding voice functionality) is shipped with the IBM Small Business Suite server. Licenses offer an option to include this productivity suite with desktop clients for a combined price of $149. With SmartSuite, users gain word processing word processing, use of a computer program or a dedicated hardware and software package to write, edit, format, and print a document. Text is most commonly entered using a keyboard similar to a typewriter's, although handwritten input (see pen-based computer) and , spreadsheet spreadsheet Computer software that allows the user to enter columns and rows of numbers in a ledgerlike format. Any cell of the ledger may contain either data or a formula that describes the value that should be inserted therein based on the values in other cells. and Web publishing Creating a Web site and placing it on the Web server. A Web site is a collection of HTML pages with the home page typically named INDEX.HTML. Web sites are designed using Web authoring software which provides a graphical layout capability or by hand coding in HTML or both. capabilities. Five- and ten-user licenses are available for $649 and $1,349, respectively. Software licensing agreements enable users to install suite components across multiple servers based on a single suite license. About IBM IBM is the world's largest information technology company, with 80 years of leadership in helping businesses innovate in·no·vate v. in·no·vat·ed, in·no·vat·ing, in·no·vates v.tr. To begin or introduce (something new) for or as if for the first time. v.intr. To begin or introduce something new. . IBM software offers the widest range of applications, middleware Software that functions as a conversion or translation layer. It is also a consolidator and integrator. Custom-programmed middleware solutions have been developed for decades to enable one application to communicate with another that either runs on a different platform or comes from a and operating systems Operating systems can be categorized by technology, ownership, licensing, working state, usage, and by many other characteristics. In practice, many of these groupings may overlap. for all types of computing platforms See platform. , allowing customers to take full advantage of the new era of e-business. The fastest way to get more information about IBM software is through the IBM software home page at: http://www.software.ibm.com. For more information on the new IBM Small Business Suite and other IBM solutions for Windows NT, visit http://www.software.ibm.com/nt. FACT SHEET: IBM SMALL BUSINESS SUITE FOR WINDOWS NT For small and growing businesses using Windows NT(Note B) as their operating-system platform, the IBM Small Business Suite for Windows NT provides a reliable, secure and affordable technology base for implementing Internet and intranet-based applications and e-mail services. Server components of this tightly integrated suite include the core technologies of the following software:
Lotus Domino(Note A) Release 4.6.2, an application and messaging
server that enables users to create secure, interactive business
solutions for the Internet, corporate intranets and extranets.
With Domino, developers can rapidly and easily build, deploy, and
manage applications that help co-workers, partners, and customers
collaborate and coordinate critical business activities on-line.
IBM DB2(Note A) Universal Database 5.2, the industry's first
multimedia, Web-ready relational database management system. This
powerful data management system allows users to:
-- access any amount of data without the traditional restraints
on data sources
-- perform a range of tasks, from decision support to business
transactions
-- work with text, image, audio and video data types
-- easily manage critical business data
Integrated Installation Pack, which speeds the installation and
configuration of client and server applications. Using this new
program, software vendors and resellers can:
-- Complete entire client/server installations quickly and
efficiently, with only one reboot
-- Build client/server profiles that can be reused with
subsequent installations to save time and costs
Application templates for business management tasks, such as
maintaining office directories, on-line discussions, and document
management. The templates include:
-- Web browser and Lotus Notes(Note A) external names and
addresses
-- Web browser and Lotus Notes document library database
-- Web browser and Lotus Notes discussion database
-- Web browser administration for Lotus Domino Server
-- Combined Lotus Notes and Web mail template
LANSource WINport(Note C) modem sharing software. WINport helps
reduce telephone and modem costs by providing shared, secure
pools of modems, which eliminate the need for modems at each
workstation. The security module included allows administrators
to restrict dialing, assign modems and create user groups.
LANSource FAXport(Note C), which integrates feature-rich fax
capabilities in the IBM Small Business Suite, including
auto-routing and e-mail gateways.
Netscape Navigator(Note C) Web browser.
The IBM Small Business Suite client integrates the core
technologies of the following software:
Lotus Notes(Note A) 4.6.2 Desktop Client, for accessing Lotus
Domino.
IBM DB2 Universal Database Client
Netscape Navigator Web browser
SmartSuite Millennium Edition (optional), provides word
processing, spreadsheet and Web publishing capabilities.
Pricing and Availability
The IBM Small Business Suite for Windows NT will be sold
exclusively through IBM and Lotus channels, with initial
shipments in English languages beginning on November 30. A full
complement of language support will be available in early 1999.
Organizations, or groups of affiliated companies, can license the
IBM Small Business Suite for Windows NT, Version 1.0, for a
maximum of 100 registered users, for $499 per server and $99 per
desktop client. Five- and ten-user licenses are available for
$469 and $899, respectively. A server and five registered users
can be licensed for $968, and a server configuration with 25
registered users is available for $2,766. The Lotus SmartSuite
Millennium Edition (excluding voice functionality) is integrated
into the IBM Small Business Suite server. A client that includes
Lotus SmartSuite Millennium Edition productivity suite is
available for $149. Five- and ten-user licenses are available for
$649 and $1,349, respectively.
(Note A) Indicates trademark or registered trademark of International
Business Machines Corporation or its subsidiaries.
(Note B) Indicates trademark or registered trademark of Microsoft
Corporation.
(Note C) Indicates trademark or registered trademark of respective
companies.
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