Cloud wars: IBM enters cloud email price battle
Posted by Nick Mehta on Mon, Oct 19, 2009 @ 09:37 AM
Fans of the Godzilla franchise will attest to the fact that it's fun to watch giants at battle.
Last week, IBM introduced LotusLive iNotes, its cloud-based email offering in response to Google Apps and Microsoft Online Services.
As LiveOffice is a long-time provider of cloud-based email archiving services, we are excited about the increasing choice for customers in cloud email.
IBM has chosen to enter the market at a low price point ($36 per user per year, versus $50 for Google) but provides fairly limited mailbox sizes (1 GB) in its first iteration.
With rumors of Cisco entering the market, the battle is certainly going to be exciting to watch.
Matt Cain from analyst firm Gartner Group put it well in a recent interview with CRN.com:
"It's going to be a battle to the death," said Cain. "It's going to be great because the customer wins.
Let the wagers begin as to who ends up as Godzilla and who becomes Mothra.