CRN: Lotus Foundations Winning Fans Among Resellers
July 12 2009
Timely coverage that will be in CRN's hardcopy edition on Monday -- a good counterweight to Microsoft's partner conference this week. It won't be the only one....
"We're seeing a big increase in the number of customers moving to the Foundations server," said James Sulfare, owner of Solinkit, a Chambersburg, Pa.-based solution provider. Solinkit works with both Foundations and Microsoft SBS and in an interview Sulfare said both "are excellent products."Link: CRN: Lotus Foundations Winning Fans Among Resellers >"About 80 percent of the situations we walk into now are a Foundations solution," said Tim Miller, executive vice president of intellectual property at EnVision Solutions, a Raleigh, N.C.-based systems integrator that sells Foundations and Microsoft Small Business Server. ...
Solution providers also say cost has been a factor in their embrace of Lotus Foundations over Microsoft SBS. Miller at EnVision Solutions said customers would bump up against the 50-user limit of Microsoft SBS and faced sticker shock when told how much it would cost to upgrade to standard Windows Server, Exchange and other Microsoft products.
"We were very short on options to offer solutions to customers," Miller said. He cited one customer in Richmond, Va., that was using SBS to support 46 employees until earlier this year and needed to expand, a move Miller said would cost nearly $50,000. "The director of operations looked at me and said, 'Are you insane,'" Miller said. An EnVision engineer had been testing Lotus Foundations and suggested the customer try it instead -- a plan that ultimately saved the customer about $10,000 in up-front licensing costs and $20,000 a year in ongoing expenses, according to Miller.
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- 2
Flemming Riis | 7/13/2009 3:13:26 AM
-move Miller said would cost nearly $50,000.
-a plan that ultimately saved the customer about $10,000
so they paid 40k for foundations ?
-in up-front licensing costs and $20,000 a year in ongoing expenses, according to Miller.
err what they would pay 20k to manage a 50ish user install ?
Sure its a win and it proberly could be against EBS also but i know its a press release to its sugared , why not put it against a product you can actually buy and still win.
but the only reason to compare prices with a standard edition is to either force the customer one direction or steal their money.
- 3
Eric Mack http://www.EricMackOnline.com | 7/13/2009 4:28:47 AM
Ed. I have some phenomenal quotes from a Foundations BP that is using Foundations, Notes, and eProductivity to win customers away from Exchange & Outlook.
I should have clearance to post publicly in a few weeks, meanwhile you are welcome to call me for the details.
Eric
{ Link }
- 4
Abraham V | 7/13/2009 12:17:40 PM
If DAMO is not going to be updated anymore how does it impact Foundations?
I guess that the capability of running Outlook is a big selling point over SBS
Just wondering now that Outlook 2010 is going to be out and i currently have DAMO in production here...
Thanks
- 5
Henry Ferlauto | 7/13/2009 1:30:32 PM
Very nice to see this. I think some demographic data would REALLY help the ISV and reseller community here.
Examples:
(1) What types of (small) businesses are buying Lotus Foundation servers?
(2) What is the average number of users?
(2a) Average number of users by industry?
(3) What was the average deal size?
(4) What percentage of Lotus Foundation customers have gone "whole hog" to Lotus? Meaning in addition to using Notes, how many adopted the use of Symphony and dropped Microsoft Office?
Lastly, has this inspired IBM to increase any marketing efforts in the SMB space?
- 6
Bilal Jaffery http://www.Bilal.ca | 7/13/2009 10:00:17 PM
@ Henry,
Feel free to give one of the business development guys a call, they can provide answers to most if not all of your questions.
As a matter of fact, I even featured 2 of them on my blog last week.
{ Link }
or
Another post here, { Link }
Lastly, how many other products have been 'this' aggressive in marketing like this? How many have really leveraged social media to connect with the community for marketing and sales? I know Lotus Foundations started with zero presence and now we rank right against the competition.
I have my team monitoring this space all the time. I guess, you can be assured that IBM is definitely marketing strongly within this space.
On that note, as part of my new role, I am actually quietly working on a brand-wide SM plan that will bring similar approach to what you have seen with Notes/Foundations etc.
Regards,
Bilal
- 7
TR | 7/16/2009 7:50:15 AM
"would bump up against the 50-user limit of Microsoft SBS"
No. The limit is 75 users. If you're going to compare against other products get the facts right - Ed frequently criticises Microsoft for not getting their facts right. The company with 46 users would have been able to happily continue with SBS for a while yet.
- 8
Nazeer Aval | 7/16/2009 10:20:37 AM
For demo purpose i just placed an order for Foundation server. Also a new ban king customer with 25 users going to buy Foundation Start entry model for just over $7K. Frankly, I did'nt spend much time with this customer though they were looking into Exchange!!!!. Ed, keep up the good strategy.
- 9
Ed Brill http://www.edbrill.com | 7/16/2009 12:30:46 PM
@7 thanks for the clarification -- I didn't say it, it was in the CRN article.
- 10
Graham Dodge http://www.bcd.net.au | 7/28/2009 3:48:50 PM
@7 TR, the user will still face sticker shop when going from SBS to the full-blown MS range of servers. The fact that the limit is 75 rather than 50 just means they'd be stuck that much further in the quicksand when the time came to get out.
And for the nay sayers, it is all legit coverage. From the end users and business partners themselves! Organic!
More details here, { Link }
- Bilal Jaffery