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January 20, 2008

Network Integration: The Company You'll Hear About a Lot More. IBM's small biz war with MSFT

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Last Friday, IBM announced plans to purchase Network Integration Technologies which is a network server appliance and software and software application provider for small business networks.

Network Integration Technologies (which exhibited at the Second Annual Small Business Summit) competes head to head with Microsoft's Small Business Server and to a lesser degree with Novell's Small Business Suite (or Open Work Group Suite)

Network Integration Technologies provides a very economical and robust appliance to enable a small business or small workgroup to have network features such as:

• - Email and basic webmail
• - Networking
• - File and print
• - Intelligent disk-based backup
• - Disaster recovery
• - Autonomic (self-managing)

The power of Nitix really shines with the applications it serves. It has a suite of applications which can be added with "one click". This includes CRM, HR, and more.

PC World writes "We plan to use the technology to go after Microsoft in the small business server market," said Michael Rhodin, general manager at IBM's Lotus Software division during a conference call about the acquisition. IBM could use the technology to compete with Microsoft's Windows Small Business Server, which provides collaboration, e-mail and communication tools.

With the brand and resources of IBM behind it - and IBM's army of resellers, Microsoft's entry into the small business market has been given a new challenge.

Sure, Microsoft has an army of well trained and loyal small business focused resellers and specialists. IBM has the same. Now IBM has another tool, a very potent weapon in ts arsenal against Microsoft.

What does this mean to you.

If you, for some reason, are not using a network the strength of your choices has increased. IBM vs Microsoft. If you already have a network and are looking to change, IBM and Microsoft partners are now going to be able to compete head to head and toe to toe for your business with powerful options.

Networking software and related technologies are not as interesting as they once were - Web 2.0 has taken over - but for basic small businesses who have traditional offices with network computers the network is the CORE of your operations. Having a mediocre network server is a disaster as you'll only be a strong as the center piece of your network.

tags: ibm , microsoft , network , network integration techonlogies , small business server | 1 comments