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Lotus Foundations is IBM’s Magic Box for Small businesses

by Bilal Jaffery on October 29, 2008 · Comments

in IBM,Lotus Foundations


Eventhough, the above ad is for IBM e-servers, it can very well suit Lotus Foundations as well. Let me explain my reasoning, where else can you find an intelligent server operating system that can configure itself with just few clicks? Name one server appliance that can get your network back up within 2 mins after a crash. How about setting up the network and not worrying about it afterwards? No Patch Tuesdays here. How about actually working properly without any additional patches in Windows, Mac and Linux environments. With the new MacBooks out, I am even tempted to grab one and be part of the sexy computing movement (or not. lol).

and yes, we don’t require you to buy 2 servers to do the same job. (*hint* Microsoft Small Business Server 2008 requires a dedicated SQL server). It’s suppose to be a small business, not a data center. I can’t afford to hire a engineer to take care of my network 24/7. That’s servers job, not mine. Welcome to the refreshing change in the small business market.

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Tagged as: ibm magic box

  • Graham Dodge
    Geoff,
    That $20k figure covers:
    * SBS2008 server licences.
    * new 64bit hardware to run SBS.
    * did you want a new Windows 2008 server license with that? I think you do.
    * Backup? Well, that needs a separate $$$ investment in the Microsoft model.
    * how about some ongoing monthly license fees when your three month trial of One-Care etc expires.
    * speaking of license fees, is it true that the new version of Outlook requires a new and separate license fee for each existing user to access MS Exchange?

    And of course there are the consulting fees. Maybe it's $2k and maybe its $4k and maybe its $6k. The point is that the TOTAL bill to the customer could hit $20k.
  • Thomas Crown
    20k Graham? Are you kidding? I would charge 2k for that work on my site, or 4k on client's site.
    If I had to travel to another country then I maybe would charge 10k, but never 20k, unless you are willing to pay it, :D.
  • *gasp* in this day and age of instant information it still surprises me where some get there facts Graham, Rob there are some execellt SBS sites (a couple with calculators too) I'd start at http://www.mssmallbiz.com/ to get answers
  • Graham Dodge
    Rob,
    From what I've read (and commented on my blog) it takes a significant investment of time... multiple days if not weeks... to move even a small organization to SBS 2008 while people in the Domino world are accustomed to doing upgrades in one or two hours. You might call that a migration and if I argued then we'd just be playing with semantics.

    I'm interested in the total $$$ cost of the exercise (hardware, licences, consulting time, donuts for the IT workers etc) for ,say, an organization with twentyfive staff. From what I understand moving to SBS2008 will be up around $20k or more. That's almost $1,000 per user.

    If I'm wrong then tell me. I'm happy to hear your numbers.
  • Rob
    Yes you can upgrade 2003 to 2008.

    If you want SQL on the same box, just install it. SBS 2008's change is that they give you the OPTION to split it to separate hardware. You don't HAVE to use the extra Windows license.

    OR (and this interests me), since SBS 2008 supports Hyper-V, you could put the 2nd Windows install (with SQL) on the same hardware, but still keep it logically separated from the 1st OS.
  • Will you be able to upgrade your SBS 2003 to SBS 2008?

    and If I need SQL packages on my network, how do I get away from running two servers? Thats over $10K in hardware alone. That is not SMB territory.
  • Rob
    You got some SBS facts confused. Susan responded to your post at http://msmvps.com/blogs/bradley/archive/2008/10/29/still-a-single-box-if-you-want-it-to-be.aspx :

    "For the record, SBS 2008 standard is a SINGLE box solution. SBS 2008 Premium gives me/us the FLEXIBILITY of not only having a second Win2k8 license but we can then place the SQL 2008/2005 on the second server.

    SBS 2008 does not REQUIRE a dedicated SQL server."
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