IBM stock price forecast 2010
|
Google (GOOG) and Microsoft (MSFT) have been chipping away at IBM’s Lotus division. In a counterstrike, IBM launched the LotusLive iNotes service, a cloud-based email service that plans to charge its users $36 per year. This is seen as directly competitive with Google’s service, which charges its users $50 yearly. It’s also indirectly competitive with Microsoft’s email services. IBM’s LotusLive offers file sharing, social networking and web conferencing services. The iNotes app adds web-based email with IMAP4, POP3, and SMTP with antispam and antivirus features, SSL encryption and password recovery. With LotusLive, all employees within a company can work under a single domain, with an included 1gb of storage per user (additional storage is available for purchase). Google’s service offers a 25gb inbox, web-based word processing, and spreadsheets. To differentiate itself from Google’s offering, IBM is marketing LotusLive as a more secure solution. They may also be trying to capitalize on Google’s recent Gmail outages. From a business perspective, there’s hope that IBM may be able to succeed. The company is relying on current users of its Lotus Notes, while also chasing after Microsoft and Google users. Its biggest potential user base may be within the federal government, but security is a concern. If IBM can address that issue promptly, it may have a fighting chance. | |