SMBs will have the functionality of a large enterprise phone system including linking phone extensions to email and call routing according to instant messaging status. 

IBM announced today at Lotusphere that it is working with business partners to create solutions integrated with IBM Lotus Foundations to help small and medium businesses (SMBs) address one of the biggest challenges they face – the complexity of information technology (IT).

Lotus Foundations is IBM's hardware and software solution that helps SMBs collaborate with tools including email; office applications for creating documents, presentations and spreadsheets; file sharing; and backup and recovery for data protection. With Lotus Foundations, SMBs have access to all of the tools needed to run a business and quickly establish a reliable IT infrastructure. The solution is completely autonomic so that installation, set-up, monitoring and problem resolution are all done without human intervention.

Mitel, the newest telephony partner to integrate with Lotus Foundations, now delivers a unified communications (UC) solution designed for SMBs. Mitel's IP PBX solution plans to provide SMBs with all the functionality of enterprise UC solutions, yet designed with the specific requirements of the SMB in mind. For example, employee phone extensions can be automatically set up, assigned, and linked to their email; users can set up their own phone system; and incoming and outgoing calls can be intelligently routed based on an employee's instant messaging status.

Also at Lotusphere this week, NEC announced UNIVERGE Sphericall for Lotus Foundations, and ShoreTel announced ShoreTel for Lotus Foundations which delivers integrated solutions that connect IP telephony with Lotus Foundations to offer SMBs a complete UC solution.

Xerox, a document management provider, is another key partner that has embraced Lotus Foundations to create an integrated IT office solution for SMBs. Xerox OfficeNow! uses Lotus Foundations to automatically set-up, configure and integrate a Xerox multifunction printer into a customer's IT environment, resulting in a complete document imaging, networking and collaboration solution. Xerox OfficeNow! is currently offered through a pilot program.

With these new solutions, IBM and its business partners are further enabling selling partners to shift away from “break-fix” models associated with competitive offerings, while further strengthening the dynamics of their customer relationships, the company said.

“With strategic partners like BroadSoft, Mitel, NEC, ShoreTel, Speech Design and Xerox, IBM is proving that it is possible to take something seemingly complex, like IT for SMBs, and transform it into something that is affordable, easy to deploy and manage,” said Caleb Barlow, director, SMB Solutions Development, IBM. “With the latest partner integrations, we are extending Lotus Foundations' automated configuration, self-healing and self-managing capabilities to create complete communications and collaboration solutions designed specifically with SMBs in mind.”

Since it was introduced in 2008, a growing number of businesses have selected Lotus Foundations to help simplify IT. With the upcoming release, IBM's selling and solution partners will be able to take advantage of new capabilities that will further enhance the Foundations solution. Disaster recovery will be improved with the planned addition of desktop and remote off-site backups. This expanded remote management functionality will help business partners further evolve their business models and improve customer support through managed services. Customers will also have access to IBM Tivoli Continuous Data Protection for Files, software that performs ongoing PC backups to protect vital information. ISVs will also have access to new tools that will ease deployment of applications on the Lotus Foundations platform.

“The enhanced attachment management and backup/recovery offered with the upcoming release of Lotus Foundations offers significant savings for SMBs from a cost savings and disk space perspective. Rather than worrying about buying new resources, all we have to do is flip a switch to accommodate increased demands in storage,” said Sean Burgess, head designer, ASND Designs. “With the simplicity offered by Lotus Foundations and integrated partner solutions, we have access to a single platform that can run VoIP integrated with instant messaging and email functionality, so that our users can immediately and seamlessly connect with each other.”

For more information on IBM Lotus Foundations, visit www.ibm.com/lotus/foundations.