I am really sad about it. I liked these boxes.
October 26, 2010
Effective October 31, 2010, IBM will withdraw from marketing the following IBM System x products. After this date you can no longer obtain these products directly from IBM.
You can obtain these products on an as-available basis through IBM Business Partners, resellers, or distributors.
9234AC1
9234CNU
9234DNUReplacement: none
There may be a lot of good reasons, why IBM will not bring a replacement. But I get the impression, that IBM looses another opportunity to gain market share in the SMB market (I mean SMB by internationally accepted standards, not IBM standards).
Christian,
IBM have some of the best solutions for the SMB market, but never seem to understand the importance of this market not just in the revenue perspective, but the impact it has on the enterprise market. Remember that Microsoft’s and Google’s primary focus initially was in the SMB market. And now look where are they. If you have a good foothold on the SMB market you will gain in the enterprise market. What IBM needs to understand is that every individual consumer is a small business and they grow to become enterprises by number. Good example is what Microsoft did with Outlook. Google has done with Google Docs. IBM still does not get it. For example, if you want people to adopt Lotus Symphony DO NOT, DO NOT require people to fill out a super long form or any form at all. I told customer to try it and he decided it was too much trouble to fill out all that information just to download what is amount to Open Office.
Have you heard any about on the Lotus Foundation software piece? Is that dead too. There does not seem to be any road map on the horizon in regards to new improvements or updates. As a Lotus Foundation Partner, the communication is just horrible. Even worst than being an IBM Business Partner.
I know of a number of business partners who have spent a large amount of resources with this product and to abruptly end it is ridiculous. Cloud computing has gain traction, but cannot replace on-premise solutions.
It’s not even just about the Domino aspect of the Foundations appliance. The box handles all the other stupid little office IT services like print server, domain controller, file server, vpn, router, backup, and on and on. In other words, it enables a company with NO IT department to have an IT infrastructure that doesn’t suck because they are clueless about security and other best practices. And oh by the way you get Domino and Notes too.
This is/was in my view a killer product for businesses in the developing world in particular, where network infrastructure is unreliable and the depth of local IT talent is low. I know business owners who hate having to trust their sensitive information to not-always-very-trustworthy local IT professionals, and the remote management capabilities of the system make it possible to bypass this issue. If I could trust IBM not to kill the product I might consider making a big push into that market leveraging family connections, but alas…