Tuesday, March 18, 2008

Lotus Foundation Server Micro Box

We all saw Mike Rhodin pick up the server from a mail envelope on stage at Lotusphere. Some of us went to see one up close and get more detail of it.

Some of us became Nitix partners. And received one in our offices.

Nice, small, reasonably efficient, but limited to 5 Domino/client licenses for usage!?

I had a client who needed it for 10 people. No can do. So close yet so far.

Understandably if you only had a 1gb ram, 1ghz processor, 90GB hard drive laptop you may not want to run Domino on it either. I would think about it if it is ONLY going to be running as a mail server though.

Sure I would like it to run Sametime too but that overhead is not going to fly. Yet.

Who needs another doorstop? Let's do the math and try to work out how this will end:

Dell Micro server optiplex 755 more beefier power for about $700 or a rough equivalent for about $450.
+ Windows 2008 Basic server with 5 cals $971
+ 5 more Cals roughly $50 each = $250.
+ Domino Server Express Collaboration version at $141 per user, or $1,410.
+ backup capacity or external drives $200
+ Anti-virus or santi spam software $200 between software and licensing.
Total: $4,000 or $3,750 at a low end server version not including shipping or taxes.

How much does the Foundation Server cost?
With 2 years of support for hardware and software (1st year is included we add 1 year)
+ 10 Domino license and client licenses
+ OS (Linux) plus 10 user licenses
+ CRM solution plus other software for file print sharing
+ backup software solution
+ autonomic self correcting software solution
+ 250GB external drive for the failover/backup
+ Antivirus and antispam software from Kaspersky
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Total: $2,700 customer price, not including shipping or taxes

Yes, I get a weaker server on the Foundation side but nothing comes close in size or portability. Portability is key in Florida or for the person on the go doing dmeos or just ad hoc networks.

But can I sell it to my client? No
Not structured for sellng with more than 5 user licenses.

Tune in next quarter or year when a hopefully beefier version is available.

But if you need one for a small office of 5 or less email me and it will get delivered within a few days.

3 comments:

  1. Keith, take a look at these PCs, I was messing around with these pre nitix announcement. Easy to setup a really small server with reasonable costs.

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  2. Hi,
    If you ever have clients looking for hosted Lotus products, Phase2.com is the first IBM SaaS partner.

    Even the hypothetical 10 person company you mentioned in this article - we could have them up and running in a few days. All on a per user per month basis.

    Best regards,
    Adam Smith
    Phase2.com

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