If they are successful with Foundations, they will win several wars in the SMB market.

The Greeks used a Trojan Horse to get men inside the walls of Troy to help them win a war. Some vendors use a similar strategy to win market share by getting a "lite" version, or part of a solution, into a customer's hands in an effort to get them to upgrade to the complete solution later. For example, when you buy a new computer it comes with a number (often way too many) of lite applications. Some of these expire with time, others are missing features that make the product more useful. The idea is that if you use and like the product, you will upgrade to the full version or renew after a trial period.

Now, IBM has stretched the concept and created a Trojan Octopus for the SMB market (5-500 employees), with each arm going after a major market. Lotus Foundations is an all-in-one box that tightly integrates:

* Data backup: incremental, automated, unattended
* Real-time disaster recoverability
* Integrated Firewall, Anti-Virus & Anti-Spam
* Secure remote access
* Automated system updates
* Office Productivity tools including Symphony (Microsoft Outlook, Exchange, and Office can be supported if desired)
* Email, calendar and contacts
* Central file & print management
* Unified Communications via IBM Sametime
* Voice communications and call control (IP-PBX software) from partners including Mitel, NEC, ShoreTel and others to be announced
* Vertical market applications

The SMB market has been underserved, and with good reason: they usually don't have an IT staff or a large budget. Small businesses need all the features and functions outlined above, but often compromise due to cost and complexity. Foundations is a cost-effective solution that can be installed in under 30 minutes.

IBM is creating an ecosystem around Foundations to address vertical markets that include the core capabilities outlined above and best of breed applications that address front- and back-office requirements.

If IBM is successful with Foundations, the company will have infiltrated many market segments, making it very difficult for the competition to displace them. As you look at the features and functions Foundations addresses, you can see areas where it may have an impact on some of Microsoft's strong holds. Foundations comes with Lotus Symphony--for free--and also includes Lotus Notes and Domino. It may be difficult for Microsoft to convert Foundation customers to Office and Exchange after years of using the Lotus products.

Last week, I attended a Foundations briefing during ShoreTel's partner conference along with a number of industry analysts. Every analyst I talked to, including Allan Sulkin, would like a Foundations solution to run their business or would recommend it to SMB customers.

It is very challenging make something complicated be simple. IBM has taken on the challenge of integrating a number of complicated components and making it simple. If they are successful, they will win several wars in the SMB market. One recommendation would be to drop the Lotus brand, since this is not a brand the SMB market has thought much about since Lotus 1-2-3.