IBM announced it will be building a new e-mail archiving appliance for those solution providers in the Microsoft channels.  The computer business will recommend the new appliance to solution providers within its partner roster and will help non-IBM solution providers as well as IBM-authorized partners.

Keith Norbie, a Minnesota-based solution provider and director of the storage division of Nexus Information Systems stated that the bundle is, in theory a great marketing strategy, but does not see it as a product that will lead to sales to solution providers and customers by Microsoft.

The problem, according to some critics is the lack of presence of IBM’s e-mail archiving solution on the market.  Only those solution providers within the small circle of in-the-know technology providers will know it exists.  The product faces stiff competition from Symantec, CommVault, Legato and Hewlett-Packard, companies that all already have e-mail archiving solutions available.

Still, other solution providers state that they like bundled solutions because it makes presentation to clients easier.  This particular bundle has a couple IBM software applications, such as the company’s CommonStore e-mail archiving software that allows users to more easily manage and search e-mail archives.  The appliance sports an upgraded version of CommonStore that allows for searches across mailboxes in entire e-mail archives.  While the e-mail mailboxes are secure from unauthorized users, a “super-user” can search across the entire archive.

The bundle also includes IBM Content Manager, which allows users to manage e-mail, along with the Tivoli Storage Manager that helps with better interfacing.

In terms of hardware, IBM is also adding its System Storage DS4200 Express array to the mix, which can be configured from 4 Tbytes all the way to 56 Tbytes of SATA drives.

Many more features are available as part of this bundled package for solution providers.  The new product is geared towards customers with 500 or more users and will ship early next year.  List price for the product is $53,000.

Blogged By:  Joshua Feinberg