Who would’ve thought we’d see IBM positioned as a low cost alternative technology provider. That’s exactly what they appear to be doing — at least on the surface. IBM’s LotusLive iNotes web mail service is priced at only $36/user per year versus Google’s $50/user per year price for Google Apps Premier Edition. Unfortunately that just might be where the positive comparison ends for most companies. Unlike Google, which provides 25 GB of storage, IBM only offers up 1 GB of email storage (you can buy added storage for an extra annual fee). They also lack the word processing, spreadsheet and presentation applications that Google includes in their Google Apps bundle. Of course for anyone deeply embedded in Lotus Notes this is probably a wise investment as the service claims integration with your existing on-premise software. Naturally IBM also touts tighter security and a whole host of other corporate type benefits.

LotusLive iNotes via Physorg.com