IBM launches cloud-based productivity suite

LotusLive iNotes lightweight cloud email system jostles with Google Apps

IBM's LotusLive iNotes threatens Google Apps and Microsoft Outlook/Exchange

Services giant IBM has launched a competitor to Google Apps, the search giant's cloud-based productivity package.

Called LotusLive iNotes, the service will go live next week in what is a direct challenge to Google, whose service has been the subject of outages over the past year.

The service will cost $36 (£22) per user per year.

One factor in IBM's favour is that it has vastly more experience dealing with businesses than Google. The latter is often perceived as offering consumer-type services with revenue generation mostly through advertisement placement.

Google Apps Premier costs $50 (£33) per user per year, gives users 25GB of storage and a 99.9 per cent uptime guarantee, equivalent to a minute and half per day, 44 minutes per month or nearly nine hours a year in downtime. However, Google recently bit into its service level agreement with two outages in September.