Rodent Regatta

IBM is doing two things of importance in my view. First, they are giving another boost to the notion of software-by-subscription. They’ve called it utility computing and on-demand computing. It was once hyped as the ASP model. Essentially, it treats reliable bandwidth as a given.

The second thing that they are doing is providing a multi-platform alternative to the productivity applications from Microsoft. This could become a much bigger announcement than it first appears to be. Prices appear to be between $2 and $4 per month per user. This means the annual cost for a 20-employee company might be as little as $960. Contrast that with Office 2003 which would likely cost at least $6000 or so.