IBM and EMC enter SaaS arena

Computing and storage giants dip their toes in the waters with Bluehouse and MozyEnterprise

IBM and EMC have announced new software-as-a-service (SaaS) offerings this week.

EMC has released MozyEnterprisepowered by the EMC Fortress platform for online backup of desktops, laptops and remote Window servers, while IBM announced a beta web-delivered service, codenamed “Bluehouse” that provides extranet services to SMBs to allow them to securely collaborate. Bluehouse will allow small businesses to share contacts, files, project activities and interact with chat and web meetings.

Michael Rhodin, Lotus Software general manager, said IBM is entering the market with caution as it watches how SaaS evolves. “It is a very early market; there is a lot of buzz around it. Everyone is talking about it but there is not a lot of money to be made off it," he explained. "I have to be careful with shareholders money that IBM doesn’t just follow hype but follows sound business logic and design that will be useful in the context of spending shareholders money."

EMC has created a new business unit to head up its SaaS strategy to be headed by Tim Heiser.

Rob Sanford, EMC SaaS Business Unit marketing vice president, said the unit has been in existence for a number of months in order to architect strategy and build Fortress.

Mozy Enterprise is based on the Mozy family of online backup SaaS solutions acquired by EMC when it purchased Berkeley Data Systems last October. Enhanced security for the service will be supplied by RSA, another EMC acquisition, which now acts as the firm’s security division.

Sanford said MozyEnterprise is a result of different engineering team’s combined expertise.

Sanford added that many resellers had been approaching EMC, and agreements had been formed with Verizon Business.

MozyEnterprise will initially be available in North America.