IBM announced on Friday a raft of scaled-down software products for small businesses, including SME versions of Rational Build Forge and Tivoli Network Manager.
The company says that SMEs have product-needs that are different from large businesses, because they often lack relevant IT skills in-house.
Most of IBM's software products have in the past been designed for organisations with more than 1,000 employees.
IBM cites statistics from consultancy firm AMI Partners, which predicts that IT spending by SMEs will grow by 10 percent during 2007. However, much of that growth will come from lesser developed nations, such as Brazil, Russia, India and China, AMI said.
One of the new product offerings, Rational Build Forge, is designed to manage the delivery process for new software by standardising and automating those processes. In modifying the software for smaller businesses, IBM has added an easy-install wizard and remote deployment options, and called the product Rational Build Forge Express Edition.
The software has been built from the assets of Build Forge, which IBM bought in 2006. Build Forge Express Edition will cost $49,000 (£24,000) per server and is to be made available on 23 October.
Another of the new products announced by the software vendor is Tivoli Network Manager IP Entry Edition, a network-management product. The software is intended to help IT managers understand the topology of their network and the data running over it.
IBM's new SME products also includes the following:
- Watchfire AppScan and WebXM, which identify vulnerabilities to help prevent data breaches
- Rational Team Concert (Beta 1), a collaborative portal for software delivery teams and the first offering developed on the Jazz Technology platform
- Rational Performance Tester 7.01 and Rational Functional Tester 7.01, which help companies to test the scalability, reliability and quality of applications before they are released into production
- Tivoli Consul Insight Manager, which offers an auditing capability to allow companies to test their IT systems compliance from one dashboard console
IBM's slew of SME announcements follow a related release on Thursday. The company said that it will optimise its BladeCenter system for smaller offices. That includes allowing the BladeCenter to run outside the comms cabinet and building in a noise attenuator to muffle noise produced by the device.
