SmartCloud for Social Business - e-commerce

May 10 2012

Recently, as part of the rebranding from LotusLive, the IBM SmartCloud for Social Business added a pretty important capability -- "buy online".

Image:SmartCloud for Social Business - e-commerce

In the past for LotusLive, this was a somewhat-complicated process through PassportAdvantage Express. The new e-commerce engine allows online purchase of key services including SmartCloud Engage, SmartCloud Meetings, and SmartCloud Notes.

For small customers especially, which continues to be one of the key market segments for software-as-a-service, this is a rapid path to getting up and running in SmartCloud Social. Simply click here....

Link: IBM SmartCloud - Plans and Pricing >

Ed Brill | Highland Park, IL USA Category:  SmartCloud Social  Add/View Comments [15]

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  1. 1  Richard Moy http://www.dominointerface.com | 5/10/2012 9:31:10 AM

    Sound good. Can trials be converted finally to paid accounts. That has been a major pain.

  1. 2  Ed Brill http://www.edbrill.com | 5/10/2012 9:36:37 AM

    @1 we don't have a plan for that. For SmartCloud Notes, It's technically somewhat challenging in that the trials are established with a trial email address and you are then asking to convert that to some other domain's production. In Notes at least, what data from a trial would be needed to be brought along to a production account? I could sort of see the requirement if you are using Engage/Connections and trying features like files and communities.

  1. 3  Richard Moy http://www.dominointerface.com | 5/10/2012 10:14:37 AM

    @Ed,

    I understand it would be more difficult if it was an already established Domino domain, but if you start using it as a trial for all the products what happens to all the information that you stored in the trial? If you cannot retain the information to the paid account, then you as a customer will get frustrated with the product. This is exactly what happen to another IBM partner who ended up losing the account because typical customer expectation is that you can convert a trial to a paid account. Now of course I am not talking about enterprise or large midsize accounts, but SMB.

  1. 4  Ed Brill http://www.edbrill.com | 5/10/2012 10:18:23 AM

    @3 Richard, again, tell me why a trial email account would ever want to be converted to a production one? does one ever use a trial email account for emails that are "production" level? I would think with a demo email address, nobody really sends / receives mail at a trial account that they want to retain, do they?

  1. 5  Richard Moy http://www.dominointerface.com | 5/10/2012 11:27:15 AM

    @4,

    Oh yes they do. However, my point is less about mail than Engage/Connections/Meetings.

  1. 6  Ed Brill http://www.edbrill.com | 5/10/2012 12:23:21 PM

    and for SC Connections, there is discussion of how to move from trial to paid. I just don't see the need in SC Notes.

  1. 7  Steve Pridemore  | 5/10/2012 12:28:11 PM

    But you can't extend an existing subscription

  1. 8  Stuart McIntyre http://blog.collaborationmatters.com | 5/10/2012 3:26:55 PM

    Wow Ed, you do one good thing and we all just want you to do the next!

    I've been nagging about online subscriptions since LotusLive launched so I for one am very very pleased that you've delivered on it now.

    I'm hoping that this may open the floodgates to some extent, as if IBM has overcome the internal roadblocks for this application, hopefully it will be soon be possible to buy other IBM Software products without the need for Passport Advantage, signed contracts etc.

  1. 9  Daniele Vistalli http://www.factor-y.com | 5/10/2012 6:42:41 PM

    That's great but ... Not available in Italy...

    What's the plan here ?

  1. 10  Alan  | 5/11/2012 6:25:25 AM

    Agree with Stu, having the ability to buy this without having to "Contact Sales" is a great step forward, as is transparent pricing with a range of payment options. Its exactly how purchasing a Cloud app should work.

    I also agree with Richard though - whilst not interested in converting a trial mail account to live (easy enough to do that anyway with IMAP) its pretty essential to be able to move Connections data. These are Social apps, people develop an attachment to their data in my experience and don't like to have to go through that profile/network establishment phase more than once. This is a challenge I'm considering at the moment with our pre-pilot Files & Profiles install of Connections, I'm tempted to just rebuild it as production before I let our pilot group loose on it.

  1. 11  Lars Berntrop-Bos  | 5/11/2012 7:01:38 AM

    I agree with the conversion being important. I am baffled that you do not get this, Ed. A well received trial wil have users hooked, not only to the product but also to the data and the structures in the data. Isn't that what social is about? That is why the data needs to be converted. Having to lose that is similar to experiencing withdrawal symptoms, which are generally painful.

    Inducing a painful experience is not condusive to a well oiled sale. Nuff said methinks.

  1. 12  Ed Brill http://www.edbrill.com | 5/11/2012 7:19:52 AM

    @11 I don't get it for email. I don't get why anyone would have done deep-enough usage of a mailbox with an @demo.lotuslive.com email address that the stuff they did there would need to come with them.

    For the other services, sure. For email I don't get it.

  1. 13  Richard Moy http://www.dominointerface.com | 5/11/2012 10:23:52 AM

    @Ed,

    I would sum it up as user or customer experience. Can convert trial on one but not the other?

  1. 14  Jim  | 5/16/2012 2:36:30 PM

    Is this trial migration really a big deal? I mean, for around $5 or $6 per month just buy a couple months and trial it that way. If you like then keep paying.