Channel Daily News

Nitix developer turns blue

A Canadian Linux server software company will try to break into the Lotus marketplace this week with the release of a Domino-based small business solution.

Net Integration Technologies Inc. of Markham, Ont., released its NitixBlue application Monday at the annual Lotusphere conference in Orlando, saying it will provide small businesses with enterprise-level collaboration tools at less than $100 a user.

It’s a new direction for the company, which has been offering a Linux-based autonomic server operating system for the past six years under the Nitix brand name.

Ozzie Papic, Net Integration CEO, said the company essentially added the Domino groupware engine to its server, retaining all of the benefits of Nitix such as self-installing, self-configuring, self-tuning and self-healing features.

Domino “is an enterprise class groupware system which is run by some of the largest firms,” he said.

It will enable the user to operate in Microsoft Outlook with improved collaboration through Ajax and Java.

NitixBlue also works as an application platform, which potentially allows for thousands of applications such as CRM, document management, human resources and others – depending on the app – to be deployed on it.

“Application providers can make it installable and purchasable with Nitix up and running. There can be five different kinds of CRM and you can pick one, click to download and be ready to go in under 10 minutes without any technical voodoo,” Papic said.

With this customers can have CRM packages available for approximately $200 a seat compared to thousands of dollars a seat, he added.

Carmi Levy, a market analyst at Info Tech Research of London, Ont., said Net Integration is an up and coming vendor in the collaboration space. Collaboration, especially online collaboration will be a huge growth market this year.

However, he said there is a possibility that the Domino platform could be eclipsed by Microsoft Live Communication Server.

Net Integration chose to focus on small businesses because the Linux-kernel has not seen any real traction in the SMB space. It has been all on the enterprise, according to Papic. Papic believes that Linux’s level of complexity is a barrier for smaller companies.

“We designed a system that breaks down that barrier and can easily translate the enterprise services to SMB,” he said. “We make it palatable for them.” He added that this market is currently underserved and can be great opportunity for the channel.

Net Integration wants to expand its channel of 2,300 North American resellers. About 90 per cent of those partners are in the U.S., Papic said.

Margins for NitixBlue are 20 per cent, but Net Integration also provides an additional four per cent in marketing development funds.

“We are also the only vendor in the industry that provides the channel with unlimited free technical support to VARs and resellers. It is a huge part of our offering,” Papic said.

Beyond that, NitixBlue enables the channel to build on anti-virus and anti-span engines that are autonomic that would increase margins for partners.

Those interested in the service model with full inclusive break-fix for a monthly fee can be aided by NitixBlue because of its self-manageability system.

“You can deal with customer problems easily and efficiently and customer are happy to pay fixed fees,” Papic said.

Comment: cdnedit@itbusiness.ca