SMB Tech Roll Up: IBM Targets Small Biz, Xerox Buys IBS

Our new weekly column — SMB Tech Roll Up — provides you with news about the small and medium business sector, focusing on document management, collaboration and Enterprise 2.0 topics.

This week sees IBM promising more for SMBs, Xerox making moves on the European document management market,  IT managers facing new pressures to produce results and other interesting news from key SMB players.

IBM Targets SMBs with New Lotus Foundations

At Lotusphere 2010, IBM (news, site) announced that in the future it would spend more time working with SMBs by creating solutions integrated with Lotus Foundations to help them address information technology issues.

Lotus Foundations is IBM's solution that offers SMBs easier collaboration tools including email, office applications, file sharing, and back up and recovery. IBM says that whatever tools they don't have they'll develop, but that already most of them are there.

Planned improvements include better disaster recovery with the addition of desktop and remote off-site backups and expanded remote management functionality.

It almost feels as if IBM and AIIM had consulted given the later's growing concern about information management and unstructured content.

[Editor's Note: See our new weekly column on Document Management focusing on major news events, research and trends: Document Management Roll-Up: Demand for Business Information Managers Growing]

Xerox Extends Document Management Reach In Europe

Xerox has extended the reach of its document management software by the purchase of Irish-based managed print services provider Irish Business Systems (IBS) for US$ 31million.

Xerox says this latest deal will continue its expansion into the SMB market in Ireland.  Ireland, with its burgeoning IT sector, is more often than not a stop off point for US companies making in-roads into Europe, and it seems likely that this latest is part of a strategy to corner that wider SMB market.

This is the second Xerox (news, site) acquisition in Europe in the past two years and underlines its plans for a bigger piece of the document management market there.

IBS, which has eight offices, is the largest independent supplier of digital imaging and printing solutions in Ireland. Xerox currently employs over 700 people in Ireland.

Meanwhile, Xerox gained European Union regulatory approval for its US$ 5.5 billion takeover of Affiliated Computer Services Inc in it is first move into the outsourcing business.

The cash-and-stock deal is Xerox's biggest acquisition ever and marks the first major deal by its new chief executive, Ursula Burns.

More Pressure on IT Managers

More pressure on IT Managers. Hardly unexpected IT managers would say, but this time it is confirmed in new research by Gartner (news, site) that shows CIO’s are shifting their focus from cost cutting to achieving better results based on enterprise and IT productivity.

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Tags: aiim, archivo, business process management, cloud computing, collaboration, document management, enterprise 2.0, epaperless, gartner, ibs, ipg, oce, prism, scantronix, social media, westbrook, xerox

Our new weekly column -- SMB Tech Roll Up -- provides you with news about the small and medium business sector, focusing on document management, collaboration and Enterprise 2.0 topics.

This week sees IBM promising more for SMBs, Xerox making moves on the European document management market,  IT managers facing new pressures to produce results and other interesting news from key SMB players.