Intel will announce SuiteTwo today, a product that brings together a number of Enterprise 2.0 apps into an integrated suite. The four products that are included in the release are MovableType from SixApart, SocialText, Simplefeed and Newsgator. The suite will allow companies to easily install, setup and integrate these products and will be available in both a self-hosted form and also as a hosted service. With these products this suite includes a blogging platform, a wiki and apps to both subscribe to and publish feeds - giving it a real web 2.0 focus.
The suite has been developed and put together by SpikeSource, which will also be supporting and maintaining the new product suite. Intel will distribute SuiteTwo through its channel partners, distributors and through direct sales. SpikeSource have integrated all the products in the suite and have included a portal which will allow users to view all the main information (via feeds) from the different product installs.
The cost of the full suite will be between $150 and $200 per seat per year, which is a premium over the cost of each component individually, but SpikeSource and Intel hope that by integrating the products to make them easy to use together that they have added enough value to make the suite appealing to businesses. In addition to the per-seat license fee, companies will also need to pay licenses for the middleware applications that are needed to run the suit (the web server and the database server). The revenue from the suite will passed on to the four application providers (with a cut to SpikeSource). Intel is not taking any revenue from this product.
Orders for SuiteTwo are being taken now on the website, and will be fullfilled in Q1 2007 when the suite launches. There are also plans to take the suite beyond the four products that are currently included, with a phase two release potentially including podcasting, social networking, VoIP and/or IM. This suite has potential if only because it can make it easier for businesses to adopt enterprise 2.0 products such as blogs and wiki’s, but the downside might be that all this is too much for some businesses and they may opt to adopt each of these products independently.
Intel is not taking any revenue — Is this a new form of “charity”?
at first glance, interesting. surprised intel is ‘fronting’ it however …
i wonder what Microsoft’s up to… Community Server on AMD silicon?
Guess Intel is done kicking AMDs butt.
May be EditGrid, the standalone online spreadsheet, is a good candidate to be integrated into that suite - for collaboration and publishing of structural data content.
“In addition to the per-seat license fee, companies will also need to pay licenses for the middleware applications that are needed to run the suite (the web server and the database server).”
huh? and those would be MySQL and Apache, presumably? What license fees would those be?
Clearly this is a strategic move from Intel. Getting into Web 2.0 by positioning their platform business…no wonder they’re not taking any revenue from reselling the suite.
Great move Intel!
Intel Capital pays one portfolio company to integrate products made by other portfolio companies. Can you say “strategy tax”?
It would be interesting to compare SuiteTwo with Leopard Server.
Consolidation of various Web 2.0 technologies makes good sense for the enterprise. As each Web 2.0 application starts to spread enterprise wide, enterprise would want some unification.
Intel will benefit indirectly from the sales of hardware required. I really don’t like this move by Intel. They need to focus on their core and maintain their current lead in microprocessor technologies.
Great, bundle 3 products out there and charge 10x what it would cost to buy direct. Seems like a plan to me. If anyone is interested, I’m willing to resell you MS Office, Photoshop and Flash MX for $5000. The benefit it that I’ll do the hard work or ordering the 3 products, putting them in a box and mailing it to you, any my markup is just $3500.
Mmm…Don’t think this will be something I will ever use.
SocialText pitches its wiki as best of breed, but seems in an awful hurry to add their product functionality to suites, SharePoint, etc. Could it be that in their heart of hearts, they have JotSpot envy?
Blogtronix is the underappreciated one here–they’ve already integrated all of this stuff and have a social networking function to boot.
Interesting. I wonder what Intel sees coming to have made this move.
I like the idea / concept of “bundling” … as long as the “bundle” contains the “best” of every service / application within its category (and if necessary, the respective services can be added / deleated to reflect the present competitive landscape as to what is currently “best of breed).
With that said, does anybody know if MoveableType, SocialText, NewsGator, SimpleFeed, and SpikeSource are unmatched / “simply the best” within each of their respective spheres (I’m asking because I’m not an expert in this area)? And more importantly, if someone where to “lock themselves in” by using SuiteTwo, what is there to guarantee that all of these services will remain “the best” going into the future (I’d sure hate to “lock myself in” to a non-changeable bundle only to find that 3 of the 5 become the “worst of breed” by next year)?
hey its really a gr8 move from INTEL
“… but the downside might be that all this is too much for some businesses and they may opt to adopt each of these products independently.”
Judging by the businesses we’ve been speaking to, I don’t think this is the case. Most don’t have time to put together a solution like this - a single sign on solution with integrated products out of the box is definitely a preference. If they can have something that works seamlessly, demonstrably improves efficiency and doesn’t tie up their IT infrastructure, they’ll take it up quickly and it’ll likely pay for itself.
what does cost-per-seat mean?
It means cost per user I guess.
Interesting, but integrating so different products in a single package could be a nightmare for users and IT departments
Approaches like BlogTronix or Netcipia, really integrated solutions, seems to be more agile…
OK, what is the big deal here?
We at Blogtronix had all of this functionality more than a year a go under one platform and it was all integrated. Not to mention that we did this without millions of dollars from VC’s (you need to combine the total of funding all the Suite2 companies) and with a fraction of the developers or the time it took them. In fact, we showed this to Intel Capital last year and they turned us down. Intel was not impressed that we were not from Stanford or Harvard and that we were only two guys (and 10 + developers).
Today in our new version of Blogtronix 1.5, we not only have real enterprise blogging, wiki, RSS feeds and an online RSS reader, but we also have corporate social networking, document management, CMS, security, integrated search, groups, single sign-on, corporate compliance, banners, etc, etc,…
All of our applications run under one platform on one server. In comparison, the Suite2 is made of Java, PHP, .NET, and Fortran (did I miss anything). None of the apps are connected together and they all will need separate administration of users and the apps itself. This will not fly in any IT department.
The interesting thing about Suite2 is that this validates Blogtronix’ model even more today. And even more interesting is that we are now starting to convert many MT and ST users to the Blogtronix platform because it is all integrated and it is under one platform. I know I repeat myself here, but it’s important
Cheers,
Vassil Mladjov
“In comparison, the Suite2 is made of Java, PHP, .NET, and Fortran (did I miss anything). None of the apps are connected together and they all will need separate administration of users and the apps itself. This will not fly in any IT department.”
While I admire Vassil’s willingness to chase this particular ambulance (”they turned us down”!) I should point out that this entire rant is actually factually incorrect. I love strong competition, but there’s no reason to throw all of your credibility into question by making things up.
Anil, we are only going after your clients
They will be my credibility.
I need to rub this in a bit more, sorry guys.
If this SuiteTwo is a Enterprise 2.0 solution, our Blogtronix collaboration platform needs to be call Enterprise 3.0, since it’s all integrated and does so much more and better. What do you think?
And Anil, I am sorry, but what are you talking in your post about “rant”, I am so happy here that I have something to compare with finally. You also may want check with your VC guys at IntelCap about what is “factually incorrect” before you blog about it.
Vassil, the same for us at Netcipia. I agree with you, the only way to offer a strong service for companies is to offer them an integrated platform. Intel (and the others) are just trying to catch an empty market before true solutions like yours and ours grow on it. Good luck