IBM sells Lotus Notes/Domino for $1.8 billion to HCL

IBM finally separates from the Lotus Notes/Domino project and sells the entire software to HCL for 1.8 billion dollars.

Lotus Notes/Domino, IBM sells Lotus Notes/Domino for $1.8 billion to HCL,

IBM announced on Thursday that it will sell the rest of the Lotus components: Notes/Domino to the Indian company HCL, which had already acquired part of the project last year. However, the technology remained in control for sales and marketing.

Lotus Notes, Domino and Portal were part of the IBM business, but last year they sold part of the HCL development.

Notes/Domino is client/server collaborative software developed by IBM after the acquisition of Lotus in 1995.

With this sale, IBM will get rid of this project and hand over full control to HCL, which will continue to develop Notes/Domino, which is still implemented in thousands of companies.

“The large-scale implementation of these products provides us with a great opportunity to reach and serve thousands of global companies in a variety of industries and markets,” said C Vijayakumar, president, and CEO of HCL Technologies, in a statement.

Enterprise software specialists say this IBM business is the continuation of a series of strategies the company is applying to address a different type of market.

Alan Lepofsky, an analyst at Constellation Research, told TechCrunch that this could be a fresh start for Lotus: “HCL is much more interested in Notes/Domino than IBM has been for a decade. “They’re investing a lot, trying to rejuvenate the brand.”

This was demonstrated when Red Hat was acquired in October for $34 Billion and became the provider of the “world’s leading hybrid cloud” that wants to change the concept of cloud computing as we know it.

“The acquisition of Red Hat is a decisive step. It changes everything in the cloud market,” said Ginni Rometty, president of IBM, president, and chief executive officer. “IBM will become the world’s leading hybrid cloud provider, offering companies the only open cloud solution that unlocks the full value of the cloud for their businesses.

So there’s every indication that IBM is going for software in the cloud and needs to get rid of their old projects.

The purchase agreement is expected to be concluded in the middle of next year following official approval procedures.