IBM announced Thursday its intent to acquire the messaging service assets of Outblaze, a Hong Kong-based, privately held provider of online messaging and collaboration services.
With more than 10 years of experience, Outblaze was one of the first companies to offer a fully hosted multilingual e-mail service and now supports over 40 million users. Outblaze operates one of the largest online service platforms for the provision of private label e-mail, collaboration and social media services for other service providers, telecommunications operators, corporations, academia, media and publishing companies.
The Outblaze messaging service will be part of IBM Lotus' Project "Bluehouse." "Bluehouse" is IBM's online social networking and collaboration service designed for business and currently in open beta, said IBM in a statement.
"The acquisition of these Outblaze assets further demonstrates Lotus' commitment to delivering secure, scalable online solutions and will help accelerate delivery of collaborative services, with little to no IT involvement," said Bob Picciano, General Manager, IBM Lotus Software and WebSphere Portal. "Lotus has always led the way in helping people get more connected, and we recognize that getting the right information and expertise particularly outside of your own organization, can pose quite a challenge."