Lotus beckons for IT Factory

Lotus business partner IT Factory has established a presence in the UK as it looks to build closer links with the software vendor.

The Danish Notes and Domino developer has opened an office close to Lotus' UK head office in Staines and recruited Andy MacDonald from Informix as executive vice president and former Quarterdeck sales vice president David Brown to head its EMEA sales operation.

Brown told PC Dealer that IT Factory would establish an indirect sales operation and was negotiating to establish a formal relationship with Lotus that would bring the two closer together.

'IT Factory provides the first Notes/Domino business suite based on a standard software architecture,' he said. 'The Notes/Domino platform has considerable strength, but there is no common standard. IT Factory provides an architecture with a common platform for developers. It's about simplifying the environment and creating centralised administration.'

IT Factory is targeting 1,500 Lotus business partners in Europe to complement the 140 it already has. Developers will pay a one-off fee of £3,000 and will benefit from user demand generation, tailored marketing and licence sales margins of about 50 per cent, according to Brown. The company is also looking to offer bundling deals with hardware vendors for its suite of Notes business applications.