IBM NT server bundles anger MS

But IBM's positioning of the products as an enterprise solution that need not run on Microsoft NT machines alone has drawn fire from the Redmond-based software vendor.

Microsoft has taken the IBM launch as a veiled attack on Back Office's capabilities. It refutes IBM's inference that Back Office is designed to run only on NT rather than other legacy systems. Its own back-office suites are being upgraded to work with NT 5.0, due in beta this July.

Meanwhile IBM has been promoting the suites - one for small businesses, one for departments of large companies, and one for entire companies - to reseller partners and distributors at its Business Partner Executive Conference. Once development versions are released in April, applications should follow swiftly on, says Big Blue.

To emphasis the versatility of the suites, it is launching them as Unix and OS/2 versions later in the year.