IBM (NYSE:IBM) is making its Lotus Notes/Domino messaging software available as a hosted service, the company's latest move to provide more of its software through its cloud computing initiative.

The new Lotus Notes Hosted Messaging service joins other IBM cloud services including Lotus Sametime Unyte, a Web conferencing system based on technology from IBM's August 2007 acquisition, and the Bluehouse social networking and collaboration service that's now in beta.

As with those other services, channel partners will have the opportunity to sell the IBM Lotus Notes Hosted Messaging service, said John Dunderdale, IBM Lotus sales vice president.

IBM will host Domino on dedicated servers within its own data centers, a different approach from the multi-tenant architecture used by some on-demand software suppliers. While browser access to the service will be an option, Dunderdale said IBM expects most customers to run the Notes client on their desktops. "It's really user preference," he said.