IBM has made a US$3.3 billion bid to acquire Lotus Development, Cambridge, Mass., with an offer of US$60 per share for the 55 million outstanding shares of the software products and support services company.

The purchase of Lotus will give ibm the software strength it needs to square off with Microsoft.

In making the announcement, Louis Gerstner, Jr., chairman and chief executive officer of Armonk, n.y.-based Big Blue, said, ‘Combining the strengths of Lotus and ibm represents a truly unique opportunity.

‘[Lotus has] developed some very special software products, particularly in the groupware area,’ he said.

‘Working together, Lotus and ibm can make these products even more successful,’ he said.

‘We can bring ibm’s great technology, our skills and experience in industrial-strength enterprise computing, and, of course, our unmatched global marketing force.’

Lotus is known for its 1-2-3 spreadsheet software; SmartSuite combination of word processing, spreadsheet, database and graphics software products, and Notes groupware for sharing documents across a computer network.

Lotus Development Canada hired Doner Schur Peppler, of Toronto, last July to handle media and some creative adaptation of work from u.s. agency Hill Holliday Connors Cosmopulos, of Boston.

Ogilvy & Mather was named ibm’s worldwide agency in 1994.