Ed Brill

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1. 1  Stephen O’Grady http://www.redmonk.com/sogrady | 9/24/2004 12:17:13 PM

   Can't say that I'm real surprised. Collaboration is taking place outside the messaging system these days - whether it's for compliance purposes, product limitations, or ease of use. Messaging essentially amounts to calendar/email, and that's about it for most of the people I talk to on Exchange.

1. 2  Oliver Regelmann http://www.n-komm.de/blog.nsf | 9/24/2004 3:32:58 PM

   So now let's do a similar poll for Notes users. ;-) There are a lot of users who don't use it for collaboration either.

1. 3  Ed Brill www.edbrill.com | 9/24/2004 4:16:39 PM

   I've cited this number publicly before, so it's not IBM internal information... IBM's tracking studies say that somewhere around 70-75% of Lotus Notes customers use it for collaboration in addition to e-mail/calendar services.

   Not everybody needs collaboration, though, so that's why IBM added Lotus Workplace Messaging to the portfolio, for those who need a mail-only product.

1. 4  Peter www.peterdehaas.com | 9/25/2004 1:50:58 AM

   Funny, it is clear that MS Exchange in itself is not a collaboaration platform. Exchange is mail, calendar and public folders. Can you collaborate with Exchange? sure, it is collaboration in the sence of a true collaboration platform ? No. A true collaboration platform also includes teamsites, IM, Presenence integration, portals, Enterprise Application integration and possible other features. i.e is comprised of different servers intergrating in various ways.

   Just like the platformS IBM is building (Workplace and Notes new generation).

   Please stop comparing Notes to Exchange. Compare platforms :-)

1. 5  Carl http://www.iminstant.com | 9/25/2004 7:00:21 AM

   That's interesting on Lotus Workplace messaging, the presentations I always saw were pushing that solution for the factory shop type worker, the people that don't have email today and was very much not a replacement for Notes mail. So if extrapolated out, if I came across a shop today, and they only use Notes/Domino for email, I should tell them to consider moving to Workplace messaging in the future?

   I am such a b&^tard to you :-)

1. 6  Philip Storry  | 9/25/2004 7:05:49 AM

   Collaboration can be basic, though.

   I was having a meeting recently on delegating groups to appropriate people, so that they can stop calling the helpdesk every time they want the group contents changed. I was a little disturbed about the number of mail-only groups that there were, as I know that these departments deal with large documents - and that they tend to have problems with their mail quotas.

   So I asked "Would these groups be better served if we changed them to ACL-only groups, and gave you a discussion database or a teamroom?"

   Needless to say, the blank look meant that I had to demonstrate both the discussion database and the teamroom.

   As a long-time Domino/Notes professional, it sometimes slips my mind that people may never have seen such things. Discussion databases are pretty simple, and you may not think that they count as "collaboration". Maybe a teamroom only just counts. But to the vast majority of users, these are collaboration.

   And in my experience, Exchange sites rarely use Public Folders - which is really the only method of collaboration that Exchange has. The sites that did use Public Folders were small businesses with one site. That was because they didn't have to worry about folder replication, or mobile users...

1. 7  Sean Burgess http://phigsaidwhat.com/ | 9/26/2004 9:30:16 AM

   @4 Peter, I think you are missing the argument of most of the Lotus professionals I know. Although MicroSloth continues to try, it is impossible to truly compare Domino and Exchange without including 6-8 other MS Technologies/Servers. All of the collaboration items you listed can be accomplished on an out-of-the-box Domino server, with the exception of IM. To get IM, you just need to download the code and install it. No additional licenses to buy, no connection between multiple servers, no upgrade of your existing Windows environment, no tap or glue to hold everything together.

   Domino is a platform for collaboration, Exchange is a mail/calendaring server.

1. 8  Peter de Haas www.peterdehaas.com | 9/27/2004 1:48:53 AM

   @ Sean,

   You could have done without the MicroSloth statement, I know already this is not the MS fanclub.

   I would argue that Domino is a true collaboration platform in the definition of today (combining synchronous and a synchronous communication for example). It does not include Real Time Communication (IM), Presence Integration in colleborative apps and webconferencing. For these functions also Domino integrates with other servers / services.

   I am not argueing that Microsoft needs Servers to provide certain functionality. My point was that Exchange is not a colleboration platform in todays definition and only provides asynchronous forms of colleboration.

   I am also not comparing Exchange to Notes, it is apples and oranges, therefor your last statement is almost correct.

1. 9  Ed Brill www.edbrill.com | 9/27/2004 6:52:24 AM

   @5 Carl - (he takes the bait) No, Carl, you should tell them that there is no ROI in migration. As Notes/Domino becomes more integrated with Workplace, they might find that new users are addressable with Workplace Messaging, integrated into their environment. There is also the upcoming common PIM portlet which will provide a messaging front-end in a browser that can talk to Domino, Workplace Messaging, or Exchange (and be instantiated in WebSphere Portal or Lotus Workplace).

   @6 Philip - Definitely agree. Would be interesting to see how the 23% that said "quite a bit" define their use of collaboration. Novell was actually the first company to co-opt this market when they shipped their first "Groupwise" which did nothing more than mail, calendar, and shared documents.

   @8 Peter - I find it a bit funny that we've been having a debate about the value of analyst reports from META and Radicati in this other blog thread { Link } when both the analysts in question have published reports that <b>compare Exchange and Notes</b>! Microsoft has chosen to make the public debate be about Notes vs. Exchange.

1. 10  Peter www.peterdehaas.com | 9/28/2004 3:34:52 PM

   @Ed

   I can not comment for the analysts nor for their reasons to add this focus to their analysis.

   The core of the Notes vs Exchange discussion is more 'historical' is my guess and focussed on the mail / calendar functionality. I would agree that this does not do the Notes side justice as it provides more functionality.

   You have been personally involved in these types of studies, so may have more insights to this than I do.

   The discussion today should compare platforms in my opinion.

1. 11  james Governor www.redmonk.com/jgovernor | 9/29/2004 9:51:45 AM

   email itself *is* a collaboration tool. just thinking about definitions. peter de talks of "today's definition" but doesn't provide one. i am either splitting hairs or trying to be helpful.

1. 12  Peter de Haas www.peterdehaas.com | 9/29/2004 12:44:36 PM

   For arguments sake :

   Forrester Research'definition of a colloboration platfrom:

   ■Unified electronic platforms that support synchronous and asynchronous communication and community-based collaboration through a variety of devices and channels■

   Yes email is a collaboration tool, but so is a whiteboard. In my opinion the essence of collaboration today is about combing synchronous (real time) collboration with asynchronous communication (for example email but also teamsites or document spaces)

   Now I will stop discussing this topic before Ed looses his patience