Network World: Rockliffe unveils Outlook plug-in

December 1 2003

This is a pretty interesting statistic...

Osterman Research has just concluded a large, multi-client messaging survey in which we asked organizations about the potential for replacing their back-end messaging infrastructure with one that provides significantly better performance, less server loading, lower costs or other significant advantages. If this required replacing current desktop clients with another client, only 15% of organizations would very likely or definitely switch backend messaging systems. However, if they could keep the current desktop clients, 56% of organizations said they would very likely or definitely switch.
guess it's good timing for Lotus's rearchitecting of Domino Access for MS-Outlook, which does a ton of new things (and uses PST instead of NSF) in 6.0.2, and will have even more enhancements in 6.5.1/6.0.4.
(As for Rockliffe -- welcome to the party.  IBM, Novell, Samsung Connect, Bynari, Sendmail, Oracle are already here, but if you think there's room, hey, that's your call.)
Link: Network World: Rockliffe unveils Outlook plug-in >

Ed Brill Highland Park, IL USA Category:  In the news  Add/View Comments [9]

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  1. 1    | 12/1/2003 8:16:28 AM

    Ed,

    Did Lotus/IBM ever considered creating a lightweight Notes mail client which would behave similarly to Outlook (without going into copycat/legal battles) ? i.e. mail client without the databases visibility and not suffering from the Notes databases idiosyncrasies ?

    I am wondering if had they done this Exchange/Outlook would be gone by now... :)

  1. 2  Carl  | 12/1/2003 9:20:32 AM

  1. 3  Carl  | 12/1/2003 9:21:28 AM

    Lotus lost to Borland, and Apple lost to Microsoft. Both UI look and feel cases.

    So no legal issues with making an application look like another one.

  1. 4  Tim Latta  | 12/1/2003 10:01:01 AM

    "If this required replacing current desktop clients with another client, only 15% of organizations would very likely or definitely switch backend messaging systems. However, if they could keep the current desktop clients, 56% of organizations said they would very likely or definitely switch."

    I'm curious, Ed, what you take on this is thinking about the Workplace strategy and how it relates to current (ie; Notes client/mail) customers in regard to the Workplace strategy? It will be a 'new' mail client.

  1. 5  Ed Brill www.edbrill.com | 12/1/2003 10:19:21 AM

    Tim, Notes is continuing to be a rich client supported in the Lotus Workplace ... the J2EE/Eclipse "rich client" is not designed to be a global replacement for Notes. And already with Notes 6.5, and more in 6.5.1 and beyond, you'll see more and more integration between Notes and the Workplace back-end. So, it -won't- be a client change, not unless you want the capabilities in the Eclipse world as they become available.

  1. 6  Ed Brill www.edbrill.com | 12/1/2003 11:14:43 AM

    I don't think it's simply a question of UI. Lotus -did- and -does- offer a Notes Mail edition, and in the past it was actually technically restricted to mail / discussion/ doclib only. There was also Notes R5 "Private Edition" in Germany. Even with an Outlook-like UI (which would mean admitting that Outlook is an ideal UI, which it isn't), I'm not sure either of those would have been able to compete with the completely free/preinstalled Outlook Express or the bundled/preinstalled Outlook.

  1. 7  Philip Storry  | 12/1/2003 11:45:27 AM

    I get very frustatrated by people that go around demanding an Outlook-like interface for email.

    I'll say it JUST ONCE, in a nice calm voice. Outlook is not a very good interface.

    You only THINK it's good, because it's something you've used before.

    Grrr.

  1. 8  Nathan T. Freeman  | 12/1/2003 4:10:14 PM

    "You only THINK it's good, because it's something you've used before."

    Fine. That still makes it easier to train and support. The cost savings of *not* having to train users on an unfamiliar interface is considerable.

  1. 9  Philip Storry  | 12/2/2003 9:25:47 AM

    So you'd rely on users thinking that they know how to use the app?

    I think - in my experience - that's a bad way to run a business. If they think they know the app, they'll end up making mistakes. Possibly ones that cost you quite a bit (in support costs) to recover from.

    That's really the point here - people THINK they know the app, and therefore it'll be cheaper to roll out because it requires no training. It might require less training, but in most installations it'll require at least some training. It's not just the Outlook/Notes UI you cover in such training - it's often also installation-specific things, like how often mail transfers from site to site. And the maximum message sizes. And best practices (linking documents rather than attaching them).

    Training can save money. Anyone that thinks they're saving money by installing Outlook is probably going to be repeatedly bitten by full inboxes, because people send 10Mb powerpoint presentations to 100's of people without thinking. (Happens more than you'd like it to.) Or having support calls along the lines of "where's my email? why's it not arrived yet?". Or asking about known features in the product (Outlooks mail handling Rules are awful in some versions, and have lots of issues) that you could have warned them about.

    (Of course, that last example highlights the question of how MUCH training you want to do. With a defective app, you have to do more training. But that can save time in the long run in support costs...)

    The Outlook familiarity might mean that you can shave an hour or so off the training. Or, if it's not instructor led training - it's instead a manual handed to new employees - then you can remove a few pages.

    That's not much of a saving, though. And you often CAN'T remove that hour or those pages, because you can garauntee that SOMEONE won't be familiar with their content anyway.

    Familiarity with Outlook should never be seen as an advantage unless it's familiarity with the same version, and was created by training. And that narrows down the number of people familiar with Outlook drastically...