147% vs. 29%

March 1 2010

A few people have pinged me today about Microsoft's new competitive website, which can be reached via the classy-looking "Why Microsoft" blog written by andrewk (doesn't that anonymity make you feel better about doing business with Microsoft already?).  On the new site, Microsoft has done a clever job of their usual innuendos and half-truths (labeling everything Lotus as either legacy or acquired -- great throwaway line but how does that connect to reality?).  In one place, though, they've backed their claims up, with a Forrester "Total Economic Impact" study.  The assertion is:

Read a white paper in which Forrester covers four customers who migrated from competitive email and collaboration platforms to the Microsoft platform with a overall ROI of 29%
Hmm, that's sort of impressive, except when you go to ibm.com and find this contrast:
Forrester Consulting calculated a three-year risk-adjusted ROI of 147% for the composite organization with a payback period within 12 months of deployment.
So let's see, migrate to the competition and get an ROI of 29% in 14 months.  Stay with what you've got and get an ROI of 147% in 12 months.  Maybe I'm oversimplifying, but I do know which one I'd choose...

Ed Brill | Highland Park, IL USA Category:  Microsoft  Add/View Comments [20]

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  1. 1  Catalin  | 3/1/2010 1:59:50 PM

    This should be advertised more, and on official "Why Lotus" channels. No offense to you, I'm an avid reader of you blog but sometimes people need to understand that M$ is king of marketing... And that's why we have this ratio.

  1. 2  Erik Brooks  | 3/1/2010 2:14:10 PM

    Wow, I think even a 10-year-old could turn that into a simple high-impact ad.

  1. 3  Giuseppe Grasso http://www.dominopoint.it | 3/1/2010 2:35:11 PM

    did he just edited his post?

    it now begins with "Hi, my name is Andrew Kisslo and I am Sr. Product Manager inside the group that delivers Office, SharePoint and Exchange..."

    and I've been unable to find the reference to the "Forrester Total Economic Impact study"

  1. 4  tonyo  | 3/1/2010 2:39:59 PM

    Ed,

    the first paragraph of the blog :)

    Hi, my name is Andrew Kisslo and I am Sr. Product Manager inside the group that delivers Office, SharePoint and Exchange, including all our cloud offerings. (andrewK = Andrew Kisslo)

    Tony

  1. 5  Ed Brill http://www.edbrill.com | 3/1/2010 3:01:02 PM

    @3 it's on the site MS links to, I really am not interested in linking there directly.

    @4 I might have blanked on that first paragraph, I just thought the "by ___ " line of the blog was funny. Especially since it's such an attractive blog.

  1. 6  Deleted  | 3/1/2010 3:05:44 PM

    "Hal Ninth" has just/finally earned a spam filter slot.

  1. 7  Charles Robinson http://www.cubert.net | 3/1/2010 3:46:13 PM

    Microsoft's breathless affirmation of their superiority is based on responses from four customers. IBM's is from a whopping seven. I could probably dig up ten people who saved a bundle migrating to sendmail. Does that make it better?

  1. 8  Tripp Black http://www.mindwatering.com | 3/1/2010 9:30:05 PM

    "labeling everything Lotus as either legacy or acquired"

    FrontPage used to be Vermeer FrontPage before MS swallowed Vermeer up, I know I owned it along with Site Mill and Hot Dog.

    Forethought Presenter/PowerPoint was bought by MS, too.

    Let's not forget Groove, either.

    So what does that make PowerPoint, FrontPagem and Groove?

  1. 9  Damian  | 3/2/2010 4:56:13 AM

    As I have written in another topics. Company`s are going to MS mostly to hosted services because of cost reduction

    { Link }

    A Ferris Research survey of 917 companies found that Notes systems can cost twice as much as Exchange 2007,” White said. “(...) The launch of Exchange Online and SharePoint Online is a key driver for migrations. This past year, as these services have gone live, some major Notes customers – including Coca-Cola Enterprises, GlaxoSmithKline and Ingersoll Rand – are making the move from Notes to the cloud because of Microsoft’s software plus services strategy. (...) At 400,000 strong, our partner and developer communities are amazing! Every one of those 4.7 million Notes switchers started their migration with a Microsoft partner, and today, those partners are better than ever.”

    I`m personally know about other two huge company's (> 50 000 seat) switching from Domino Collaboration to MS Business Productivity Online Standard Suite (BPOS).

  1. 10  Patrick Kwinten http://quintessens.wordpress.com | 3/2/2010 7:41:17 AM

    why do management (including mine) still fall for this MS bullshit?

  1. 11  Olaf Boerner http://www.bcc.biz | 3/2/2010 2:41:52 PM

    I am wondering that there is a ROI for the migration case. Even a low ROI can be used to justify a migration.

  1. 12  Darren http://www.dadams.co.uk | 3/2/2010 5:05:00 PM

    They don't mention the customers who migrate to Exchange for e-mail but years later are still using Notes applications, paying to run the infrastructure, paying maintenance on the Notes / Domino licenses and even growing their Notes estate. Calculate the ROI on that one. It's a shame that those customers are unlikely to be a reference for us... but you would stand up and say "yes, our decision cost us more money"?

  1. 13  Brett Hershberger  | 3/3/2010 10:41:47 AM

    So... Ed/Lotus/IBM, where is the "official" rebuttal of this FUD from MS? When and where will IBM be releasing a press statement debunking the study please? I'd like to be able to send an official reply to the "powers that be" so they don't take just Microsoft's word for it. If IBM doesn't officially call BS on it then it WILL be taken as the truth by those who make decisions.

    This blog is great and all, but it's just a blog and no (non-yellowverse) manager is going to take it as an official position from IBM/Lotus.

    C'mon put up those yellow gloves!

  1. 14  Ed Brill http://www.edbrill.com | 3/3/2010 10:56:19 AM

    @13 IBM is actually writing a response to this, but we tend not to always put them in public. { Link } still jumps to our public competitive information. But honestly, neither vendor chooses to respond to every attack from the other. It tends to validate the attack when we do. The press is often a better place to fight that battle.

  1. 15  Ed Brill http://www.edbrill.com | 3/3/2010 10:56:39 AM

    PS anyone who accepts either vendor's claims about the other without doing their own validation or homework is foolish.

  1. 16  Tom McPhail  | 3/3/2010 3:46:57 PM

    Hi Ed,

    Obviously you are doing your bit to push back against the MS marketing machine but as others have noted it is largely a marketing war that MS have won already. IBM's relunctance/tardiness in publicly mounting the same marketing onslaught that MS does is surely a big reason why Exchange walks all over Domino in the marketplace and continues to grow their share.

    I'm part of the Australian Messaging and Colaboration group and I think at the moment at least it is fairly safe to say that the Exchange/MS people on our team (myself included) seem to be ocnsistently busier with new work that the Domino crew.

    I'm not expressing a product preference one way or the other, the very fact that I am employed by IBM means we as a company are obviously not oblivious to the tendancy of the market toward an MS platform but I can't help but notice a lack of any public "fight back".

    Cheers

    Tom

  1. 17  Tom McPhail  | 3/3/2010 3:48:20 PM

    please also excuse my terrible keyboard skills above....it's early :)

  1. 18  Brett Hershberger  | 3/3/2010 3:56:14 PM

    But... but... Microsoft keeps slinging mud! Unless it's addressed directly that's the only side of the story that people see. Yes they (decision makers) should do their own research, but the "users" in the "trenches" don't do research, they see what they see and they see MS FUD with no response from IBM. Their opinion/mindshare/gripes are therefore validated, and that is what keeps the the world's opinion of Notes lower than it could/should be.

    I'm sure you've heard it a hundred times... "Perception is everything" and user's perception is being validated (incorrectly, but still...) by MS without impunity.

    One can only turn one's cheek so many times!

  1. 19  Brett Hershberger  | 3/3/2010 3:57:47 PM

    High road be damned!

  1. 20  Bill McCuistion http://www.edna1550.com | 3/3/2010 8:46:51 PM

    So, what's the big deal between 29% and 147% ? On a relative scale, both are pretty measly.

    When my company (Texas Source Group/JV) won the 3rd Place in the Lotus Beacon Award for Greatest Business Impact, back in 1995 or so, we came in third with something like a HARD-DOLLAR ROI of > 2700% from a Notes-based application solution. I don't recall what the 1st & 2nd place winners achieved, but assume that it was even higher than 2700%.

    And, remember, this is when a Notes server license was > $10K US and a Notes Client license was something like $495 US.

    The core-application had very little to do with Email or Messaging, and everything to do with WORKFLOW and shortening the "time-to-market" on a client's $100M capital-expansion project.

    Even today, I shudder to think of what combination of MS-based, or Open-Source products it would take to achieve the same "Manhattan-Project" type challenges we faced, regardless of cost or budget.

    How come we don't hear more stories about those altitudes of "compelling reasons"?

    Again, this "race-to-the bottom" just doesn't make sense to this casual observer. IBM: quit fighting your partners, and get you head and heart into the game.