Exchange 2010: Is that it?

April 15 2009

Carl pointed to Microsoft's announcement of Exchange 2010 beta:

Exchange 2010 will help organizations reduce costs, protect communications and delight e-mail users with capabilities to do the following:
* Lower costs with more flexible deployment and management options.
* Protect information and meet compliance requirements with the new e-mail archive.
* Improve user productivity with the ultimate inbox experience.
Is that it?  With a product ship later this year, they can't at this point enumerate the key benefits of the new release?  eWeek's coverage mentions a few of those user productivity enhancements, most of which are borrowed from our work in Notes 8 or Google's in gmail.  

I realize the back-end changes are probably more significant than described in the release and coverage, and I've read about Live@EDU and what MS is doing with the hosted approach.

But I can't help but be left with an "is that it" feeling in reading all the coverage of the Exchange 2010 beta.  Microsoft has made small, incremental improvements in Exchange over the last nine years.  The addition of unified messaging has impressed almost no one... I don't see case studies nor hear customers saying that they chose Exchange 2007 for those features in the first place.  Which means, customers have been paying nine years of software assurance for what exactly?

Link: Microsoft Unveils Exchange 2010 With Public Beta >

Ed Brill Nashville, TN USA Category:  Microsoft  Add/View Comments [67]

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  1. 1  Alan  | 4/15/2009 12:59:06 PM

    Just read the Computerworld { Link } piece on it. Nothing stellar - as you say just additions to catch up with Notes/Domino . . .

    One thing I didn't understand was "This lumps together several discrete enhancements, but the short story is that you can now run Exchange reliably without dealing with Windows clustering, RAID arrays, or fancy Enterprise-class disks." ? ? ? ? ? So this is an acknowledgment that Windows clustering & Exchange don't play well together? Or that RAID arrays are a hindrance to performance?

    Doesn't come across as "Shining" to me, unless we're talking about Jack Nicholson's finest moments.

  1. 2  Darren http://www.dadams.co.uk | 4/15/2009 1:20:12 PM

    Observations... Jet engine again, quote... Microsoft had "done a ton of innovation" on Jet for Exchange 2010. That doesn't tell us whether it's a straight upgrade from Exchange 2007 or a Microsoft 'upgrade' (what's known in the trade as a 'migration').

    "Gode said Microsoft's decision to stick with the Jet database was a nonissue because scaling problems had mostly been solved" - remains to be seen. Mostly? What hasn't been solved?

    Outlook - some nice new e-mail features, but there's my point, it's still just e-mail. Read the press Microsoft, the world is finding other ways to communicate and collaborate. Notes 8.x and onwards is flexible enough to deal with whatever needs to move centre-stage in the future.

    The CIO story says that Exchange 2010 is "built from the ground up". Would that fill me with confidence? That says 1.0 to me.

  1. 3  Flemming Riis  | 4/15/2009 1:33:57 PM

    -That doesn't tell us whether it's a straight upgrade from Exchange 2007 or a Microsoft 'upgrade' (what's known in the trade as a 'migration').

    Its not a inplace upgrade but coexistiance is supported from 2003 and -> so upgrades or rip and replace as you will put it will be seamless for the users.

  1. 4  Kevin Mort http://www.theglobalmind.com | 4/15/2009 1:36:09 PM

    Curious on how the first two items would "delight e-mail users."

    As we get told all the time, admin functions don't matter to users, and really the first two are admin features more than anything.

    Of course what constitutes the "ultimate inbox experience" is very much up to the beholder.

    @2 That's also CIO's pandering way to try and position Ex2010 as a keystone "next gen" mail system that no one else has. We of course know better.

    Sadly many CIOs & up don't.

  1. 5  Darren http://www.dadams.co.uk | 4/15/2009 1:43:47 PM

    @4 - if the "ultimate inbox experience" doesn't involve copying all of your e-mail back into the inbox (as the Outlook Blog suggested a while back) at least it's an improvement.

    Which reminds me... I was talking to an IBM employee who recently came from a company that used Outlook. He told me Outlook was much better and while we agreed to disagree, I did say that Notes was clearly better at some things, like searching. He disagreed. I asked how you'd search all of your Outlook mail box... not just the inbox, but the contents of all the folders too. His answer? Simple, just copy everything back into your inbox and then search the inbox.

    "Copy everything back into your inbox" - hands up if you think that sounds like a complete nightmare. And some people say Outlook is more user-friendly?

  1. 6  Bill  | 4/15/2009 1:52:45 PM

    Here's a link to an interesting Slashdot discussion about the announcement: { Link }

  1. 7  Paul Robichaux http://www.robichaux.net/blog | 4/15/2009 2:01:59 PM

    If you're actually interested in some of the technical details of the changes in Exchange 2010, see { Link } If you'd rather remain comfortably ignorant, by all means just stay here.

  1. 8  Paul Robichaux http://www.robichaux.net/blog | 4/15/2009 2:06:44 PM

    Oh, and I forgot: here's eWeek's take. { Link }

  1. 9  Graham Dodge http://www.bcd.net.au | 4/15/2009 3:01:14 PM

    @7 Paul - read the article - could you clarify the following statement ...

    "Single copy clusters are eliminated and not supported in Exchange 2010. Microsoft is moving toward the idea that maintaining multiple copies of data on multiple servers delivers better high availability than attempting to update a single copy of data. "

    Where does that leave SMB whose hardware budget / office space / IT staff availability doesn't run to supporting "multiple servers" for email?

  1. 10  Roberto Boccadoro  | 4/15/2009 3:23:56 PM

    @Paul - "While there aren’t a lot of ground-breaking new features in Exchange Server 2010, there are many welcome improvements that go a long way toward addressing the shortcomings of the previous versions." So this is basically what ? A maintenance release ? We usually call them point releases, not major.

  1. 11  Deleted  | 4/15/2009 3:26:34 PM

    Anonymous comment deleted

  1. 12  Rob McDonagh http://www.CaptainOblivious.com | 4/15/2009 3:30:11 PM

    From Paul's link (thanks, very interesting, always want to see as many details as possible - though I'm afraid you'll now get stuck with a bunch of cherry-picking, and I'm guilty as well):

    "Exchange 14 isn't supported for Windows Server 2003, so you'll have to deploy it on Windows Server 2008. As usual, Exchange 14 will have other prerequisites, such as the latest version of the .NET Framework, PowerShell 2.0, and some schema updates for AD. There's no current dependency that Exchange 14 must access AD on Server 2008, but you'll need to ensure that your forest is at least at Windows 2003 functional mode and that there's at least one Global Catalog server running Windows 2003 SP2 in each domain that supports an Exchange 14 server. Exchange 14 doesn't support read-only domain controllers.

    Within an Exchange organization, you can mix Exchange 14 servers with servers running Exchange 2007 SP1 or later and Exchange 2003 SP2 or later, but there's no support for earlier versions of Exchange. Just like Exchange 2007, you won’t be able to upgrade an existing version of Exchange to the new release and will have to deploy new servers running Exchange 14, then use the Move Mailbox feature to move users to the new servers. Details of deployment recommendations are still being worked out, but I expect that best practice will be to deploy servers running the Hub Transport (and Edge Transport) and Client Access roles first, followed by Mailbox servers. "

    Not surprising, but I wouldn't be thrilled if they were my servers.

  1. 13  Adam Osborne http://www.preemptive.com.au | 4/15/2009 3:44:43 PM

    Makes Notes/Domino 8.5 look even more compelling (given these hard economical times). We just need to get the message out there !

  1. 14  Deleted  | 4/15/2009 3:52:09 PM

    Anonymous comment deleted

  1. 15  Paul Robichaux http://www.robichaux.net/blog | 4/15/2009 4:20:46 PM

    @9: database availability groups (see { Link } ) replicate mailbox databases between servers... just like Domino! If your hypothetical SMB already spent the money on a single-copy cluster environment (or a Domino cluster for that matter), they already have plenty enough hardware to make use of this feature.

    @10: I guess it's a "you say tomato..." issue. The seamless integration of Exchange Online and on-premise Exchange is pretty groundbreaking. Remote Powershell, online move mailbox, voice mail transcription, built-in archiving, and all the client improvements in OWA-- there are lots of solid improvements here, but of course not everyone will think they're groundbreaking or revolutionary. That's OK by me.

    @12: that paragraph could've been a lot shorter IMHO. The AD requirements are essentially unchanged from Exchange 2007. Because you can do online mailbox moves (e.g. without disconnecting the client), the requirement to do mailbox-moving installs is basically a no-op.

  1. 16  Peter Wilson  | 4/15/2009 4:28:41 PM

    I believe IBM should also focus on Domino Next to provide what Microsoft are doing in Exchange 2010...ie. "In general, the Outlook Web Access client behaves much more like a full Outlook client, offering everything from pop-up tips (for example, when a message is too large) to suggested contacts when entering a name"

    Domino is a great email backend, so if the user interface via a web browser was fantastic and supported (and provided the same experience) with a range of browsers (and other devices like iPhone) then I believe organisations would feel it's less of a risk to migrate from Outlook to Domino. Especially if organisations also had the power of Notes databases in an effective web browser format. IBM currently has some really great looking web apps like Connections and Quickr, so how card would it be to translate that to Domino??

    That would mean of course that many of the standard Notes templates (document store, discussion db) would need to be updated (it's been years since they have) and work really well via a web browser.

    Just my 2 cents. However I'm not sure if Lotus can introduce those features in the next release when we're still having a debate about whether the icons should be improved - shesh ({ Link })

    Pete

  1. 17  Ed Brill http://www.edbrill.com | 4/15/2009 4:42:07 PM

    The anonymous cowards will be deleted when I get back to my database...

    @16 Peter, what do you feel is lacking in iNotes in 8.5 today? Put aside the other templates, I want to know about mail/calendar.

  1. 18  Darren http://www.dadams.co.uk | 4/15/2009 4:42:36 PM

    @11 and @14 - fair enough, I was just going on what that guy told me, and his experience was obviously based on an earlier version. Congratulations to the Outlook development team. I don't have Outlook 2007, and I acknowledged that when I blogged about Outlook's Ultimate Inbox... { Link } - and I specifically asked if the same was true for Outlook 2007.

    As for SQL, clearly the info I was hearing was incorrect. I'd heard it from some customers who had been told by their Microsoft contacts that it was in plan. But in answer to "I see you point out it's a shame Exchange still relies on Jet"... it's not a shame, I don't lose any sleep over what Exchanges uses as a data store. It was an observation. Both 2003 and 2007 use the Jet engine, but the 'upgrade' wasn't what I'd describe as straightforward (in-place not supported)... correct me if I'm wrong on that. I'd just like to understand how straightforward the 2007 to 2010 upgrade is. Rob @12 says it's the same lack of in-place upgrade again. True?

    Back to @11 - "Outlook 2007 is a clear winner". That's always going to be a matter of opinion. It's your opinion but it's not mine or the opinion of many others. If you're happy with it, that's nice for you.

  1. 19  Darren http://www.dadams.co.uk | 4/15/2009 4:51:38 PM

    @16 - Peter, the discussion database has been updated for 8.5 and is an out-of-the-box application using XPages.

    As for the debate about icons... I sorta see your point, but I'll make my own... development have to analyse whether they'll implement capabilities based on a number of criteria. I'd have to say that application icons have a fairly low business impact. But then again we know that there's a big focus on look and feel and overall polish. How long has Notes been lambasted for it's UI, despite some of it's obvious superior attributes? So you can forgive Mary Beth for consulting the community over UI issues, even if they do seem a little trivial. I think most would agree that the open feedback approach to the product's development is a good thing.

  1. 20  Steve Davis  | 4/15/2009 5:20:03 PM

    @16 - Peter. Have you taken a look at the iNotes mail interface in 8.5? It's very close to being at parity with the Notes client. It also runs quite nicely on the iPhone.

  1. 21  Ed Brill http://www.edbrill.com | 4/15/2009 5:20:27 PM

    @18 Daz, you had heard right -- Either Gates or Ballmer had been quoted in 2008 as saying Exchange would be moving to SQL.

  1. 22  Darren http://www.dadams.co.uk | 4/15/2009 5:26:05 PM

    @21 - indeed Ed, I do now recall seeing a web interview with Gates stating it... although in his defence he didn't mention a version number. Maybe it was in the plans but they had another Kodiak moment.

  1. 23  tonyo  | 4/15/2009 6:19:10 PM

    @21 @22 - didn't Steve Mills say IBM was going to get rid of the NSF and move to DB2? :)

  1. 24  Darren http://www.dadams.co.uk | 4/15/2009 7:05:42 PM

    @23 - actually, no. What he did say was that IBM would implement DB2 as an alternative store for Domino, which did happen with Domino 7. Many people thought that implied the death of NSF, but it was incorrect.

  1. 25  David Bell  | 4/15/2009 7:24:23 PM

    Since O/E2010 is going to have the "ultimate inbox experience" I guess that will be the end of the road for Outlook.

    @16 - have you looked at the Domino 8.5 blog and wiki templates with a browser ?

    @15 - On the MS page, it says E2010 is the "first server designed from inception to work both on-premises and as an online service" - you too mention the seamless integration and groundbreaking work done here, so what does that mean exactly ?

  1. 26  MarvinK  | 4/15/2009 11:47:01 PM

    @25 - Have you looked at them on a BlackBerry? How about including a mobile css--that would be more impressive for a 2008 release.

    Really, the rants about Exchange are one of the least appealing parts of the Ed Brill blog. I mean, it's easy to talk about how Exchange is playing catch up, but we're looking at a Notes 8.5 client update... and one of the features our users are going to be most excited about is the realtime spell checking... something Microsoft Word had over a decade ago.

  1. 27  Peter Wilson  | 4/15/2009 11:52:47 PM

    I'll look again at the new templates in Domino 8.5.

    @17 Ed, one of the features I've been harping on for ages and ages is the ability to create calendar entries like Outlook & now Mac's email client. See { Link }

    OWA and Mac's email client make it so easy to select a bunch of time in your diary and create entries (and then drag and drop them around which Notes can do - although Notes has an annoying window which pops up instead)

    Also, Notes still doesn't default on my calendar for business hours. If I get an appointment for say 4AM, Notes will start displaying my diary from 2AM. Outlook shows business hours and then a little arrow to say something else is off the screen. Small things which could easily be changed in Notes to make it even more user friendly.

    Pete

  1. 28  MarvinK  | 4/16/2009 12:03:01 AM

    Err... sorry. 2009 for Notes/Domino 8.5!

    I'm surprised nobody has taken the time to at least add mobile css for Ed Brill or Notes Design Blog. The 'free' version of Sharepoint has built-in mobile options for templates.

    Don't get me wrong--discussion and blog templates are a step in the right direction. They just aren't worthy of the 'Microsoft Playing Catch Up' mudslinging happening here.

  1. 29  MarvinK  | 4/16/2009 12:22:05 AM

    @27 - The NotesDesignBlog.com is the blog template with very minor customization (PSC, PlanetLotus & IdeaJam sections are only noticeable differences). The blog template looks great on a computer, and is navigatable and readable on mobile devices if you dont mind zooming in & out. The discussion template looks nice, too.. but doesn't have as many features people might expect out of a web discussion (forum?).

  1. 30  Frank  | 4/16/2009 1:50:12 AM

    Ed,

    What is the status of the Domino Active Sync support for mobile devices? Is a roadmap/planning already available?

    Frank.

  1. 31  Miguel Calvo http://www.zarazaga.net | 4/16/2009 2:24:52 AM

    @19 Dealing with templates is a lost fight. UI is the most important problem Lotus Notes has had for ages, now solved in part with Standard release but yet to be improved.

    Discussion template has been improved, but it's been long obsolete as any other Domino template. A lot of work is being done form IBM in order to polish the old interfaces... but more should be done.

    It was discussed, in the community, that with new Domino releases new templates could ship and that's something that could improve Domino visibility and utility.

  1. 32  Henning Heinz  | 4/16/2009 6:14:11 AM

    @23 I have a very good mind of what Steve Mills said or at least has been quoted to have said(like for example this in 2002, ZDNet).

    "Mills: After this year's R6 deliverable, the next version will be a WebSphere-based version. Notes is 80 percent middleware today. It already has some WebSphere and pieces of DB2 embedded in it today. But it's fundamentally built on the Notes file system, which is a late '80s design point."

    Tech Update: So you're replacing the whole underlying data store?

    "Mills: Throwing out the whole infrastructure and revamping the data storage. We have flexible schema-mapping capability in DB2 today, so we can map the Notes file systems and we can map XML natively. You can use alternative syntax like XML to actually access the data that sits in DB2 today. So that capability in DB2 now is allowing us to pull out the old Notes file structure and insert the DB2 infrastructure."

    I have some more of this :-)

  1. 33  Ed Brill http://www.edbrill.com | 4/16/2009 7:19:18 AM

    Ferris has a decent blog entry about one technical improvement in Exchange 2010: redundant data. Hmm, a Ray Ozzie influence?

    { Link }

    At any rate, the whole bit about being able to use cheaper disk sounds quite odd to me. Even with all the Exchange research I've done over the years, this particular point has never struck me as a key element of the expense.

    Like I said, it sounds like a catch-up release in many respects. I think they really overpromised when they were hiring to build this release back in 2007, { Link } and one of the sections of their recruiting was entitled "change the world".

  1. 34  Ed Brill http://www.edbrill.com | 4/16/2009 7:21:04 AM

    @27

    "Also, Notes still doesn't default on my calendar for business hours. If I get an appointment for say 4AM, Notes will start displaying my diary from 2AM. Outlook shows business hours and then a little arrow to say something else is off the screen. Small things which could easily be changed in Notes to make it even more user friendly."

    Huh? You're saying that a view that automatically adjusts to show you early appointments without scrolling is a bad thing? That feature saves me almost every day.

  1. 35  Nathan T. Freeman http://nathan.lotus911.com | 4/16/2009 7:25:34 AM

    @32 - Always cite your sources: { Link }

    Fortunately, we are through the Dark Times(c) and the Lotus division has been frenetically proving itself with kick-ass products for several years now. Mills and Zollar were a dangerous combination for Yellow, but it's a bit like harping on stuff that Gil Amelio said about Apple. The bad decisions have been reversed.

  1. 36  Kevin Mort http://www.theglobalmind.com | 4/16/2009 7:51:44 AM

    @5 - We migrated to Outlook/Exchange at my past employer. I decided to learn as much as I could and use it to position against Outlook. ; )

    At least in terms of Outlook 2003, search was OK, and no you didn't need to pull things back to the inbox as I recall, but the search wasn't FT indexed IIRC, so Notes is much better there.

    Outlook also likes to disconnect from itself, i.e. the cal service just goes away and you can't do anything.

    Honestly I've had periodic issues in both clients and I still prefer what I can do in Notes over Outlook any day.

  1. 37  Henning Heinz  | 4/16/2009 8:07:40 AM

    Nathan, this is from my private collection (stored in a Notes database). I don't always check if the source is still alive. But I mentioned source(ZDNet) and Year(2002) and the quote is valid. True, times are much better now. I can now even smile about it although I think to remember that my reaction in 2002 was a different one.

    For the topic. Exchange 10 is just a mail server with integrated calendaring. I do not know what innovation someone expects out of mail and calendaring nowadays but I think the new features are good for Exchange customers and the upgrade path is at least better than in the past. You can always argue if the value for the money is good enough.

    Now if IBM would come with a clear strategy what is going to happen with the Lotus portfolio you would have a potential winner.

  1. 38  Mike Robinson http://www.invcs.com | 4/16/2009 9:21:28 AM

    Couple of things that would help the web experience:

    Signature support to be embedded in the mail so I can use it on the web.

    Better drag and drop functionality, i.e., drag between folders.

    I do like the 8.5 experience it's pretty darn good, those things above would make it better and I'm sure there would be help desks all around the world that would be very happy.

  1. 39  JFranchetti  | 4/16/2009 10:34:24 AM

    From my perspective:

    * The new archiving and retention\compliance features in this new Exchange look pretty impressive. Looks strong enough, and easy enough to use, that it could eliminate the need for many complicated and expensive third-party products and challenges.

    * The way they (graphically) did conversations seems a bit cleaner than the Notes 8 approach (even if it is a rip-off of that feature, which gmail has had for years). I like how they sell it as a way to reduce inbox clutter (you see less messages in your inbox because they are grouped together). Even though it is the same as the Notes feature, I think the "better" UI of it and the better selling of it will make it a popular feature.

  1. 40  Mike Robinson http://www.invcs.com | 4/16/2009 11:45:01 AM

    @15:

    "....replicate mailbox databases between servers... just like Domino!"

    That was comical, I nearly spilled my oatmeal. Dude, saying this new invention of mailbox replication is just like Domino is like saying a TRS-80 to a Cray. Both compute, just order of magnitude differently. I read the write on the link you provided. I love it when MS (and I mean this sincerely) takes a concept that's been in play elsewhere for years and makes it seem like a big deal. So let's see MS mailbox replication which is -7 months old, compared to Notes replication which is 20 years old. I won't even go into the fact that this new replication architecture can't be used for public folders.

    Boy, I *hope* the competitive analysis person/team in Lotus Software picks this apart like a rabid pirania.

    Also it's nice for MS to finally admit their hardware/os level based clustering SUCKS for geographic level failover and so had to come up with this replication technology. I won't even talk about the fact that Domino replicates regardless of the hardware and version of Domino, apparently this new replication technology requires all Exchange 2010.

    Good luck with that.

  1. 41  Flemming Riis  | 4/16/2009 11:49:42 AM

    -Boy, I *hope* the competitive analysis person/team in Lotus Software picks this apart like a rabid pirania.

    judging from all the skillfull jabs we see , the odds are that they dont install the product.

  1. 42  Darren http://www.dadams.co.uk | 4/16/2009 11:53:06 AM

    @39 - where have you seen screenshots of Outlook 2010 doing message conversations?

  1. 43  Ed Brill http://www.edbrill.com | 4/16/2009 12:26:48 PM

    @41 nobody would have really been able to do that analysis on our side with public beta having started yesterday...

  1. 44  Andre Da Costa http://adacosta.spaces.live.com | 4/16/2009 5:51:30 PM

    Isn't this just typical hatred against Microsoft? You folks at IBM realized you made a terrible investment in Lotus which has really becoming irrelevant over the years, but in someway it still manages to hang on? Look at the Lotus Smart Suite, you guys bought it and have you invested in improving Word Pro, 1-2-3, Freelance or Approach? I wouldn't compare Symphony to either Smart Suite or Microsoft Office 95. Just like Lotus Notes 8.5 which I am running on Vista 64 bit, its slow, awkward to use, hard to setup and "use". Adding my Gmail account to Notes was very difficult. You guys have failed on both the client (Notes) and Server (Domino). I think you should take the time out to go around the world and uninstall Lotus Notes on every single machine, repay the customers and promise to send the sales staff around the world again to do an installation of Exchange 2010 when it RTM's along with a complimentary copy of Office 2010 as a sincere apology.

    I am not a shill or Microsoft apologist, I am just stating the facts here. Lotus Notes is crappy and everybody agrees, its not a well thought out UI, its awkward, people use it because well, its just there, might as well. But I am sure if many had the additional resources which they had already wasted on Notes and had the choice, Notes would be uninstalled and replaced in 0.1 seconds by Outlook or Outlook Web Access.

    Don't show many negativity and delete my comment.

  1. 45  Ed Brill http://www.edbrill.com | 4/16/2009 6:06:02 PM

    I have no reason to delete a comment like that, it speaks for itself.

  1. 46  Alan Lepofsky http://www.alanlepofsky.net | 4/16/2009 6:30:44 PM

    @44 @45 they may be the best comment/response ever.

  1. 47  Duffbert http://www.duffbert.com | 4/16/2009 6:52:21 PM

    @44... wow, I'm speechless. Even given I'm trying to be more even in my views of MS and IBM, your comment is so far over the top...

  1. 48  Darren http://www.dadams.co.uk | 4/16/2009 6:57:15 PM

    @44 - I really enjoyed your comment, especially liked how you bought SmartSuite into the argument... a point so irrelevant you might as well have mentioned the Romans invading Britain or the dietary habits of hamsters.

    If Notes is crappy and everybody agrees, how do you account for the massive increase in customers going back on active maintenance since Notes 8's release? Clearly not everyone agrees with you, so rather a sweeping unsubstantiated statement. I see customers every day of the week who run their businesses on Notes, they don't see it as irrelevant.

    "I am not a shill or Microsoft apologist" - but you have to admit your blog is a teeny-bit Microsoft-centric. But if you enjoy working with Microsoft technology, I'm sure we're all very happy for you. It's just that you don't get how important Notes is to many businesses.

  1. 49  David Bell  | 4/16/2009 7:00:49 PM

    @26 (MarvinK) - the original poster did not mention BlackBerry.

    He said:

    "Domino is a great email backend, so if the user interface via a web browser was fantastic and supported (and provided the same experience) with a range of browsers (and other devices like iPhone) then I believe organisations would feel it's less of a risk to migrate from Outlook to Domino."

    and

    "IBM currently has some really great looking web apps like Connections and Quickr, so how card would it be to translate that to Domino??"

    My point was that the blog and wiki templates are examples of apps that are browser accessible, have great looking UI's from a browser, and have already been translated to Domino. So why does he need to ask "so how card would it be to translate that to Domino??" ?

  1. 50  Rishi  | 4/16/2009 8:47:07 PM

    @44, In your link it's mentioned following features in MS ,

    * Built-in e-mail archive - Available in Notes

    * View Emails in Conversation thread - Available in Notes

    * Tracks whether messages arrived with recipients -

    Available in Notes

    I see most of the things are taken from Notes.So why you are talking so arrogant dude ? Correct me If I am wrong , MS has stolen most of the windows components idea like, notedpad,control panel etc from Apple Lisa. Later MS exchange influenced from Lotus and stolen most of the concepts.Now tell us who sucks , MS or IBM ???

  1. 51  MarvinK  | 4/16/2009 9:38:01 PM

    @49 I don't think there is an official Lotus Domino wiki template (but there should be). I don't disagree that the blog template has a nice look on a computer, but I'd like to see a 2009 release include built-in mobile support. The discussion forum looks nice too, but is really lacking in features. The wiki template might be planned for Notes 9 or something... in the meantime, you can always use one from OpenNTF's site (or buy Quickr).

    I'm guessing Ed doesn't look at his blog from his BlackBerry very often (or maybe just uses a feed reader), otherwise it would have a mobile css. It works from an iPhone or BlackBerry, it just isn't optimized for it.

  1. 52  Ed Brill http://www.edbrill.com | 4/16/2009 9:53:54 PM

    @51 I read my blog on the blackberry all the time. It works great. I don't see a need for a mobile-optimized CSS for it.

    The wiki template mentioned is the one that IBM contributed to OpenNTF in January: { Link }

  1. 53  Darren http://www.dadams.co.uk | 4/17/2009 2:11:08 AM

    @44 - I'll leave Notes versus Outlook aside for a moment because that's a religious war. How can you say IBM Lotus have failed with Domino. Microsoft Exchange can only aspire to some of Domino's positive points - it's scalability, it's security, the way that you can upgrade (and skip versions) without re-engineering the architecture, the fact that it constantly adds new capabilities despite the consistent architecture, it's multi-platform support, it's clustering.

    Then look at Exchange - I'm not going to pretend to be an expert, I admit I'm not. But as an observer I read things about the storage group architecture - in between 2000 and 2003 the advice was to change the storage group architecture. Now in 2010 it's gone and it's replaced by database groups. If Exchange is so great, why are these things constantly changed?

  1. 54  Enrico  | 4/17/2009 3:29:58 AM

    Ed, are you paid for negative influence or for your expertise? Still wondering why you've switched from a customer centric work to a vendor fight.

  1. 55  Darren http://www.dadams.co.uk | 4/17/2009 4:48:14 AM

    @54 - get real. Ed isn't being negative for the sake of it. His blog entry gave his assessment of a competitor's product. You might not agree with it (I'm guessing you don't), but it's Ed's assessment and you could look at it in the context of how much has been added to a comparative product (i.e. Domino) over the past few releases. He's saying that he's unimpressed by what's included in this upcoming release. That opinion is open for debate, so what's your problem?

  1. 56  Charles Robinson http://www.cubert.net | 4/17/2009 9:40:33 AM

    @Darren - I am getting tired of your beating this dead horse about searching in Outlook. Take a look at this: { Link } . Notice the column that says "In Folder". Can you please move on now?

  1. 57  Paul Robichaux http://www.robichaux.net/blog | 4/17/2009 10:21:17 AM

    @25 for a quick Forrester perspective on Exchange 2010's services integration, see { Link } I was going to blog about *how* you integrate, and I still will, but it may take me a few more days. (hint: role-based access control is a major, and as yet unmentioned, part of this.)

    @53 times change, and so do hardware/software. In that light, the move from a consolidated set of logs for multiple databases to a dedicated log set for each database makes perfect sense when you set it against what's happening in storage and backup.

  1. 58  Darren http://www.dadams.co.uk | 4/17/2009 10:54:48 AM

    @56 - Charles, I was telling you what a former Outlook user told me. I have already admitted that I'm not an Outlook user. So if he was wrong and was doing stuff he didn't need to, that's not my fault... but thanks for putting the record straight. As for beating the dead horse, I don't believe I've raised it before. Active-active clustering, yes, but not Outlook searching.

  1. 59  David Bell  | 4/17/2009 11:40:47 AM

    @26 - "and one of the features our users are going to be most excited about is the realtime spell checking... something Microsoft Word had over a decade ago."

    In the corporate / business world, where do you put spell checking as a priority ? Seriously, how high on the totem pole should something like that be ? (making the assumption that you can't have everything).

    Requirements and priorities are constantly changing and being re-evaluated.

    IBM is probably guilty of putting higher priority on scalability, availability and security. But tell me, would your CEO/CIO prefer:

    a) a messaging service that is robust, highly available and delivers / stores its payload securely ?

    or

    b) a messaging service that makes sure hackers do not laugh at how poorly you spell ?

    I have said it before, the priorities are somewhat a function of a business-oriented mentality versus a consumer-oriented one.

  1. 60  Chris Doig http://chrisdoig.net | 4/17/2009 1:18:38 PM

    @56 - Charles, I have been complaining about Outlook's meager search tools for ages. After seeing the "Advanced Search" in your screenshot and about 10 minutes of digging through the toolbars I eventually found it. (This isn't what you would call a well designed part of the UI). Until finding this tool my though about finding anything more than a month old in my Outlook mailbox was "Good Luck".

    After using Outlook for 2 years in a new job, I still prefer the Notes email client because it worked better for me. And that excludes all the R8.5 extras. To me Microsoft products are very document centric; whereas in the Notes world the emphasis is very much more on the work flow. To sum it up, while both mail tools work well, Outlook is just more work to use than Notes.

    PS - It's rather ironic that I find out how to use Outlook by reading a Notes blog...

  1. 61  Charles Robinson http://www.cubert.net | 4/20/2009 4:15:41 PM

    @60 - Glad I could help. :-) And I agree completely. Outlook's features are anemic overall, and I find it really confusing to navigate.

  1. 62  Kevin Mort http://www.theglobalmind.com | 4/20/2009 8:40:33 PM

    @61 - Although funny I had a more Outlook centric person tell me that the way Notes deals with "shared folders" indicates that Outlook is better for "group collaboration" than Notes.

    Difference of perspectives I suppose, but cracked me up at the time.

  1. 63  Philippe Schlier http://www.avonik.com | 4/21/2009 3:55:28 AM

    @All - these useless Exchange vs Lotus Notes discussions are lasting for years; Why not, once for all, considering facts and admiting that both products have advantages and drawbacks?

    Exchange is a mail system only, comparing it with Notes (an application server) is a nonsense. Only the mail part of Notes/Domino can be compared to Exchange. For simple web mail usage, despite my passion for Notes, I have to be realistic and admit that the Exchange client is superior for many reasons that not only have to do with technical matters. One of them is that the Notes client's GUI must be re-designed to make it more user friendly. Pro-exchange people are right here.

    For power email users, the Notes client is superior.

    Every serious and impartial technical person will also agree that the Domino server is more scalable and reliable for Email.

    But, again, this is only about Email and Domino does much more than just Email.

    So, let's get out of the basic hate-love reactions and face the truth: N&D should be improved with regards to several basic features and people that do not like the Notes interface are not only MS fanatics. There are some parts of Notes that suck for years and have to be improved, no shame here, it just has to be done.

    What worries me much more is the way IBM adresses such real issues. Denying the continuous and constant efforts of MS to improve Exchange doesn't help. Exchange 2010 is announced and demonstrates MS's commitments with regards to this product. The feature list is significant, if compared to the enhancements done on the Email part of Notes/Domino and the MS' strategy is crystal clear.

    As a conclusion, let's compare what can be compared without hiding the positive points of competion's products. As a software designer (FYI - I'm the former designer of the GSX Monitor product), I proposed both IBM, RIM and MS to work with their design teams in order to improve their software and strategy. Let's see what comes out of this, Ed you're in copy I guess.

    Also, I'm publishing a series of articles on DominoPower about Notes 8.5 and more important, on compared strategies between IBM and Microsoft. Links are on my new blog:

    { Link }

  1. 64  Pete Wilson  | 4/21/2009 6:15:09 AM

    @ 63. Agreed. I thought it interesting the number of unified messaging features Exchange is building into the core product. You can see that even if Microsoft never merge OCS back into Exchange, it will be a nice story. Also an interesting competitor to Cisco Call manager too.

    An honest Q, will Sametime Next include what might be traditionally call manager features, or will IBM continue to leave it with Cisco etc. ?

    Pete

  1. 65  Darren http://www.dadams.co.uk | 4/21/2009 4:40:03 PM

    @64 - probably a question best asked on the Sametime blog. But here's my 2 cents worth... it's extremely rare to walk into a customer and find that they just have one telephony solution from one vendor. So it's important that IBM's strategy embraces and integrates with the telephony vendors, the established experts and leaders. Those guys create integration points for their own solutions to work with Sametime, and Sametime Unified Telephony will address the heterogeneous infrastructures and carry the message that we'll integrate with existing investments.

    A key point for users is that they should be able to work with unified comms and not have to worry about who's on what system... it should be transparent and offer consistent capabilities.

  1. 66  David Bell  | 4/22/2009 12:06:47 AM

    @64 - for customers who have standardized on a single telephony vendor, it may make most sense to use that vendor's specific integration and capability for VOIP and unified telephony in products like Sametime / Notes.

    For customers who do not, Sametime Unified Telephony (as the name implies) abstracts the underlying telephony infrastructure to provide a common set of unified communications services accessible via products like Sametime / Notes clients.

    So, customers have choice depending on their environment and requirements.

  1. 67  David Bell  | 4/22/2009 12:09:48 AM

    @66 - to be clear the second paragraph should really start "For customers who do not have a single telephony vendor,...".