mail client hatred stats

November 28 2005

Ben Poole, blogging about my recent Mac experiences, prompted me to take a look at a couple of Google strings.

  • "I hate Notes" -- 277 google hits, including some that are clearly off-topic
  • "I hate Outlook" -- 1480 google hits, most of them squarely on-target.

Ed Brill Highland Park, IL USA Category: Add/View Comments [34]

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  1. 1  Rob http://www.snapps.com | 11/28/2005 11:21:11 AM

    Let's not forget the server, Ed! "I hate Exchange" returns 764 hits, and "I hate Domino" 277. However, if you take out the references to pizza...only 43!

    Now, nominally adjusted for conservative market share, this means vocal email users are 1700% more satisfied with Domino. See, you can do anything with numbers. <g>

  1. 2  Alexander Kluge http://www.kluge.de | 11/28/2005 11:32:13 AM

    In one of my last googlefights Workplace wins over Sharepoint :-)

    { Link }

    But better don´t try to googlefight "I hate Workplace" versus "I hate Sharepoint"...

  1. 3  Charles Robinson  | 11/28/2005 12:45:01 PM

    The first thing to consider is that a lot of hapless users get Outlook foisted upon them at home when they install Microsoft Office. When the install asks if they want to use Outlook for e-mail they follow their "Click OK until all the boxes go away" brainwashing. Based on that I would guesstimate that Outlook has at least double the overall number of users of Notes.

    I would also argue that since virtually all Notes users are corporate they feel resigned to the fate and don't bother complaining about it on the web. I fall into that camp myself.

    And finally, I have never used Outlook so I don't know if I'm a fan or not. I am hesitant to use it based solely on the security implications, not because of any functionality issues.

  1. 4  Peter de Haas http://www.peterdehaas.com | 11/28/2005 1:58:06 PM

    There must be a direct relation to marketshare / number of users is my plain and simple conclusion :-)

  1. 5  Stanislav Vinogradov  | 11/28/2005 2:47:36 PM

    Dear Ed!I'm work with Lotus Notes and like it!But "I hate Lotus Notes" in google give me 911 000 hits :(

  1. 6  Ed Brill www.edbrill.com | 11/28/2005 2:53:27 PM

    I put the search string in quotes, then it still is only about 200 hits.

  1. 7  Darren http://www.dadams.co.uk | 11/28/2005 3:03:23 PM

    Of course, it doesn't... but this is the prime site for Notes hate rantings... { Link }

    The problem is, all respect for the guy who wrote it goes out the window because he ends very point with the witless statement "Conclusion: Lotus Notes sucks". Many of the points are fixed, many of them just demonstrate that he doesn't understand how Notes works. Some are good points, but the nature of the web site doesn't portray these points as constructive.

    Notes isn't perfect, but it's very good at the things that are important to me, and that's what counts.

    @4 - Peter, I think I see what you're getting at. Since Domino Access for Microsoft Outlook was introduced, I've had the opportunity to hate Outlook as well. Interesting that there's more "I hate Exchange" than "I hate Domino"... presumably that's because the world needs more Exchange administrators (and that's nothing to do with market share if you catch my drift).

  1. 8  Anthony Pope  | 11/28/2005 3:43:06 PM

    Hey everyone why so negative?

    Try:

    "I Love Lotus Notes" -> google hits = 1460

    "I Love Microsoft Exchange" -> google Hits = 3

    Who Loves ya Baby?!

    ;-)

  1. 9  Anthony Pope  | 11/28/2005 3:44:54 PM

    Oops should have added:

    "I Love Microsoft Outlook" -> Google Hits = 91

  1. 10  George Papayiannis http://www.sematopia.com | 11/28/2005 4:02:33 PM

    I guess no one cares for Thunderbird.. its not bad

    "I hate thunderbird" - 94 hits

  1. 11  Wild Bill http://www.billbuchan.com | 11/28/2005 4:34:47 PM

    @4 - Peter. We've been through this before.

    Even if you do take the view that "outlook" has more clients than Notes (and not shelfware, or outlook express- the unreliable horribly-cripped freeware that goes with windows), there are still fundamental problems (bugtraq, remember) with outlook 2003 - the latest, greatest, (and yet still oddly-non-standard UI) version of Outlook. I suspect that there are about equal number of corporate mail users using either product.

    This doesnt of course count those high-profile mega-microsoft account "switch" sites, where of course they run outlook+exchange for eMail, but have retained Lotus Notes for applications. Because of course the Microsoft collaboration platform just isnt rich enough to port Notes apps too (with the same level of performance, security, etc).

    I can think of at least one if not two of the top five banks in the UK as examples of this.

    (And lets not forget those "assimileees" (isnt that a great word?) Great Plains folks, nor the Groove folks, who still have notes servers.)

    So roughly equal numbers of users, eh ?

    Now. Given that Notes does far far more than Outlook - its an application platform, not just an eMail and PIM tool - then of course we could have far more *reasons* to dislike notes. That would help drive up the notes figures.

    Of course, we cant figure out how many of the "I hate notes" figures actually are complaining about the eMail+PIM functionality. Lets for the sake of ease-of-numbers, not try and factor DOWN the Lotus notes count.

    So there you have it. Not only do more people hate outlook than notes (and I can imagine that the 2,000 odd MS bloggers will be instructed to say otherwise tomorrow), they hate a far less capable program far more intensely than they do an application plaform.

    Things arent looking good for the "worlds favourite eMail" program, are they Peter ?

    More hits on Bugtraq, more "hate" hits on google. Then we have the E12 feature strip ("Roll up! Roll up! New Version! Less Features!), and the long long wait for any new version (or even service pack) to stop the thing disseminating viruses or crashing our computers.

    Ouch.

    So Peter - whilst your in Redmond, feel free to stop by whomever is running the Exchange server project at the moment and mention that his teams lack of delivery is causing you MS guys in the field some real pain. Ask him where Kodiak went.

    Still, at least your not on the "unplug exchange 5.5" tour, talking to the Dinosaurs...

    ---* Bill

  1. 12  Darren http://www.dadams.co.uk | 11/28/2005 5:02:10 PM

    @11 - Bill, we've never met, but when we do I'm fairly sure I'm going to buy you a beer. Are you going to Lotusphere 2006?

    I can't remember who made the point in a previous post, but let's enjoy it again... in the 6 years from Exchange 2000 to Exchange 12 (which is still a year away) Microsoft have delivered less value than Domino has in the upgrade from 6 to 7.

  1. 13  Richard Schwartz http://www.rhs.com/poweroftheschwartz | 11/28/2005 6:45:53 PM

    "I hate Ed Brill" = 0

    "I hate Bill Gates" = 747

    "I hate IBM" = 441

    "I have Microsoft" = 51,600

    -rich

  1. 14  MarvinK  | 11/28/2005 7:07:49 PM

    @5 If you search for the Microsoft equivalent (no quotes), you still get about 50% more results for Outlook. Of course, it could just mean that Outlook users are more vocal or Internet savvy.

    I think most people don't hate Lotus Notes--they just think its clunky, ugly and awkward. I don't care for the Lotus Notes user interface--but I don't hate Notes. In any case, hopefully more users *love* Lotus Notes when Hannover is out (and maybe for Mac and Linux, too!).

  1. 15  DELETED  | 11/29/2005 4:59:17 AM

    Comment deleted -- No anonymous comments allowed.

  1. 16  Axel Janssen  | 11/29/2005 5:19:19 AM

    I like history. :-)

    Its so 90ties. Some guys with blue flag, others with yellow flag. And we with yellow flag do have wonderfull system and those with blue flag are criminals.

    In reality those monolytic systems had their strong points as they had their never really resolved weak points.

    This industry goes for s.th. better, me thinks. More like components and openness and its good that way.

  1. 17  Steve Castledine http://www.dominoblog.com | 11/29/2005 5:24:43 AM

    @15 - but what does that say?

    They didnt invest any time or effort in using the systems they had. It took them ten years to get someone in and the only advice given is get rid? Whos at fault the software or the company using the software?

    Do they still use a word processor from ten years ago? If they did they would also say ugly etc.

    Most of the time I couldn't give two hoots what software people use (although I am a long time evangelist of Domino because I belive in what it can do with the right people), as long as it does the job and is easy to use.

    I have to wonder about the quality of the people that put software in place and maintain them within companies more than the software itself.

    By the way - complete replacement by Exchange will not work - it only does mail.

  1. 18  Ben Rose http://www.jaffacake.net | 11/29/2005 6:48:44 AM

    @15 - I had a response prepared you but then I realised your post was anonymous.

    When you have the maturity and professionalism to stand by your own comments, then you may get some decent responses.

  1. 19  Charles Robinson  | 11/29/2005 8:02:16 AM

    I posed the following questions to my 250 users:

    Do you like using Lotus Notes? (98% said No)

    What do you like most about Notes? (only 5% answered and there was an Other option)

    What do you like least about Notes? (80% said they could not easily find the feature they wanted to use)

    If you had an option what e-mail application would you prefer to use? (80% selected Outlook, the list included Outlook Express, Notes, AOL Mail, Outlook, and Yahoo Mail)

    We started with Notes R5 in 1999 and are now on 6.5.4 with a planned upgrade to R7. After using Notes for 6 years and going through training sessions every 6 months my users are still struggling to conform. I suppose all 250 could be total idiots, or it could be that the Notes e-mail UI simply does not work for my users.

    In my opinion Domino is the best platform for workflow and collaborative applications. I would argue it is marginal for the e-mail functionality end users want. They don't care about all the technical details, they just want it to do things that any leading collaboration solution worthy of the title should have out of the box. Like scheduled message delivery, shared departmental calendars, and error messages that do not require an IT person to decipher.

    We will likely continue using Domino for workflow applications but we are questioning the wisdom of the one-plaform-for-everything approach and looking at other options for e-mail that offer the functionality we need. Notes and Domino is not a good fit for us in that regard. (By the way, Exchange is not being considered.)

    And now the bludgeoning may commence. :-)

  1. 20  Darren http://www.dadams.co.uk | 11/29/2005 8:28:43 AM

    @19 - if you do the maths, only 245 are idiots (98% of 250). I'd be interested to know why 80% expressed a preference for Outlook - was it based on experience of the product, or simply it because it looks nice, their friend said it was good, or because they use it at home and it suffices for their home needs (which often differ enormously for work needs)?

    Ask them some more questions... do you ever include tables or sections in e-mails? Do you ever delegate calendar appointments? Do you selectively use Reply, Reply with History, or Reply without Attachments? If they do, then if they were to switch to Outlook those capabilities would be missing... and then they might see that Notes wasn't so bad after all.

  1. 21  Ben Rose http://www.jaffacake.net | 11/29/2005 8:47:18 AM

    @20 - Darren, 3 different reply options is nice but just serves to confuse users more in what is already a complicated UI.

    Prime example - We recently deployed landesk and out first level support team can take control of any desktop machine in the company. They use this to help users change their Notes password as it's significantly easier than talking them through it.

    In email, we have an action buttons and an action menu, we have a tools button and a tools section in the navigator.

    Moving a folder to some areas is drag and drop but to the root area requires Actions...Folder Options...Move...Select...OK...5 click!

    Do I love Notes - Yes! Do I miss 1st level support? No chance!

  1. 22  Darren http://www.dadams.co.uk | 11/29/2005 9:00:20 AM

    @21 - hi Ben ;o) re. the 3 different reply options, I think you'd find opinion divided. An established Notes user would miss the options - Outlook's lack of flexibility where you have to choose a reply / forward behaviour would be too limiting. I use all 3 options on a daily basis and I bet many other people do. Outlook users will be used to working with the lack of options, but may well welcome having them.

  1. 23  Ben Rose http://www.jaffacake.net | 11/29/2005 9:11:47 AM

    @22 - I think you missed my point somewhere along the line. It's the very flexibility that Notes offers that gets in the way in a lot of cases and makes Outlook more usuable.

    Inserting sections, tables etc. may be nice but only when core functionality like changing a password has been simplified.

    I too use most of the reply options, although OpenNTF mail allows me to choose my preferred default, but we did remove one of the reply options for ALL users...nobody should need to reply WITH attachments...saves a load of disk space.

    And I won't even mention the right click options in Notes 7!

  1. 24  MarvinK  | 11/29/2005 9:29:47 AM

    @19 Do you seriously want to even bring up tables in defense of Lotus Notes? It has surely been improved in 6.x, but still....

  1. 25  MarvinK  | 11/29/2005 9:36:23 AM

    One thing I really hope we see improved in 7.5 or 8 is the address book in Lotus Notes. This is something that I think is DRAMATICALLY better in Outlook. Our users would rather just replace the whole thing with the Palm software's address book or something similar. At least with Outlook you have choices for printing, lots more viewing options... heck, I'd say the basic Windows Address Book (ie: Outlook Express) is at least better laid out that Notes Personal Address Book. It is one of the big complaints we get from users about Notes.

    And while I'm on the subject of address books, does anyone know why there isn't an option in location documents to pick "Server then Local" for type-ahead!? I'm not saying it should be the default... just an option.

  1. 26  MarvinK  | 11/29/2005 9:41:37 AM

    I've seen similar attitudes by our employees... not big fans of the interface for Lotus Notes. I don't think people hate Lotus NOtes--some just think it sucks.

    Outlook wins the "hate" war... Notes wins the "sucks" war. At least according to Google.

  1. 27  Darren http://www.dadams.co.uk | 11/29/2005 10:12:45 AM

    @23 - it is useful to reply with attachments if you edit an attachment in place and send back the revised version. However, the fact that it's there does bring out some bad habits - I've lost count of the times that I've sent a presentation to someone and they've sent the whole 10 mb back to me with the word "thanks" added. But to come back to the point, I don't think Outlook's lack of choice makes it more usuable if you need to veer away from it's default behaviour. Perhaps it's a personal thing.

    @24 - yes... if you want to create an e-mail with a table then Notes can do that, so it's a plus point. Microsoft's answer (and we've seen them say it) is 'use Word as the e-mail editor'. Errr, no thanks.

    @25 - improving the contact management is a goal of Hannover.

  1. 28  Charles Robinson  | 11/29/2005 11:00:53 AM

    Nope, they don't use any of the "advanced" features. In fact, I was nearly flayed alive when R6 came out with the multiple reply options. I whittled it down to two: Reply and Reply with Attachments. Both include the full message history because that is what they do all the time anyway, and they can delete whatever they don't want.

    I've done dozens of training sessions on using Notes RichText and the consensus is that it's just easier to use Word. The Notes dialogs are way too confusing and it's much too technical for them to deal with. The biggest obstacle for them is resizing columns because you have to open a rather jumbled dialog to do it. In Word they can just click and drag.

    Their preference for Outlook is mostly from personal experience at other companies and at home. They find the UI much more intuitive.

  1. 29  Richard Schwartz http://www.rhs.com/poweroftheschwartz | 11/29/2005 11:03:20 AM

    @19 & 20: My theory about the 80%... if you removed the name Microsoft from Outlook... if you surgically removed the association of Outlook with Microsoft from users' brains... if Outlook had to stand on it's own instead of basking in the glow of office and benefitting from the association with the most recognizable name in the software industry... that 80% figure would plummet. Of course, it's easy to make theories like that when they're completely untestable.

    Now, in all fairness...

    "I love Bill Gates" = 683

    "I love Ed Brill" = 1

    Sorry, Ed. :-)

    Back to serious stuff...

    Notes mail is too confusing? Yeah, I hear that too. We all do, I'm sure. Still, my wife and kids can use it. They get confused for about ten minutes whenever I do a major upgrade, but they figure it out. Sometimes I have to help. I wonder... do the engineeers and usability folks at IBM try out new features on their husbands, wives and kids? I'll bet it would be enlightening.

    Sometimes I do wish that every feature of the mail interface could be switched on or off (or moved to an "advanced features" popup toolbar) via a profile doc that can be centrally administered, but what would happen if IBM did that? There would be complaints that Notes is too hard to configure for users and that it is too inconsistent! You all know that's true.

    There are loads of inherent trade-offs in UI design, between functionality and ease-of-use, between customizability and consistency, between providing just one way to do each operation or providing ways that different users are comfortable with... For some reason, whenever we have these discussions the majority of people tend to feel that Microsoft makes all the right trade-offs and IBM makes the wrong ones, but objectively this can't possibly be true because in most of these trade-offs there is no "right" or "wrong". If there was only one right way of doing things, there would only be one mail client. Sure, there are things Notes could do better and there are ways that Notes could be easier to use -- even without sacrificing functionality, but that's true of every mail client out there, including Outlook.

    -rich

  1. 30  Ed Brill www.edbrill.com | 11/29/2005 11:07:55 AM

    @29 - momentary panic, who has written "I love Ed Brill"? My girlfriend doesn't have a website... looks like instead it was a shout-out from Heini S. a few years back. <phew>

    As for the rest of Rich's comments, I think he's spot on. When Lotus did usability testing for Notes 6 vs. Outlook, the score was about even. There were definitely things easier to do in Outlook -- but also things (like finding the inbox!) easier to do in Notes.

  1. 31  Peter de Haas http://www.peterdehaas.com | 11/29/2005 4:51:18 PM

    @11

    Bill, as always you read far to much in my comments and always hyjack them to make a different point ;-)

    good for you

  1. 32  Henning Heinz  | 11/30/2005 4:07:41 AM

    I think the PIM part is very very poor and the html rendering alone is a point where I feel ashamed. I am waiting for the Hannover release although I am little afraid that it will become a resource hog.

  1. 33  Bill Brown  | 11/30/2005 12:59:19 PM

    @29 "do the engineeers and usability folks at IBM try out new features on their husbands, wives and kids? I'll bet it would be enlightening."

    They shoud try getting their 70+ year old parents/grandparents to use it. If that works, ship it! We know today's generation of kids can do it!

  1. 34  Gil Batzri  | 11/27/2006 6:47:51 PM

    New here, so I don't have the total flavor of the site...

    We are in the process of rolling out Notes for a 25-35,000 person enterprise with sites worldwide.

    My observations on Notes so far (I have been using the Notes 7 client on PC since May).

    Negatives:

    The footprint is A LOT larger then our current groupware (Novell Groupwise).

    The program is MUCH more complicated and difficult to use then any other email solution I have seen (email/and scheduling are the primary uses at this point)

    The UI is not intuitive, nor is it designed well. It violates UI principles on whatever platform it runs on (Mac,PC or Mobile).

    The errors are incomprehensible to end users.

    The security functionality is more difficult then server-side authentication.

    Positives:

    Built in IM client. very nice

    Security is much stronger.

    There is an actual client that runs native on the Mac.

    UI is the same cross platform.

    Serverside seems very strong, it has not been down since May.

    Kind of a push, but the UI/client abstruseness (is that a word?) as well as the non-intuitive "Notes way" of doing things for me make this process much harder then it needs to be.

    Hire some UI engineers!