Saw this article being quoted on several blogs. Although I can imagine IBM is going after Microsoft’s Exchange 5.5 clients, I can hardly believe some of the claims Mr. Chana is making in this article.
The article seems to be more a snapshot of different quotes and claims than anything else. Although you’d expect many improvements in the new Lotus Notes version, I do think the claim of many migrations from MS Exchange to the Lotus Notes platform is more or less wishfull thinking. …
… More users are migrating from Microsoft Exchange to the new version of Lotus Notes and Domino 7 with its new collaboration features and tools that help improve productivity for IT administrators and application developers…
Who are these users, why are they migrating ? What imporvement does LN 7.0 bring over the Microsoft platform or Exchange 2003 if the focus is email and calendar ?
… The new upgrade has the competitive advantage because it supports Linux, Windows and Unix, said Surjit Chana, IBM vice president for marketing, partners and workplace client technology…
So the compelling reason for many organsiations is the fact that LN is multiplatform. A very recent IDC study (June 2005) shows what the preferred platform for ICE (Integrated Collaborative Environments) is; Windows’ marketshare 83,9% ….
Read the whole article at source
Perhaps its because people want geo-located disaster recovery sites with true active/active clustering.
Or perhaps more reliability than the Access-based Jet engine database can provide. They DONT want to wait a whole week to get over a database corruption error.
Or perhaps they want to invest in a platform that isnt diminishing in features, and likely to be ripped+replaced.
Or perhaps they DONT want to spend 2k dollars on a platform for an application server, and want to realise the cost-savings and reliabilty benefits Linux on exactly the same hardware provides as windows server.
Or perhaps they want proper full-text indexing, mobile support, etc ?
We’ve been over all these points before.
Or worse – they see Microsoft Exchange’s feature set freezing (The E12 “roadmap” document) – remaining as stagant as the Microsoft share price. MS has lost its Mojo – the Mini-Microsoft blog has shown that. (How many people have migrated to Exchange 2003 ? Is it still only 15% of the exchange user base ?)
Or dont want to be tied to the windows desktop – perhaps they want to go OS/x (Tiger) on Intel, or linux desktops.
And all of this BEFORE considering the significant application and instant messaging benefits that notes has.
(And I find it richly ironic that your complaining about lack of detail in this quoted article, whilst still quoting dubious sources such as the Radicati reports…)
Perhaps if Microsoft actually focused on the projects that it did have, instead of running after everthing “new” in the market, they might actuall achieve some customer satisfaction?
You did ask.
—* Bill
http://www.billbuchan.com
Bill,
Indeed he should have included many of the things you state here. Instead it’s multiplatform, collaboration capabilities in Notes 7, etc.
A lot of the things you are stating do not actually seem to influence the growth in marketshare for exchange that much. They do include things Microsoft needs to do a better job, but we’ve been to that subject many times already.
I think on the mobility side, especially with Service Pack released right now is pretty well covered. Have you seen the load of new Windows Mobile 5 devices coming in the next couple of months ? good stuff if you ask me.
As for the focus of Microsoft, nothing wrong there. Wave 12 (Office 12 and the new server products) is going to generate great momentum and demand. The Mojo as you call will be there trust me on that 😉
O by the way, what are the exciting Instant Messaging benefits of the Notes platform ?
Peter – why dont you concentrate on what Exchange and office does right now (very little) instead of trying to sell us what it “might do” in the future – after all, we know that there’s many a Microsoft product that starts off with an impressive feature list, which then gets slashed to nothing on release.
The MS portfolio right now is tired – after FIVE YEARS of little development. Saying “trust us – look what we’ve delivered so far – the new stuff will be even better!” is a hollow, empty promise. Why not start off with “We’d better deliver something that the users actually want to buy as opposed to something that we’ve forced them to buy. As competition is starting to emerge on our two main franchises..”
(I thought I’d make it easy for you to copy and paste this out and send in an eMail to Balmer. He’d appreciate it, honestly!)
Take Vista/Longhorn (WinFs and the confusion over whats happening there), Exchange (Kodiak – the new essential data store based on SQL that was canned and has never seen the light of day again), etc, etc.
So right now, as of Exchange 2003 Service pack 2, it offers important mobile device connectivity. Assuming that your mobile devices are Windows Mobile 5 devices. Windows Mobile 5 is soo new that its very unlikely anyone aside from early adopters will have them. That subsets an already small subset.
Well, out there in userland, the Exchange user is more likely to be running Exchange 5.5 (is it still 50% of the user base as it was reportedly at the start of the year? And no longer supported?), and using Blackberrys. Or Exchange 2000, and blackberrys.
The only way those exchange users will get to the feature set you describe is via a set of lengthy, non-reversable, painful expensive upgrades. Which is why userland installations tend to lag waaay behind releases. The users want to see other folks experience the pain of upgrade before actually committing their own mail systems to the fires of upgrade. Especially an MS “rip and replace” upgrade that doesnt allow the same version coexistence as Domino, for instance.
Which is why a 3 or 4 month maintenance release cycle means more Domino users are up-to-date, than the “once a year or so when we can be bothered service pack rollup” Exchange users.
This all lends weight to the argument that whilst Exchange might be billed as an important part of the MS Strategy, MS execs would far rather waste 12,000 man years (the vista reset – 4,000 developers x 3 years, right? Thats HALF of the developers in MS wasting THREE years worth of effort) than actually spend time and effort enhancing the Exchange platform. Indeed, the E12 roadmap shows a collapsing of features (active/active clustering for instance).
Back out there in the notes world, you might have heard of Sametime. IDC mentioned that it was the dominant corporate instant messaging and shared meeting platform out there. And has been for what – FIVE years ? So the domino users out there have a stable, well maintained and supported IM and instant /shared meeting solution, thats well integrated into the domino mail and calendar experience.
Its not Livemeeting, the son of “Netmeeting”. Netmeeting, as you recall, forced corporates to punch so many holes in firewalls to make it work, the firewall could be better described as “swiss cheese”. Netmeeting died a long time ago, thankfully. But Livemeeting is “new!”, and therefore few people actually have it or run it, given the slow adoption out there of new microsoft products. Must be the fear of implementing a new platform, just for it to be “ripped and replaced” from under your feet.
the Large Pharma industries, for instance, *live* on Sametime. Day in, day out. Secure, reliable, cheap auditable, scalable instant messaging and shared meeting spaces. And have done for years.
Things that Microsoft need to do a better job at:
* deliver working product. The current mess in OS’s where you want to sell new anti-spam products to fix the holes in the system that shouldnt be there in the first place looks like “exploitation”, doesnt it? One surefire way to lose customers is to insult them (The dinosaur ads?).
* keep promises in terms of product delivery date and content. “Longhorn”/”Vista” is a classic example. But just about any large MS project does this – its how MS works, right ?
* Support existing franchises. Once a year SP rollups for products ? No roadmap ? Whats that about?
* Multi-platform support. I mean, the world is going multi-platform, and where’s MS’s perspective on this ? “We own Wintel, and thats all we’ll do”. Meanwhile the other franchies – such as MS SQL are SCREAMING to be implemented on big tin such as AIX, OS/400, Solaris, etc, etc. Its how SQL will compete with Oracle and DB2 – the two (multiplatform) market owners in the SQL space.
But the MS fascination with owning everything – this immature desire to own the complete computing experience – prevents MS from doing this.
(Compare and contrast. IBM Workplace supports all major relational databases – as well as MS SQL – out of the box. Because IBM realise that customers are not going to change everything to support a new technology. )
And as for the latest “MS are going to crush Blackberry” in Exchange 2005 – the meme your trying to sell here. Come on. Blackberry, for all its faults, delivers a really easy, reliable user experience such that ccmplete luddites – CIO/CEO level golf players – can actually use technology. Windows mobile mail ? No way.
The same anaology can be made about iPod versus Windows Mobile 5/Windows Media Player. I actually have an XDA – a windows mobile device – with a gig of memory stick. Perfect for listening to music on the move.
But the interface for WMP on mobile is soo horrible and difficult to use, I’d much rather use an iPod. (recent 2k mile bike ride across the alps – I used the XDA for TomTom GPS navigation and an iPod for music. Such is the state of WMP on mobile)
A classic (and often repeated) example of MS so completely getting the interface wrong, that it masks whatever cooolness lies below.
This is repeated in other products – Office for instance. A recent survey of office users asked them what features they’d most like. Turns out most of the features were in office already – just the users couldnt find them.
This is why Apple OS/x (Tiger) on Intel will dominate in the next five years. Compare Tiger – usable, powerful, based on Unix (therefore secure, robust, etc), and can be used by a grandmother. XP ? Forget it. Its a confusing mess of features. How do I shut down ? Oh – click “start”.
This is why Apple’s design of product makes it such a rewarding experience for end users. They like it because they understand it.
Go on – give an Apple and a wintel laptop to some computer illiterate relative. Come back a week later and see which one they give back.
Microsoft best start poaching some EXPERIENCED UI designers, else it’ll find itself between “DOS” and “OS/2” in the computer museum….
As always,
—* Bill
Bill,
Wow. Give me some time to respond to this …
Damn Bill – that is a list and a half!!!
Och, I was just getting warmed up.
—* Bill
Bill,
Answering your 4 page comments is a bit difficult in this rather poor editor. I’ve put you comments between **** and my reply underneath. Sorry if it is a bit difficult to read …
****
Peter – why dont you concentrate on what Exchange and office does right now (very little) instead of trying to sell us what it “might do” in the future – after all, we know that there’s many a Microsoft product that starts off with an impressive feature list, which then gets slashed to nothing on release.
****
Because the roadmap is so often questioned in your and others comments, I do see added value in sometimes addressing what is coming in the coming 12 months. As you know Exchange 12 is part of that, and more and more information is fed to the market. I am quite sure you will still see a number of holes in there 😉
****
The MS portfolio right now is tired – after FIVE YEARS of little development. Saying “trust us – look what we’ve delivered so far – the new stuff will be even better!” is a hollow, empty promise. Why not start off with “We’d better deliver something that the users actually want to buy as opposed to something that we’ve forced them to buy. As competition is starting to emerge on our two main franchises..”
****
This is a very general remark. For some products like IE this ofcourse is abvious. For other parts of the Microsoft portfolio this is bogus. Lots of analyst reports I have blogged about in the last few months (yes mainly analysts other than Radicati). Specifically about RTC I will makes some comments later on.
*****
(I thought I’d make it easy for you to copy and paste this out and send in an eMail to Balmer. He’d appreciate it, honestly!)
*****
I am sure Balmer reads my blog 😉
****
Take Vista/Longhorn (WinFs and the confusion over whats happening there), Exchange (Kodiak – the new essential data store based on SQL that was canned and has never seen the light of day again), etc, etc.
I know, focus is on other improvements. WinFS will come but is postponed as you know.
So right now, as of Exchange 2003 Service pack 2, it offers important mobile device connectivity. Assuming that your mobile devices are Windows Mobile 5 devices. Windows Mobile 5 is soo new that its very unlikely anyone aside from early adopters will have them. That subsets an already small subset.
****
You are right in stating that the full benefits of the mobile platform (security improvements, management, etc) do require Windows Mobile 5. As you know Exchange 2003 already offers compelling mobile mail/calendar/contacts functionality for Windows Mobile 2003 / 5 devices. Also Nokia and Motorola have announced (and partially implemented) the support for mobile Activesync.
Well, out there in userland, the Exchange user is more likely to be running Exchange 5.5 (is it still 50% of the user base as it was reportedly at the start of the year? And no longer supported?), and using Blackberrys. Or Exchange 2000, and blackberrys.
If I am not mistaking, most BlackBerry implementations are on Exchange. BlackBerry from an Exchange perspective is a good thing. The breadth of the Microsoft portfolio however makes it compete with other parts. You have commented al lot with different figures about the adoption and deployment of Exchange 2003, can you give me the source for these figures as they do not represent the perception I have.
****
This all lends weight to the argument that whilst Exchange might be billed as an important part of the MS Strategy, MS execs would far rather waste 12,000 man years (the vista reset – 4,000 developers x 3 years, right? Thats HALF of the developers in MS wasting THREE years worth of effort) than actually spend time and effort enhancing the Exchange platform. Indeed, the E12 roadmap shows a collapsing of features (active/active clustering for instance).
****
Without a doubt Microsoft leading email platform is important in the strategy.
****
Back out there in the notes world, you might have heard of Sametime. IDC mentioned that it was the dominant corporate instant messaging and shared meeting platform out there. And has been for what – FIVE years ? So the domino users out there have a stable, well maintained and supported IM and instant /shared meeting solution, thats well integrated into the domino mail and calendar experience.
Its not Livemeeting, the son of “Netmeeting”. Netmeeting, as you recall, forced corporates to punch so many holes in firewalls to make it work, the firewall could be better described as “swiss cheese”. Netmeeting died a long time ago, thankfully. But Livemeeting is “new!”, and therefore few people actually have it or run it, given the slow adoption out there of new microsoft products. Must be the fear of implementing a new platform, just for it to be “ripped and replaced” from under your feet.
the Large Pharma industries, for instance, *live* on Sametime. Day in, day out. Secure, reliable, cheap auditable, scalable instant messaging and shared meeting spaces. And have done for years.
****
Yes … RTC.
First of all LiveMeeting is not Netmeeting. Netmeeting as you know is a desktop application. LiveMeeting is a Webconferecing service. A couple of years ago Microsoft acquired Placeware; turned this into LiveMeeting 2003. Meanwhile LiveMeeting 2005 has been released.
Go here : https://webapps.livemeeting.com/lmtrial/signup.aspx?promocode=1656&CFID=24116006&CFTOKEN=60467110&jsessionid=80301694911130449687694 . Test. Judge it and tell me what you think after using it …
SameTime indeed is still the marketleader when it comes to marketshare, but have you seen what Microsoft has released over the last year : Live Communications Server 2005, Office Communicator, Public Internet Connectivity (MSN, Yahoo, AOL), Telephony integration between LCS and all major (IP)Telephony systems. Besides the different products, the vision and execution of Microsoft around integrated Communication, Presence, etc is seen by major analysts as leading. I am very confident this will show in a rapidly growing and soon competing marketshare ….
“You have commented al lot with different figures about the adoption and deployment of Exchange 2003, can you give me the source for these figures as they do not represent the perception I have.”
The figures came out of IDC – but I’m first to admit they’re my perception. For instance, the “50% of users on Exchange 5.5” was certainly the case in January 2004 in terms of IDC.
What those figures are now would be of great interest, as Exchange 5.5 has been out of “free” support for all of this calendar year, and is now being completely removed from support next year. Along with free support for Exchange 2000.
Tell you what.
Tell us, for both Exchange and Office:
* the total number of actual users
* the number of users per major release
That would certainly clear up this issue. My perception is that most folks out there are running *old* MS Software – hence the MS Dinosaur ads. It would be good to get some clarity on this issue.
Oh – and I see that you’ve chosen not to repute the “Vista Reset 12,000 man years wasted” story.
Can you confirm then for the record that MS have 8,000 developers out of a total of 61,000 employees, and that 4,000 developers spent 3 years on “Vista” before the “reset”, when all their work was discarded.
These figures came out of the Balmer interview for the “Vista Reset”. Again. Useful to get it confirmed.
Just so we all agree what the figures are.
Cheers,
—* Bill
Bill,
I don’t have any data on the developers and how they’ve spent their time, nor is that a discussion I think is relevant; I am not a spokesman for Microsoft, just a guy with an opion who happens to work there.
I am however very excited about Vista and “Wave 12” and the “mojo”that is going to generate for Microosft once again. Whether or not it took 8000 or 4000 developers.
As for the numbers on Exchnage 5.5 and Office 2003 if there is an official source for it, a bit more up to date that the report you are quoting (by the way I haven’t seen that report, but I trust your word for it) I will get back to you on this.
Thanks for worrying so much about the marketshares by the way 😉
Have you tried LiveMeeting yet ? Cool stuff huh 🙂