Lotus Notes vs Microsoft Exchange

Companies like IBM and Microsoft love to confuse their customers with numerous services and titles. Not so long ago IBM launched the new mail service LotusLive iNotes, that costs $3 per month per user and provides corporate e-mail, contacts and calendar. And today IBM has unveiled another service called LotusLive Notes, that costs $5 per month and also includes e-mail, contacts and calendar. At first glance, the only difference is the price, but in fact the latest service is a multitenant SaaS version of Lotus Domino (Domino - is the name of server software in the traditional in-house Lotus Notes system). How it differs from LotusLive iNotes?

Email was the first collaboration tool in the Intarnet. Then intranet portals emerged, and they wanted to kill Email because of its lacks: instead of sending back and forth messages and documents, they are placed on a portal web-page (for example, in the news, on the forum or file cabinet). But due to the fact that people got used to e-mail and email was also used for external communications - intranet portals failed to replace the Email as a primary workspace. Moreover, recently Email launched the counterattack. And it happened because the major enterprise Email-solutions (GMail, Outlook, Lotus Notes) have become the platforms that allow third-party developers to add new functionality.

The world's most popular enterprise Email client, MS Outlook, is already equipped with various Enterprise 2.0 tools. Outlook is already integrated with social networks (Xobni and Outlook Social Connector), Google Apps, Google Docs (Harmony), Remember the Milk, etc. Now, when this place is crowded, the developers switched their attention to the second most popular enterprise Email client - Lotus Notes. Thus, the new plug-in + service Gist makes the same for Lotus Notes as Xobni for Outlook - allows you to see the social profiles of those with whom you communicate. Gist pulls the latest information about a person from Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter, as well as recent news about his company from blogs and news sites. In addition, the plug-in displays in suitable form all correspondence with selected contact and files sent to/from him. It should be noted that Gist also works with Outlook, GMail, iPhone and may also be accessed as a web service.

When Google Apps Marketplace launched, we noticed that Google's partner Salesforce hadn't joined this ecosystem. Now it's clear why. Salesforce is building its own ecosystem of collaborative applications around Chatter. Although Chatter (Facebook for enterprise) is nothing like Google Apps (email + docs), however the aim of both tools is the same - collaboration. At the ChatterExchange presentation, Marc Benioff has clearly stated that Chatter will compete with MS Sharepoint and IBM Lotus Notes (he modestly omitted Google Apps). "Don't be confused that these systems have little in common" - said Benioff, - "the fact that Sharepoint and Lotus Notes were created back in these days when people didn't use Twitter and Facebook and when the top collaborative technologies were email and shared folders".

The geek-developer dream comes true: a full-on collaboration environment with an open API and a name right out of Star Trek. Today at the Lotushpere conference IBM unveiled Project Vulcan - the new cloud platform for collaboration and social tools, that is already compared to Google Wave. But unlike Google Wave, Vulcan - is not a separate application, but an integrated environment for all future and existing Lotus apps, including Lotus Notes and LotusLive. Vulcan will be available to developers in the second half of 2010, and meanwhile it will be available to LotusLive Labs team, which has already shown 4 new projects for LotusLive:

From today IBM starts providing Lotus Notes Hosted Messaging - the hosting service for the popular email and collaboration software. I.e. IBM will host Lotus Domino in its data center and users will access it either through the web interface Domino Web Access, or via a mobile client Lotus Notes Traveler, or in the standard desktop client Lotus Notes.  And IBM will outsource support, virus and spam filter. According to IBM, service is not a classic SaaS solution based on multitenant architecture. For each client the dedicated Domino server will be maintained. The cost of using Lotus Notes Hosted Messaging - is $10 per user per month.

The new version of IBM's collaborative software Lotus Notes 8.0 includes a free office suite for editing documents called Lotus Symphony. It includes a word processor, spreadsheets and presentations editor. As well as the new version of Lotus Notes, Lotus Symphony applications are built on the Eclipse platform and support ODF format (Open Document Format for XML) - it's an open non-proprietary standard, which is an alternative to Microsoft's Open XML. Lotus Symphony will compete not only with MS Office, but also with online Google Docs. In addition to the office suite, the new version of Lotus Notes features a new modern interface in the Web 2.0 style and a lot of new options for managing mail, calendars and contacts.

Today, Microsoft has rolled out a new service Office 365, which is a reincarnation of the SaaS package BPOS. The name change was expected, since Microsoft critics have referred BPOS as "Big Piece of Shit" instead of "Business Productivity Online Services". But not only name is to be changed. The new service except SaaS versions Exchange Online, Sharepoint Online and Lync Online, will include the online office tools Office Web Apps. I.e. Office 365 can now be considered as a full-fledged alternative to Google Apps. The service will be available in 2 editions. Small Business Edition for companies with less than 25 users costs $6/user/month and includes the basic functions. Enterprise edition provides additional customization and administration features, full functionality and provides users with desktop suite Office Office Professional Plus with pay-as-you-go licensing. This edition costs from $2 to $ 27/user/month depending on configuration. Recall, Microsoft also plans to include its CRM and ERP to the SaaS suite. At the moment, Office 365 is in beta stage and will be available worldwide next year.

Steve Jobs introduced the new iPhone OS 4.0 and it brings a lot of features for using iPhone in the enterprise environment. First, is multi-tasking (with some restrictions). For example, this allows to use of VoIP and security applications in the background, but not only when the user switches on them. Secondly, iPhone OS 4.0 adds important features to the mail client: the ability to create multiple email accounts, view attachments, email encryption and Exchange 2010 support. In addition, it allows IT-admins to install and update mobile applications via Wi-Fi or 3G and wipe data remotely. It also supports VPN SSL, so users can safely use enterprise web applications.

Recently, Google released the next anti-microsoft tool - Google Apps Migration for Microsoft Exchange, the plugin which allows you to easily move mail, calendars and contacts from Exchange to Google Apps. Last year they released the utility that syncs Outlook with Google Apps, but now you can import data directly from the Exchange server. Previously, Microsoft just ignored such events, or commented that Google Apps - is just a toy that no serious company will use. But Google's constant pressure is making them nervous. Microsoft recently launched the channel on Youtube, which contains videos explaining why MS Office products are better than Google's. For example, here's the video Exchange vs GMail:

Microsoft officially released the new version of its enterprise email server Exchange Server 2010. It's desktop client Outlook 2010 will appear only next year together with other Office 2010 applications. What is the most interesting about Exchange 2010? First, thanks to Windows Server 2008 R2 and Windows 7 (details here), and some new features in the new version, Exchange 2010 is now completely adopted for the cloud deployment. Of course, Hosted Exchange 2007 has been already provided for some years, but the latest version is much more secure, reliable and suitable for administration, when installed on the remote server (or in data-center).

Today Microsoft has officially announced the new version of its Email collaboration solution Exchange Server 2007. The main concept of the new Exchange version is unified messaging. It means that employees can work with e-mail, voice mail and faxes in a single interface. And thanks to the integration with MS Office Communications Server, text-to-speech and voice recognition technologies now you can dial to your mailbox and listen to the new email-messages. But these features are available only in more expensive edition Exchange Enterprise. In addition, the new Exchange version includes antivirus and antispam protection, tools for backup and data replication (that significantly increase the mailbox size), the new feature Outlook Anywhere, that lets you connect Outlook to the Exchange server via the Internet. Besides, Exchange 2007 only runs on 64-bit architecture .

Microsoft has released the new version of its e-mail server Exchange Server 2003. Now, this system can be really called "e-mail server", because Microsoft has decided to divide some of its functions between other products. The built-in Exchange messenger has migrated to Microsoft Office Live Communications Server, and the web-conferencing server - to Live Meeting. In addition, Microsoft now recommends to share files not with Exchange, but on the intranet portal Sharepoint (although the Exchange public folders are still included). Thus, Exchange Server will be used just to manage e-mail, contacts, calendars and tasks. From the other hand Exchange Server 2003 got the new functions from the mobile server Microsoft Mobile Information Server and using a mobile the web client Outlook Mobile Access and server-side Exchange ActiveSync (to sync mobile email-client with server) allows users to work with e-mail, calendars and tasks on their mobile devices.

Microsoft has released the new version of its collaboration solution Exchange 2000 Server. Unlike its predecessor, which included inbuilt directory service, Exchange 2000 fully relies on the external directory service Windows Active Directory, and because of this, many users may have big problems with this upgrade. Also Exchange 2000 Server includes a built-in messenger Exchange Instant Messaging (which supports any IRC-client) and web-conferencing service Exchange Conferencing (which works with Outlook 2000 and NetMeeting). Another new feature in Exchange 2000 is called Web Store - it's a file system that allows to organize and easy search for unstructured data inside Exchange, like web pages, documents, email messages .