News Analysis

IBM throws down the collaboration gauntlet

The company’s latest version of its Domino messaging server takes aim at market leader Exchange. Shivani Shinde reports

For the first time there is a solution that offers better capacity and productivity to users while using fewer computing processes Craig Hayman Vice-president Development & Tech Support Workplace, Collaboration & Portals IBM

IBM launched Lotus Notes Domino Version 7 recently. According to IBM, version 7 promises to have better features and enterprises that can make a seamless transition from the previous version using the smart upgraded feature. With the offering for both the enterprise and the SMB segment, IBM is perhaps trying to gain ground over Microsoft’s Exchange, which has been giving IBM tough competition.

The version 7 has some interesting features for both—the end users as well as for the IT administrator. Craig Hayman, Vice-president, Development and Technical Support, Workplace, Collaboration and Portals, IBM believes that the software is uniquely positioned in the market and has set capabilities for the end users, IT administrators and business owners, in terms of costs and seamless integration to the workplace.

New features

With respect to features, version 7 supports more users per server and is capable of reducing CPU usage by 25 percent, better integration with Web services and much more. According to Hayman, during internal application at IBM, the systems administration reported about 35 percent reduction in CPU usage with about 50,000 users. “The IT teams in various organisations can delay hardware purchases. For the first time there is a solution that offers better capacity and productivity to users while using fewer computing processes,” says Hayman.

Says Alok Shende, Director, ICT Practice, Frost and Sullivan, “In terms of features though, there are no dramatic differences from version 6.5 but for administrators it has some good news. The new version promises to reduce overheads. An incremental innovation above version 6.5 family is that it allows one to increase the percentage of collaboration and keeps track of communication.”

Hayman feels that for an end user too the new version has much to offer. For e-mail, users have been provided with colour coding option, which makes the user immediately aware of the sender. Similarly, there are options of finding out which e-mail message is to be sent, or has been sent or needs to be replied to.

Enterprise collaboration

E-mail as a collaboration tool does not suffice for all organisations. Shende says that collaborative tools can be differentiated into two levels. One is a standard collaborative package, which would have internal corporate e-mail as its principal feature. The other would be an advanced collaboration platform that encompasses much more than e-mail. “We feel that the advanced collaboration platform would also incorporate features of knowledge management. This would be an intermediary between e-mail-based applications and knowledge management,” adds Shende.

According to Frost & Sullivan research, the compound average growth rate of the collaboration market for the year 2004-08 has been around 44.4 percent. “For the year 2005, the Indian collaboration market was worth $7 million, and by 2008 we expect it to reach at least $17 million,” adds Shende.

An advanced collaboration platform is finding favour in the market vis-à-vis pure e-mail applications. Many experts believe that many business processes on Notes have seen incremental difference in performance; they are of the opinion that Domino 7 increases the opportunities for workplace collaboration. In many ways, IBM is a leader in collaboration platforms.

Competition

According to IDC, the collaborative applications market in India during 2004 was valued at $12.1 million. Representative vendors in this category are IBM (Lotus/Domino), Microsoft (Exchange/Outlook), Novell (GroupWise), Oracle and the Open Source Sendmail. Microsoft and IBM are the major players in integrated collaborative environment and messaging applications.

Though IBM has been strong contender in the enterprise segment, with the launch of the latest version of Domino it is targeting SMBs too. “Lotus Notes Domino Express is for the SMB segment. It supports 100 to 1,000 users. For the enterprise segment the user support is from 1,000 to 100,000,” says Hayman.

Everyone agrees that IBM’s main competition has been Microsoft Exchange and it has been trying hard to get the users to adopt its solution. In this effort it has endeavoured to make its products work on open standards. Apart from Notes being integrated to IBM’s Workplace office products it runs on Linux, Solaris and Microsoft Window Server. Shende is of the opinion that enterprises are not only looking at the technology point of view while looking at better options but also considering how the applications would bring down costs, as they have to make huge investments toward enterprise collaboration and communication.

Though the competition is tough, Hayman believes that IBM has been doing well. “In 2004 we were able to convert 1,500 customers from Microsoft Exchange to Lotus Notes. As of now, we have 20 million licences and 60,000 customers.” He reasons out why he feels that Lotus Notes has an edge over Microsoft Exchange, “Our data shows that 40 percent of Exchange users are using version 5.5. Though they want to move to the latest version, they are not doing so or are delaying it because it needs a change of server hardware.”

Many agree that Lotus Notes outpoints Exchange. Hayman believes that with the launch of Hanover, the next avatar of Notes, in the first half of 2006 they should be in a better position. Analysts feel that the launch of Hanover would permit real-time collaboration. Says Hayman, “Hanover would mean complete compatibility, activity-centric computing, i.e. all activities such as e-mail, instant messaging, presentation etc., all will be tied together.” Analysts feel that Microsoft has an edge over IBM largely due to pricing.

The verdict

With growing concerns among the enterprise segment for real collaboration tools without changing the infrastructure, IBM can gain vis-à-vis Microsoft. Though IBM does not have the figures to match Microsoft, it does have a feature-rich version of Notes with an open architecture.

In terms of the Indian market, Hayman is quite upbeat. “Some of the major banks and prominent organisations like Canon, United Breweries, Biocon, HDFC are our customers.” He also feels that the latest version and the scalability option that IBM is providing are sure to attract SMBs too.

IDC believes that the market for MNCs like Microsoft and IBM is still in the large and medium enterprise space. The small and medium market is investing in the basic e-mail applications. Local ISVs develop applications on open source platforms and they are gaining market share in the SMB space.

Analysts believe that the hype surrounding the release of the latest version of Domino is due to the fact that though Notes has always been there on the supply side, it has been the demand for collaborative tools among the enterprise that is generating hype.

shivani@expresscomputeronline.com