Is Exchange winning with Domino?
Category Lotus Notes vs OutlookBookmark :
I was recently pointed to a recent PCWorld article Microsoft Claims Exchange Is Stealing Notes Users Apparently, Microsoft is convinced that it is winning the battle with IBM in terms of the market share in the grupware collaboration space. I find this mesmerizing because, although IBM declined to comment, I do remember seeing many announcements coming from IBM claiming the same thing, except in IBM's favour. I'm also puzzled by some of the claims and numbers that were quoted in this article, for instance:
Outlook and Exchange pulled ahead of Notes and Domino more than half a decade ago. About 101 million corporate mailboxes run Notes today. That should grow to 112 million by 2011, according to predictions from The Radicati Group Inc. But 304 million e-mail boxes will run Outlook and Exchange by that time, according to the analyst firm.
I'm not sure where these numbers are coming from but it's definitely not from IBM. According to a document published by IBM on their Web site at one point (IBM Lotus Notes and Domino Milestones, original is a PDF but here is the content of it posted somewhere else), Lotus Notes passed 113 million seats worldwide in August 2004! Furthermore, according to the same source:
Third Quarter 2005: IBM deliverers Lotus Notes and Domino 7. Lotus Notes achieves fourth consecutive quarter of double-digit growth, in a single digit market. Installed base of Lotus Notes exceeds 120 million seats.
I went to Lotusphere in 2006 and 2007. Both times it was set there with a great fanfare that the growth continues. Craig is at the Lotusphere 2008 right now, and although no official comments have been made in reference to this Microsoft announcement, attendees were told that once more: the growth continues...
Something does not add up here... OK, who is lying and who is telling the truth?
