Reflections on The Burton Group Report for Enterprise Collaboration
Category IBM/Lotus
This week I had the opportunity to read a report by Peter O'Kelly, of the Burton Group: "IBM, Microsoft, and Oracle: Competing to Lead the Next Wave of Enterprise Communication/Collaboration." This is the second revision, published at the end of this July, so it's current enough to merit some attention. Peter O'Kelly is an important and well regarded industry analyst, so whether or not you agree with his major points, his opinion is worth appreciating.
Here's my summary points, with some follow-up comments.
Pros:
Cons:
If you like the IBM/Lotus portfolio, then you'll appreciate the comment that Microsoft has "yet to deliver comprehensive and seamless support" for the occasionally connected user, "a hallmark of Lotus Notes." If you are down on Lotus Notes, then your experience will probably resonant with the assessment that because of "recent changes in the IBM Lotus strategy" Notes is best "suited as an installed base play."
The simplest summary is (a) Oracle has an immature platform, but because of its RDBMS foundation, it may become a leader, (2) if you work within an all-things-Microsoft world, then Exchange is the clear choice, and (3) if you are on Domino, nothing else touches its capabilities so stay the course and hope for the best.
Here are some general comments:
I have no idea why there is such an emphasis on an RDBMS underpinning. This is a comment that I've read about Lotus Notes since the Byte review of Notes Release 1. I think it's interesting that even when an NSF is converted into DB2, it takes four DB2 tables to recreate the NSF architecture. Sure, going with DB2 (the only RDBMS choice as an NSF alternative) is useful for VERY large databases, and it allows table joins between databases. But, I don't see the attraction as in "we simply must get everything into RDBMS."
Quickr and Connections are referenced, but they seem to mark more strategy confusion than bring clarity. It's because the platform might be J2EE or Domino, and there is the insinuation that IBM is transitioning its product line and customer base onto a WebSphere/DB2 platform.
If I was in the Exchange environment, I would ask why there wasn't more material about Exchange 2007. The report seems to see Microsoft's latest version as an incremental progression and improvement of Exchange 2003. There is equally little specifics about Notes/Domino 8, except that the client platform is relying on Eclipse.
Over the next three to five years, the Eclipse and .NET competition for the hearts of developers is going to unduly affect the choice of enterprise collaboration platforms. That's a theme that deserved more attention, because it's not clear that a Microsoft .NET solution will lead the developer community. Check out http://www.indeed.com for an interesting comparison between .NET and Eclipse developers.
Open-source solutions (e.g., Zimbra) were included in the analysis, but open-source was not really being presented as a platform. I think the future of open-source ICE solutions is as least as promising of an architectural alternative to Exchange and Domino as is Oracle. Open-source, in my perspective, is much more of a wildcard and very unpredictable. It's pricing model and development teams can be nearly unstoppable (e.g., Apache) or they can turn commercial or even simply dissolve.
The monoculture of Microsoft was positioned mostly as a strength, and for those that run their business rooted in Microsoft, who would argue? But, there is a corollary value for a collaboration platform that can be flexible enough for a heterogenous environment. My client support is Microsoft Outlook (via DAMO), Macintosh, Microsoft, and Linux. I can run three different client releases (I don't necessarily want to, mind you, but that's they way it is) and provide solid support equally for Microsoft Internet Explorer and Mozilla Firefox. We have AIX, Linux and Windows servers, which allow us tremendous freedom in selecting the most appropriate server technology for the purpose.
Security. Well, can enough be said about it? I believe a heterogenous architecture with the security model of Notes/Domino, can be configured to be as secure an offering as is possible for an off-the-shelf product. What's the additional cost required to bring a non-Domino solution up to the same grade? What's the cost of a compromised system?
Stability. What's the expense of building a Disaster Recovery (DR) infrastructure? Domino clustering is becoming a defining characteristic, just as prominent as its model of replication. David Ferris notes some of the troubling aspects of DR for Exchange 2007.
Exchange 2007 DR solutions have yet to match the level of capability found in Notes/Domino R5, released in 1999. Doesn't this aspect of a messaging and collaborative environment deserve attention?
On the other hand, I really benefited from O'Kelly's analysis of Microsoft and Sharepoint. It gave me an angle that I can't get from any vendor, and I appreciate having a better understanding. Just because I don't think it's as compelling a solution doesn't mean that it doesn't work well, or that there is only one right and everything else are merely different shades of wrong.
This week I had the opportunity to read a report by Peter O'Kelly, of the Burton Group: "IBM, Microsoft, and Oracle: Competing to Lead the Next Wave of Enterprise Communication/Collaboration." This is the second revision, published at the end of this July, so it's current enough to merit some attention. Peter O'Kelly is an important and well regarded industry analyst, so whether or not you agree with his major points, his opinion is worth appreciating.
Here's my summary points, with some follow-up comments.
Pros:
- The material is current.
- Peter has insights into how e-mail and collaboration systems are distinctive and complimentary.
- The report seems to "get it" for the uniqueness of the different platforms.
- There is a clear realization that a key aspect between different offerings rides on the understanding that what is being compared is a platform, not just two or three communication packages cobbled together. Groupwise is no longer even listed in the top three for an Integrated Collaboration Environment (ICE)
- A lot of the future success for these enterprise ICE platforms is going to be determined by the growth or decline in .NET versus the Eclipse framework.
Cons:
- The report has a marked preference for systems which are RDBMS for document storage, without much explanation to justify this rating.
- There is no comparison of the cost models.
- Weak on the open source competition.
- I'm not really sure that the report needed pages of history for the vendor solutions, as much as it would have been helpful to have more analysis to quantify the ROI and TCO.
If you like the IBM/Lotus portfolio, then you'll appreciate the comment that Microsoft has "yet to deliver comprehensive and seamless support" for the occasionally connected user, "a hallmark of Lotus Notes." If you are down on Lotus Notes, then your experience will probably resonant with the assessment that because of "recent changes in the IBM Lotus strategy" Notes is best "suited as an installed base play."
The simplest summary is (a) Oracle has an immature platform, but because of its RDBMS foundation, it may become a leader, (2) if you work within an all-things-Microsoft world, then Exchange is the clear choice, and (3) if you are on Domino, nothing else touches its capabilities so stay the course and hope for the best.
Here are some general comments:
I have no idea why there is such an emphasis on an RDBMS underpinning. This is a comment that I've read about Lotus Notes since the Byte review of Notes Release 1. I think it's interesting that even when an NSF is converted into DB2, it takes four DB2 tables to recreate the NSF architecture. Sure, going with DB2 (the only RDBMS choice as an NSF alternative) is useful for VERY large databases, and it allows table joins between databases. But, I don't see the attraction as in "we simply must get everything into RDBMS."
Quickr and Connections are referenced, but they seem to mark more strategy confusion than bring clarity. It's because the platform might be J2EE or Domino, and there is the insinuation that IBM is transitioning its product line and customer base onto a WebSphere/DB2 platform.
If I was in the Exchange environment, I would ask why there wasn't more material about Exchange 2007. The report seems to see Microsoft's latest version as an incremental progression and improvement of Exchange 2003. There is equally little specifics about Notes/Domino 8, except that the client platform is relying on Eclipse.
Over the next three to five years, the Eclipse and .NET competition for the hearts of developers is going to unduly affect the choice of enterprise collaboration platforms. That's a theme that deserved more attention, because it's not clear that a Microsoft .NET solution will lead the developer community. Check out http://www.indeed.com for an interesting comparison between .NET and Eclipse developers.
Open-source solutions (e.g., Zimbra) were included in the analysis, but open-source was not really being presented as a platform. I think the future of open-source ICE solutions is as least as promising of an architectural alternative to Exchange and Domino as is Oracle. Open-source, in my perspective, is much more of a wildcard and very unpredictable. It's pricing model and development teams can be nearly unstoppable (e.g., Apache) or they can turn commercial or even simply dissolve.
The monoculture of Microsoft was positioned mostly as a strength, and for those that run their business rooted in Microsoft, who would argue? But, there is a corollary value for a collaboration platform that can be flexible enough for a heterogenous environment. My client support is Microsoft Outlook (via DAMO), Macintosh, Microsoft, and Linux. I can run three different client releases (I don't necessarily want to, mind you, but that's they way it is) and provide solid support equally for Microsoft Internet Explorer and Mozilla Firefox. We have AIX, Linux and Windows servers, which allow us tremendous freedom in selecting the most appropriate server technology for the purpose.
Security. Well, can enough be said about it? I believe a heterogenous architecture with the security model of Notes/Domino, can be configured to be as secure an offering as is possible for an off-the-shelf product. What's the additional cost required to bring a non-Domino solution up to the same grade? What's the cost of a compromised system?
Stability. What's the expense of building a Disaster Recovery (DR) infrastructure? Domino clustering is becoming a defining characteristic, just as prominent as its model of replication. David Ferris notes some of the troubling aspects of DR for Exchange 2007.
|
Exchange 2007 DR solutions have yet to match the level of capability found in Notes/Domino R5, released in 1999. Doesn't this aspect of a messaging and collaborative environment deserve attention?
On the other hand, I really benefited from O'Kelly's analysis of Microsoft and Sharepoint. It gave me an angle that I can't get from any vendor, and I appreciate having a better understanding. Just because I don't think it's as compelling a solution doesn't mean that it doesn't work well, or that there is only one right and everything else are merely different shades of wrong.
- 
Comments
Now, as for the Eclipse and .NET showdown, I was deliberately ambiguous on specifics and simply left it as a general platform smackdown. I don't expect the market presence for Microsoft .NET to deflate, but I think the Eclipse framework is going to continue to gain ground while .NET is going to reach a saturation point equal to Microsoft's standing.
One of the missed opportunities in Peter O'Kellys study, was to present an insight on why IBM's Workplace initiative failed. I worked with it for messaging (maybe, "messed with it" would be more accurate), taught it, and had clients that used it. What a gaggle of interfaces and xml config files--it was simply too complicated for the basic utility it supplied. I'm left wondering if Exchange 2007 is more like a Workplace offering, in that respect.
Posted by jack dausman At 02:17:10 AM On 08/06/2007 | - Website - |
Microsoft Exchange vs. Lotus Notes: { Link }
Posted by Stephan H. Wissel At 05:46:41 PM On 08/05/2007 | - Website - |
Java vs. .NET { Link }
J2EE vs. .NET { Link }
Eclipse vs. .NET { Link }
of course that might include other things christianed .Net, but what would that be?
As Churchill nicely said: "lies, damn lies and statistics"
Posted by Stephan H. Wissel At 05:44:33 PM On 08/05/2007 | - Website - |