Countering Microsoft Threat at my Job!

HCL Domino Domino Forum
1

All,

There have recently been some rumblings at my job about converting Applications to MS Platforms as well as going to outlook. Management is considering bringing MS on site to “evaluate” I want to come up with some killer comparative reasons, of which I know there are many, but I am looking to you, my follow Domino Devotees for help! Perhaps you can share ideas that I might not have thpought of?

It has put our migration to 6 from 5 on hold. I am pushing the TCO and new benefits, but Management doesn’t get it. All they see is the expense of upgrading, and they think that MS is “FREE”!

Has anyone:

  1. Been through this at their place of employment?

  2. Was it successful? If yes, why? If no, why not?

Any general information I can refer to. We are looking at possibly attending a Briefing with MS in the future, so what “questions” should I ask them, to compare themselves to Notes/Domino, (email, Admin, Development, etc.?)

Thanks in advance to all who can help!

-Steve-

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Subject: Countering Microsoft Threat at my Job!

check out www.lotus.com/compare

3

Subject: and then e-mail me.

I work with customers in your situation every week, and have an 80%+ success rate at keeping things on Notes/Domino or winning customers from Exchange. It’s not my “real” job, but it’s a lot of what I do.

–Ed/IBM Lotus

www.lotus.com/weblog

ed_brill {at} us.ibm.com

4

Subject: also look at this

hi,these links will also be helpful:

http://www.gssnet.com/trends/trend_exvd.htm

u can find many good links here too:

http://www.asiapac.com.au/Links/NotesDomino.htm

Another good toungue in cheek article at:

http://www.toddherman.com/Services/Lotus_Notes_vs__Microsoft_Exch/lotus_notes_vs__microsoft_exch.html

HTH

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Subject: Countering Microsoft Threat at my Job!

Most important - be proactive, not reactive. Don’t bring IBM in after MS has been onsite - you’ll be seen as fighting a losing battle (I’ve just lost one such battle, so I know what I’m talking about). Prepare your audience to have the critical questions ready for MS - not the other way round - if MS come in to a “clean” room, then they’ll etch their story in and IBM will never get it out

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Subject: RE: Countering Microsoft Threat at my Job!

We are a Domino app-dev/consulting shop and I couldn’t tell you the number of times worrisome admins come to us and tell us this exact same story.

I would not recommend going to management and request that they bring IBM in to pitch their side of the story so that things are “fair”. The way these decisions are made are not fair and usually are based on smoke and mirrors (long enough to get Domino ripped out and a PO cut for Outlook/Exchange deployment). Your management is reacting to one thing and one thing only- COST. A feature by feature comparison means nothing. You and I both know that Domino is far superior to Exchange, however they (those that sign the checks) usually don’t. So enough rambling, here’s what you do:

Here are a few silver bullets. You’ll want to embelish the cost aspect even more than I’ve done:

#1: Weakened security:

Domino is (compared to Exchange) rock-solid in terms of virus protection. What’s the cost of lost financial data due to an attack? How many of the “popular” viruses that make the 6pm news are for Domino? Virus programers develop for Outlook b/c that gets them the press. Quantify (read as scare) to management the impact due to the loss of critical business data b/c of a careless virus attack.

#2 Exchange increases your infastructure/administrative costs.

At a minimum Exchange is 2 times the cost to management than Domino. 1 Domino admin can manage dozens of servers. It takes 2-3 Exchange admins to manage just a handful of Exchange servers. So tell management whatever they are paying for their Domino infastructure will ballon to 2X or more. (there’s more to this but I’ll be brief).

#3 Reduced avaibility and realiability

Quantify the cost of downtime. What happen if e-mail is down an hour? a day? How much money does your company lose? IBM had a great commerical (not a domino one) where a fictious company’s web server went down. An IT staffer calmly said they are bleeding $20,000/hr (or some sick number). Domino clustering will keep you going. Domino clustering technology KILLS Exchange clustering (there’s no such thing as real Exchange clustering btw). Domino is true app level clustering. Exchange requires identical hardware and a single storage array b/c it’s clustering is at the OS level. So throughout existing hardware and ball all new identical hw. MS answers and says we have clustering too, oh yeah? What happens when the storage array goes down? Having all those servers point to the same disk is useless then. Domino clustering can occur b/w any machines and spans OS and geographic boundaries (as long as there’s a real-time connection). So you can do geographic failover (and yes we’ve set this up for clients and it ROCKS).

#4 Weakend data integrity

Domino uses a single file for each users database (yes Domino has storage groups but why use it? Other than to have feature parity w/ Exchange). So if one users mail database is corrupted (and to corrupt a Domino db is no small feat) the corruption is isolated to usually that one database and not all the users on the server. Exchange uses storage groups to store multiple users data stores in a single file. So 1000s of mail stores can be in a single file. What happen if that ONE file becomes corrupt? Yes, you are fired. Oh you can get the 8GB storage group file from tape, yeah right (incidentally clustering makes a good semi-decent backup as well).

#5 Goodbye work anywhere and connect from anywhere.

One thing I love about Notes is that it’s got it’s own directory and can leverage an existing one. With Exchange you got to use Active Directory (AD). Oh yeah, you need MS DNS too (yes buy another server for it). AD is a pain in the rear. So MS will give you that for free right? Will they give you another admin to manage it for free also? Notes is great for connecting from anywhere. Have TCP/IP will travel. With Outlook/Exchange you have to use VPN. Again more increased cost. MS will come back and say that Outlook 2003/Exchange 2003/Windows 2003 can do that now. So this particular arguement might be luke warm

#6 Re-Write all those great workflows

What is the cost to re-write all those work-flows and apps used throughout the company.

#7 Sell your boss that you can consolidate many of those servers into a handful. Perform an analysis on the avg. hosted users per server and then pitch to management that this is a good time to consolidate servers to reduce admin costs even further. Domino 6 is great as far as performance is concerned and scales really well with 5000-8000 real active users per system. You’ll save on OS licensing costs as well.

I’d expand on these points (I’ve got more Exchange killer points) but this should be good enough for now. MS is brilliant at appealing to the pocket book of the CFO/CIO.

They say we will lower your cost on paper, you’ll get your bonus- goodness. So your appeal must be strictly based on bottom line issues and demonstrate that Exchange costs more and can hurt them.

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Subject: RE: Countering Microsoft Threat at my Job!

This is a memorandum (with certain details edited out) that I used to persuade management not to waste money on a domino versus exchange debate…

Note that I’ve changed the company name to CompanyX (and some other details).

This memo was written to be read by Financial people with no IT background. You may find that the language is useful for your situation.

Also, the URLs at the end provide some useful proof/support.

CEOx

The purpose of this memorandum is to broadly explain our existing Information Technology (IT) systems and to provide a rationale for their use. It is hoped that the information presented here will reduce the need for, or the cost of any, external IT strategy review.

CompanyX’s Current Systems

CompanyX’s current systems consist of 80 PCs running Microsoft Windows NT 4, Office 97 and Lotus Notes 6 connected to a fast ethernet network comprising of five servers. All of these servers are running Windows NT and most provide only simple file and printer serving. Our financial systems reside on a server running Sun Systems and Microsoft SQL Server 7, while our records systems are running RecFind on Microsoft SQL Server 6.5. Our main server is a Lotus Notes 6 server. This provides email and serves internal databases, our extranet and our web site. There are currently 141 databases hosted on the notes server. CompanyX is connected to the Internet via a leased cisco router through ISPProviderX.

Concerns

I am concerned that the current discussions centre only on whether or not CompanyX should continue to use Lotus Notes. Any new IT strategy should concern itself with all aspects of the system, rather than simply the mail client. I also believe that we should be putting our resources into known and critical issues rather than attempting to find new ones. In particular, I have issues with the unsupported nature of our aging Microsoft software and the need for additional security measures.

I can provide details on the issues raised in the current IT strategy upon request, but will concentrate the remainder of this memorandum on the issue of Lotus Notes.

Overall Guidelines

I have restricted the decision on messaging systems to Microsoft and IBM/Lotus because together they make up 90% of the market and because I am currently unwilling to consider open source systems such as Linux and Apache due to their security vulnerabilities.

I also believe that while not abandoning the windows platform, CompanyX should be taking steps to reduce its dependence upon Microsoft. At this stage, the intention is to retain compatibility while keeping costs low, reducing security risks and ensuring that our options are kept open.

The Case for Lotus Notes

Popularity

The argument that Microsoft is ‘more popular’ than Lotus Notes is frequently used. In December 2002, Microsoft had 83 million users, compared to Lotus Notes’ 74 million. The total cost of ownership of Lotus products has been shown to be lower than those of Microsoft, yet Lotus made $804 million from Notes in 2001 compared to Microsoft’s $606 million. Clearly Microsoft is counting licences which have been bundled rather than sold. In addition, IBM’s plan to migrate notes to DB2 format will give it additional popularity (In the database market, IBM’s DB2 has a 36.5% market share compared with Microsoft’s 13%).

Cost

In the Radicati Group report of March 2003, Lotus Notes came out with a lower overall cost of ownership than Microsoft Exchange 2000. In CompanyX’s case, the savings from Notes would be considerably higher as we would need to change our server software, migrate 141 databases to an alternative format and retrain our staff to use the new systems.

Futureproofing

IBM has provided a very detailed roadmap covering the future of Lotus Notes. The roadmap discusses a migration to the industry-standard DB2 format and ongoing support for a variety of platforms. Lotus Notes currently runs on seven major operating system families, while Microsoft exchange supports only one, Windows. In addition, the latest Microsoft strategy indicates that “Microsoft has pulled back on its vision of Exchange as a Notes-killer and refocussed it on just e-mail and calendaring.”

Security

There is a great deal of literature about the security issues of Microsoft Exchange and far less on Lotus Notes. This difference is too great to be simply the number of users. Lotus Notes supports industry standard security devices including smartcards, PKI and SSL. The viruses, such as “Melissa” and “bubbleboy” which plague the Microsoft Systems do not affect the Notes platform.

Reliability

In the last two years, CompanyX’s Lotus Notes server has had less than 5% downtime and has successfully fended off a number of hacker attacks. In contrast, research shows that 42% of Microsoft Exchange environments are not meeting their uptime targets.

Disaster Recovery

Lotus Notes databases can be individually restored from backup tape and can be accessed on a large number of systems including PC systems such as Windows 95. Microsoft Exchange provides no facility to backup or restore a single mail file and any restore operations require a server.

Compatibility

Lotus Notes has a proven track-record of compatibility across versions and has demonstrated none of the compatibility issues that plagued CompanyX’s upgrade of our Microsoft Access and SQL databases. In addition to cross-platform compatibility, Lotus Notes also has greater support for current internet technologies than the Microsoft offering, in particular, support for Java.

Overall Recommendations

It is recommended that CompanyX remain on our current Lotus Notes / Domino platform for the foreseeable future and that maintenance of this platform continues. Security audits of the Lotus Notes server should be scheduled annually and should be conducted by an independent party. There is also a need for greater expenditure in the areas of overall network security in accordance with the issues raised in the IT strategic plan.

PersonX

IT MANAGER

Useful References

On the security risks of Open Source Systems

Study: Open source poses security risks

http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1104-929669.html

By Matthew Broersma

ZDNet (UK)

May 31, 2002, 9:30 AM PT

Open Source: The New Security Problem Child?

http://www.esecurityplanet.com/trends/article.php/10751_1549211

November 27, 2002

By Paul Desmond

On the ongoing Microsoft security problems

Gartner suggests IT managers drop IIS

http://www.idg.net/ic_699845_1773_1-3921.html

By Sam Costello

September 25, 2001 1:32 pm PT

Be Alert to Ongoing Microsoft Security Problems

http://cc.uoregon.edu/cnews/summer2002/ms_holes.html

Computing News 2002

Experts: Microsoft security gets an ‘F’

http://www.cnn.com/2003/TECH/biztech/02/01/microsoft.security.reut/

CNN.Com Technology Saturday, February 1, 2003

On the gradual shift away from Microsoft dependance.

Microsoft Warns Of Open-Source Pricing Threat

http://www.informationweek.com/story/IWK20030204S0009

Feb. 4, 2003

Microsoft Licensing 6.0 Survey

(38% of Respondants may switch from Microsoft to other companies)

http://www.sunbelt-software.com/survey_02mar.cfm

March 2002

Norwich Union will upgrade 34,000 PCs : Insurer aims to reduce its dependence on Microsoft

http://www.itweek.co.uk/News/1138351

By Andy McCue [29-01-2003]

Linux breaks Windows in Germany (Munich Govt replacing the Windows on 14,000 PCs)

http://www.guardian.co.uk/microsoft/Story/0,2763,967895,00.html

Simon Moores

The Observer Sunday June 1, 2003

On the Microsoft Incompatibility with Java

Windows XP to be Java-free following dispute

http://www.usatoday.com/tech/techreviews/2001-07-18-microsoft-java.htm

07/18/2001

It’s Official: Microsoft Must Ship Java

http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,3959,840695,00.asp

January 22, 2003

By Darryl K. Taft

Judge to Microsoft: Include Java

http://line56.com/articles/default.asp?ArticleID=4283&TopicID=3

by Demir Barlas, Line56

Tuesday, December 24, 2002

Microsoft Java Ruling: Too Little, Too Late?

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,4149,808384,00.asp

By Sebastian Rupley

January 6, 2003

Major Pro-Lotus Notes Articles

Lotus and Microsoft wrangle for e-mail market share

http://searchdomino.techtarget.com/originalContent/0,289142,sid4_gci867847,00.html?Exclusive=True

By Eric B. Parizo, News Editor

09 Dec 2002, SearchDomino.com

The Radicati Group report: “Messaging Total Cost of Ownership 2003”

From: http://www-3.ibm.com/software/swnews/swnews.nsf/n/jmae5kmt7l?OpenDocument&Site=lotus

17 March 2003

IBM software strategy: Knock off Microsoft

http://www.nwfusion.com/news/2003/0106ibmsoftware.html

By John Fontana and Ann Bednarz

Network World, 01/06/03

What’s Coming from IBM Post-Lotus Notes/Domino 6?

From: http://lotusadvisor.com/doc/09697

8th May 2002

The Domino Advantage

Lotus Domino is the Best Upgrade for MS Exchange.

http://www.ableone.com/grafix/lotus/domino/Ax_Ex_2_Do.PDF

Ferris Research report – “Don’t Bother Migrating from Notes/Domino to Exchange”

http://www-3.ibm.com/software/swnews/swnews.nsf/n/shoy5hsh28?OpenDocument&Site=default

6 January 2003

Comdex: ROI lessons learned from four CIOs

http://www.computerworld.com/managementtopics/roi/story/0,10801,76063,00.html

By THOMAS HOFFMAN (Computerworld)

November 20, 2002

8

Subject: Excellent

I am not in a business where I need this sort of information frequently, but I’ll definitely keep this info to pass on to some others who are.

9

Subject: Also highlight Domino successes every few months…

I’ve also recommended highlighting Domino successes (i.e., we’ve save $$ by consolidation this year) and play up the Exchange trauma. You can do this every few months in order to keep a positive light on Domino.

My favorite was an Exchange service pack that was issued two years ago that BROKE Exchange. It was comical in that in one day, Exchange servers world-wide went down. This article was on news.com (it might still be there). Of course MS fixed it with a service pack for a service pack, but noneless these kinds of things leave a subtle impression on anyone that hears it.

10

Subject: Here… re: Also highlight Domino successes every few months…

http://news.com.com/2100-1001-268382.html?legacy=cnet

11

Subject: nice work to both you and Michael Robinson

Maybe I can retire soon, especially since we’re still #1 :slight_smile:

–Ed

12

Subject: *Excellent post.

13

Subject: I profoundly disagree!

Everything you say is true, but do you think Microsoft got to where they are with Outlook/Exchange vis-a-vis Notes by offering a superior product? Microsoft sells crappy stuff, but it sells it very, very well!

If you try to argue the case on its merits, you’ve lost. Every study you cite is refuted by another ten (paid for by who, do you think?) that says MS is the way to go. Talking tech-stuff to management is a total no-no. Your arguments are full of pinholes that MS will drive tractors through.

The bottom line is this - 5 years ago the ratio of Notes to MS was something like 3 to 1. Today it’s closer to parity or worse. And how did we get here - by being complacent because we have better products (ever heard of Macintosh?).

Wake up - I respect all you guys immensely, but there’s a lot to be done to reverse the trend, and sitting on our high horse isn’t it.

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Subject: RE: I profoundly disagree!

"but there’s a lot to be done to reverse the trend, and sitting on our high horse isn’t it."So what do you propose?

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Subject: RE: I profoundly disagree!

  1. Learn from our mistakes - fight MS in the arena where they are winning, not where we would like to - they are GOOD at what they do (sell stuff) not at what we do (make good stuff work). I’ve been in the game long enough to have worked with CPM and MPM - anybody out there even remember those names? I’ll bet Bill Gates does, and he’s laughing!

  2. Change IBM’s attitude - they don’t sell Lotus, they let you buy it (sometimes grudgingly)

  3. Stop doing what this thread suggests - waiting for MS to put up a case and then trying to knock it down. They plant seeds in management’s mind and you’ll never weed everyone of them out - in the end, especially where we have the client on board, we have to fight to keep him, and that means making MS the second speaker in the debate. Why does the server win most games in tennis - because he has the advantage of planning where to exploit his opponents weaknesses. Letting MS in first makes us the receiver instead of the server, and we’re losing! I just lost a major account here because MS got to them, put up their shpiel, and the IBM came back with “most of the answers”, but never with “all of the answers”. And you know what, money was NOT the deciding factor.

  4. Stop imagining that MS are the only crowd that makes mistakes. The crowing in this thread about a MS gaffe can be repeated for every major software product, including Lotus. If you imagine MS don’t have a portfolio of our mistakes, you’re DREAMING! How about the time that a low-level administrator in a sub office of one of the big-five accounting firms erased the NAB of every branch worldwide in an overnight replication! Try selling Notes as a stable environment, try selling our superior replication model to a management who’ve heard that story first!

I could go on like this for ages. The bottom line is that MS make bad products, and sell them incredibly well. We do the reverse! Unless we become what I said in my original post - proactive instead of reactive - then I fear for our future, and I’m way to old to be learning Exchange or whatever other product MS is thrusting down our throats if we fail.

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Subject: The goal is putting out the fire before it comes an inferno

In general what you aresaying is true. However the original creator of this thread needs silver bullets now to put down the vampire. So all the info presented in this thread is extremely valuable in staving off an immediate MS-Exchange threat.

Just a quick comment regarding the low-level admin blowing away the NAB. That seems to be a mistake of the admin not the vendor (in my case I cited a problem caused by a MS service patch). If an admin caused such an error, I would encourage the admin to start looking for a new job as that’s clearly pilot error…Just my two cents.

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Subject: re: Pilot Error

Even when the plane crashes from “pilot error”, you’ll still find the makers of the aircraft on the scene picking through the remains. If Domino is vulnerable to “user error” then it’s not the safe, secure tool we are trying to sell.

That was my point - we try to fight MS on the wrong battlefield with the wrong weapons, and we’re responding rather than attacking (read your von Clausewitz!).

18

Subject: not attacking?

http://www.lotus.com/move2lotus for example.

19

Subject: sorry, Ed but you’re missing my point

My first posting in this thread was to say that we have to take a different attitude to fighting off MS encroachment. We mustn’t wait for them to put up a case that we then try to knock down. We musn’t even let them get their foot in the door. Sadly, I seem to be a voice in the wilderness. If you already have a Lotus client and you sit back and let MS come in and do a sales pitch, then you’re going to lose. I just saw it. A hi-tech Nasdaq user for more than 5 years has kicked us out, and can give no better reasons than to trot out the usual MS story. And I know that the real reason is that MS in their presentations planted some poisionous weeds that we simply can’t kill off.

What I see in this thread, and in so much else that Lotus publishes, is a sense of smug complacency. We know our product is better, and it’s too bad if the client doesn’t see it. Well, I’ve got news for you, the client DOESN’T! How else do you explain that MS has captured more than half of the market that we used to dominate, with a product indescribably inferior to ours.

20

Subject: maybe that should be my new nick-name

“weed killer”.

Musn’t let Microsoft in the door? Hello? Every one of my customers has a contract with Microsoft for something – Windows, Office, etc. I don’t see how you propose to silence the sales pitch. So it’s really more a question of what you do given that.

I’ve been in a heck of a lot of sales situations in the last two years, and since beginning of 2002, my “weed killer” success rate is over 80%. I’m sorry about your high-tech client – what approach did you take that failed to convince them to stay with Lotus? I’d like to learn more from that.

Last point – “How else do you explain that MS has captured more than half of the market that we used to dominate, with a product indescribably inferior to ours.”

First of all, I’ve never seen any market study, even from the least-reputable publisher, that shows Microsoft to have more than 50% of the market. So when even someone like yourself fails to challenge the hype and perception, we have a bigger problem. Second, to answer the question of how Microsoft captured market share, well, this being a public forum, I don’t really think I can say what I think the real reason was. Someday when I retire, I’ll write the tell-all book on the topic.

Anyway, Henry, I believe you that we need to do more to keep MS away from Notes. That’s why I do my “Boss Loves Microsoft: Where does that leave Lotus” presentation at almost every conference or webcast possible. Have you seen it? Any thoughts?

–Ed/IBM Lotus