We’re getting ready to do a user-led review of email platforms (guess why…)
Since so many organizations go through this, has anyone prepared, or does anyone have a comprehensive list of “features” available in Outlook which are not available in Lotus Notes, and vice versa?
If you have one, would you please share it with me? I’d like to make sure I have all the information possible prior to the review.
Thanks in advance.
Subject: Outlook Client vs Lotus Client
Do you also use Domino for applications, and does the user-led team understand this and the ramnifications? Do they understand that there should really be a specific business objective to drive any change? As a company regulated by the SEC, you should really think long and hard before letting users make this 'decision".
Email me off line if you would like to discuss further.
Subject: Outlook Client vs Lotus Client
Working at a shop that was Exchange/Outlook to now Notes/Domino, I would rather stay the other way. We run into all sorts of issues with speed at the desktop using 6.5.4 and the portal (which may be more the folks at our shop that developed it) simply bites.
We have been using Outlook to replace the Notes client but you still have to have the Notes client installed for the connector to work and also you have to use the notes client to access the portal.
Subject: RE: Outlook Client vs Lotus Client
Are you using the microsoft connector? How is that working out with respect to speed.
Subject: RE: Outlook Client vs Lotus Client
If you’re using MICROSOFT’s connector, performance will be abyssmal. Personally, I believe that this was done deliberately by the MS programmers. Let me explain why…
In the Lotus world, a user’s name is typically hierarchical, following the x.500 naming standard. So the actual text string representing my identity, for instance, might be “CN=Nathan T. Freeman/O=OpenNTF” Outlook, on the other hand, doesn’t know this naming standard from Adam, and my mail identity in the Outlook world would simply be “Nathan T. Freeman” or perhaps, “Nathan_Freeman@openntf.org”
So, when the developers of the Microsoft connector looked at the messages they retrieved from the Domino server, they would see all the names in the To, From, and CC fields under the hierarchical format of “CN=Your Name/O=Your Company”.
Now, any NORMAL programmer, when faced with this, would think “I have to parse the text of each of these names, to capture only what’s between ‘CN=’ and the next ‘/’,” right? That’s basically one line of code, even if you’re not very good at writing code.
However, the MS guys apparently also noted that the “common name” portion of a user’s name is the second entry in name list for that user in the Domino Directory. So rather than write a single line of text parsing code, they elected to, for each and every user in the To, From and CC lists, PERFORM A LOOKUP AGAINST THE DOMINO SERVER TO RETRIEVE THE SECOND NAME IN THE LIST.
Can you imagine the performance impact of such an action? It shouldn’t be difficult. Retrieving an email would be basically a single request & response action before, but this technique means that there is an additional request & response for every user in the distribution list for the email! God help you if you happen to retrieve a piece of internal spam!
LOTUS’s connector, on the other hand, is pretty good with all this. I think the latest DAMO (6.5.5?) just came out of beta. Or will very shortly.
As far as Dale’s remarks about their portal go, since there’s no native portal tool from IBM for the Notes client that I know of, it’s probably safe to say that their internal developers put something together. And if there’s any single failing of Domino, it’s that it makes it SUPER easy to build terrible apps. Since we don’t know what platform, design strategy or back-end access is involved here, there’s no way to evaluate it. But it would certainly be the case that whatever it is, the matter is specific to his environment, and bears no relationship to your initial question concerning mail usage.
If you are concerned about performance, I’d suggest simply testing both. Notes 7 is quick at the desktop, and my experience with Outlook (admittedly 2000, not 2003 or later) was that it was, at best, on par with Notes performance for mail. One thing, though, it takes FOREVER to shut down an Outlook client. Notes closes about 2 seconds after you click on “X”.
Subject: Outlook Client vs Lotus Client
Also, Ed Brill just referenced this Industry Analysis:
“Many Domino-related inquiries that Gartner receives come from longtime Domino customers actively considering a migration to Microsoft products, although few have actually made the move.”
Subject: Outlook Client vs Lotus Client
Not exactly about features, just my own experience:
2,500 users on 2 clustered Domino servers;
Both client and web access for mail and most applications;
Not a single minute of down time for 2 years;
Support personnel: 1 person;
Upgrade from Domino 5 to 6 in 30 min.
800 users on 7 Exchange servers;
Clients supported: Outlook only;
No applications;
Crashes at least once a week;
Support personnel: 2 persons;
Upgrade: (I don’t do it myself, but a whole weekend is usually planned)
Regards,
Simeon