Microsoft Retains E-Mail Lead
Michele Pepe
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09/21/98
Computer Reseller News
Page I39
Copyright 1998 CMP Publications Inc.
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Microsoft Corp. proved most popular among businesses of all sizes in the E-mail category of the most recent CRN Inside Spending brand-preference poll.
Among large companies, the Redmond, Wash.-based behemoth was cited by 44 percent of respondents. Lotus Development Corp., a subsidiary of IBM Corp., Armonk, N.Y., came in second with 37 percent.
In the midsize-business space, 46 percent of respondents said they use E-mail from Microsoft, while 20 percent said they use Lotus software. Microsoft earned a share of 38 percent among small companies, vs. 9 percent for Lotus.
Novell Inc., Orem, Utah, came in a distant third, named by 7 percent of large companies, 8 percent of midsize firms and 1 percent of small businesses.
Officials of both Microsoft and Lotus said the poll results can be attributed in part to the different approaches the companies have taken to marketing their respective E-mail products.
While Microsoft replaced MS Mail with the Exchange messaging and collaboration package, Lotus continued to market two separate products: Notes for groupware and cc:Mail for messaging.
"Lotus orphaned its cc:Mail product, in a sense. Most cc:Mail users are moving to . . . Exchange, which offers more of what cc:Mail users are used to and is a more scalable product," said Dave Malcolm, Microsoft's group product manager for Exchange Server. "We don't sell MS Mail much anymore. Exchange was our upgrade for MS Mail, in essence, and we made the migration path seamless."
When it comes to messaging software, Microsoft leads first and foremost in interoperability, Malcolm said, adding that the company offers excellent migration tools for MS Mail and cc:Mail users looking to make the switch to Exchange.
"Exchange is architected to be an enterprise-ready messaging solution," Malcolm said. "We've had significant success with Exchange in the messaging space because we [deliver] from the standpoint of interoperability, scalability, reliability and manageability."
Ken Bisconti, director of Notes product marketing at Lotus, Cambridge, Mass., conceded that the market for pure messaging products is shrinking, but he maintained that cc:Mail continues to be a popular package, especially among midsize companies.
"In the enterprise, Notes is stronger than cc:Mail," Bisconti said. "Simple mail programs such as cc:Mail and MS Mail make up a market segment of their own that is declining because users are upgrading to groupware environments that offer richer, more scalable E-mail, plus calendaring and other collaboration applications."
That integrated market is growing about 35 percent each year as accounts migrate to groupware, he said.
September 21, 1998
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