IBM has new plan to attract Outlook users
Friday February 23 02:15 PM EST
By Grant Du Bois, eWEEK
IBM is stepping up efforts to win Microsoft Corp.'s
(Nasdaq:MSFT - news) Outlook installed base.
Specifically, Big Blue wants to give Outlook e-mail users an
alternative to accessing Microsoft Exchange, Windows and NT
server farms by letting them migrate to Lotus Development
Corp.'s Domino server.
IBM will announce on Monday Lotus Domino iNotes Access for
Microsoft Outlook, a connector that enables users to consolidate
Exchange servers onto one IBM eServer iSeries Dedicated Server for
Domino without changing the look and feel of their Outlook clients,
said officials of the Armonk, N.Y., company.
IBM expects this strategy to help Outlook customers save on the
"spiraling costs" of hiring IT personnel to manage the server farms
and to improve their functionality, reliability and security on iSeries,
officials said.
"Typically, on NT, you run one application on one server -- mail, file,
print, database, Domain Name Server, Web -- and they run on
separate Intel servers," said Ian Jarman, manager of iSeries product
marketing, in Rochester, Minn. "Inside of iSeries, we have the ability to run multiple
iterations of a mail server. This allows us to balance the performance between mail servers,
to bring down and maintain a single mail server without affecting other mail servers. We
have the ability to partition multiple mail servers within a single server."
Skepticism in Redmond
A Microsoft official took issue with IBM's plan.
"They're blowing smoke," said Chris Baker, lead product manager for Exchange Server, in
Redmond, Wash. "I'm skeptical of how they can support Outlook users. ... Exchange has
storage groups and multiple databases. Users will lose functionality by going through
Domino."
IBM is looking to tap an estimated 50 million Outlook users worldwide, translating to about
500,000 Exchange servers or one Exchange server handling 100 to 600 clients. Microsoft
customers typically have five or more servers, with some large enterprises having hundreds
of servers, according to IBM.
IBM eServer iSeries Dedicated Server for Domino, announced last October, is capable of
handling from 1,000 to 10,000 e-mail and calendar users, officials said. Jarman even claimed
that iSeries DSD can support up to 75,000 users.
Lotus Domino iNotes Access for Microsoft Outlook is available from IBM and IBM Lotus
business partners for $50. |
