"Military Intelligence" is an oxymoron, but is this a dichotomy?
(Oh well, makes for interesting reading anyway)
Let's see, lesson 1:
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STUDY SHOWS LOTUS NOTES OUTSELLS EXCHANGE, GROUPWISE AND COLLABRA SHARE COMBINED
Topic Matched: Collaborative Computing
Comtex, October 1, 1996
PC Magazine Selects Notes 4.1 Editors' Choice in Competitive Roundup
CAMBRIDGE, Mass., Oct. 1 /PRNewswire/ -- A study officially released last
week by International Data Corp. (IDC) of Framingham, Mass., says Lotus Notes leads the race for new users of collaborative applications software, outselling combined sales of Microsoft Exchange, Novell GroupWise, and Netscape/Collabra Share. IDC's analysis of this market, which reached an estimated $290 million for the first half of 1996, says Lotus Notes captured approximately 1.61 million users, or 37 percent of 4.3 million new users worldwide. This is more than twice as many new users as its nearest competitor, Novell GroupWise. Microsoft Exchange placed third. The study measures new, non-bundled mailboxes or users, but does not provide analysis of the collaborative applications server market, which will be covered later this year.
"Our study shows Lotus Notes captured the majority of new users in the first half of 1996," said Ian Campbell, director, Collaborative and Internet Computing, at IDC. "Lotus is increasing its momentum in the rapidly growing collaborative market by embracing the intranet as a key component of Notes. As companies look toward a groupware strategy that encompasses both traditional network-based groupware and Intranet-based collaboration, Lotus Notes continues to be well positioned as a solution that offers the best of both worlds."
"This study highlights some of the same problems we're seeing among enterprise customers evaluating Exchange and Lotus Notes, which ultimately leads them to choose Notes, " said Steve Sayre, vice president of marketing, Lotus Development Corp. "Most problematic is Microsoft's NT-only server strategy, which doesn't account for the reality that most mission critical information is stored in legacy servers. This will limit Exchange's growth in the enterprise groupware segment. Additionally, Microsoft's latest positioning
shift for Exchange -- away from a Notes competitor to just another BackOffice tool -- weakens Exchange's credibility as an enterprise groupware solution.
"We think it's important for customers to see all the facts and we encourage them to investigate the recent industry analyst reports, as well as the product reviews of the collaborative software market," Sayre said. "Notes has won virtually every comparative product review for the past year, whether the measurement criteria has been collaborative applications development, e- mail scalability, or internet affinity."
Editors' Choice
This week, PC Magazine releases its Groupware Comparative Review (vol. 17, issue 10/8) with Notes Release 4.1 receiving the Editors' Choice award overMicrosoft Exchange and Netscape SuiteSpot.
"What groupware means depends on the group that uses it," said Tony Pompili, PC Magazine's review author. "The best products combine a strong messaging core with a programming environment that can spawn whatever collaborative features the group needs. Lotus Notes Release 4.1, our Editors' Choice, is such a combination. Notes provides excellent tools for creating custom groupware applications."
In addition, the review says, "Domino provides such thorough access to Notes functions from a Web browser that it earned Notes a higher 'suitability totask' rating for Internet integration than Netscape's SuiteSpot."
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Lesson 2:
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GroupWise GETS CLASSY LAUNCH; NOTES AND EXCHANGE TARGETED
Topic Matched: Collaborative Computing
Electronic Mail & Messaging Systems, September 30, 1996
What can be said about a news conference that begins with little cakes
containing the corporate logo and ends with a concert by Harry Connick
Jr.? What can be said of the site, a grand old art deco theater called
the Supper Club, nestled between the Broadway musicals and the bustle of Times Square? Call it "Mission: Impossible, the Launch of GroupWise 5" and the unveiling of the add-ons that bring it fax, voice mail and
wireless capabilities. For weeks, Novell Inc. had been sending out
cryptic messages and trinkets befitting what turned out to be a night
adhering to the "Mission: Impossible" theme. There were the music, the
spies and the plot (to recapture purloined copies of GroupWise 5 and
save the world). And there was the message delivered somewhat effectively that GroupWise 5 was ready to host the mission-critical
applications of small, medium-sized and large businesses. After hearing the theme music and watching a short spy thriller action film, one would not have been surprised if actor Peter Graves had walked out and introduced himself as the new president of Novell, but that starring role went to Joe Marengi, who's had the job for just a few weeks. "We're not just launching a new product tonight," Marengi said. "Novell is launching a new attitude in everything you'll see about us: the way we advertise, the way that we launch our products and the way the company executes in the future." Is Novell Getting Feisty? It may be too early to tell for sure, but one does get the impression after the Supper Club show and a "directory shootout" staged between Novell and Microsoft Corp. products (see story, p. 1) a week later at the Networld+Interop show with the help of boxer Sugar Ray Leonard, that Novell is shedding its shy underachiever image, speaking up for itself and standing up to the Internet bullies who have cast the company as part of the past. During the transition from Ray Noorda to Robert Frankenberg to Joe Marengi, the company increasingly has tired of its position as a victim of the Internet protocol onslaught. As one executive told EMMS, "Novell will breathe Internet." Marengi launched into this theme almost immediately. "The Internet has become the topic of the network conversation," he said. "In fact, over the next four years, Intranets are expected to eclipse the growth of the Internet by a factor of six. Spending on software for Intranets will exceed $10 billion over the next four years. Novell is here to tell you that we will be a major player in that space." "Right out of the box," he noted, GroupWise 5 supports a full spectrum of industry standards for both groupware and messaging, "and it has the best set of collaboration tools available in the marketplace. It leverages all of the Internet's innovations, and it runs across multiple platforms." He then predicted that GroupWise will move up one or two positions in its messaging market share, past Lotus Notes, Microsoft Exchange or possibly both. If it has 7 million users now, though, it's probably already ahead of both products (but behind cc:Mail and MS Mail). Perhaps what he meant by his forecast was that GroupWise 5 will outsell Microsoft Exchange version 4 and Lotus Notes release 4,
both of which were introduced earlier this year. Not Dead Yet Steve
Markman, executive vice president of the Novell Product Group, followed Marengi onstage to remind everyone that the NetWare operating system still has nearly 55 million users. "Existing networks are not dead," he said, echoing Lotus Vice President Mike Zisman's quote in January at the time of Notes R4's launch that "the notion that Notes is dead, is dead." Existing networks, Markman said, "are the foundation of the corporate Intranet. In short, without the 'Net, there can be no Intranet." Then he started telling war stories from the 1980s. "In the old days," Markman said, "Novell defined the NOS. We brought the whole table: the operating system, and networking services like file, print, security and directory. Then we added other services like management and messaging. "Novell's approach turned the network conversation from a hardware conversation to a NOS conversation. Hardware became a choice, not a requirement. But now the industry is moving into a network services model, based on open Internet standards. The Intranet table stands on a number of legs, including NetWare, NT and Unix. This gives our customers the freedom to choose whatever operating system - or combination of operating systems - they need for their Intranet applications." Markman also noted that the client/server conversation frequently was limited to
proprietary solutions, in which only a given vendor's client would work with a given server product. "People and their organizations often found themselves boxed into proprietary solutions. But the Intranet conversation is driven by users and vendors together in a balanced approach. To be successful in this environment, we're focusing our efforts on network services and protocols based on Internet standards. We're going from a strictly prix fixe menu to one that also features a la carte. "In the client/server world, the operating system is king. In today's environment, network services are king. They can run on any platform, they're based on open standards, and they're accessible through open developer interfaces. GroupWise 5 embraces this philosophy," Markman concluded. Catching a Flight to Silicon Valley Unfortunately, a few days later, Markman resigned from Novell to take the top spot at General Magic Inc. (see Business and Personnel item, p. 17). One would think that this, on top of Frankenberg's recent departure, would have added to the image of chaos that surrounds the Novell executive board room in Provo, Utah, but the market doesn't seem to think so. Shares of Novell, which have been sinking steadily for months, may have bottomed out in mid-September at around $10. Since then, they have been rising a few cents every day.
novell.com COPYRIGHT 1996 BRP Publications
(c) 1996 Information Access Co. ALL RTS RESERVED
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Joe <My account, My time, I speak for myself. My viewpoints in no way
reflect those of my employer> |
