Report: Groupware market
doubles
By Erich Luening
Staff Writer, CNET NEWS.COM
May 7, 1998, 2:00 p.m. PT
Driven by broad market support for Internet
standards and increasing business reliance on
groupware products, the worldwide market for
collaborative systems doubled in 1997, according
to a report by the International Data Corporation.
The study, released yesterday, put Lotus
Development's Domino/Notes at the head of the 50
million new user market followed by Microsoft
Exchange, Novell GroupWise, and Netscape
SuiteSpot.
Although Lotus
commands the market, the
authors of the report said
they were surprised at the
speed at which Microsoft
has shrunk the gap
between its Exchange and
Lotus Domino/Notes.
"It's already in range of
catching up with Lotus in
terms of new users," said
Mark Levitt, an analyst
with IDC and an author of
the study. "But Lotus is
still way ahead in terms of total users." In fact,
Novell is even ahead of Microsoft in total users,
holding second place in 1997.
The news supports another report released earlier
this week that said Lotus was indeed loosing
ground in the new user market. Electronic Mail &
Messaging Systems (EMMS), a biweekly
newsletter, reported that 3.5 million Exchange client
licenses were sold worldwide during the first
quarter of 1998, compared to 2.7 million Lotus
Notes licenses sold during the same period.
Levitt said assuming those numbers are correct, the
report does reveal great momentum by Microsoft in
the new user market.
In looking at the groupware industry as a whole,
IDC expects worldwide revenues to reach more
than $2.4 billion by 2002, up from $1.3 billion in
1997.
As a result of the growing groupware market, the
report noted a declining market for email and other
information sharing products as more and more
users demand network or Web-centric
collaborative systems. It also said group
calendaring, scheduling, and electronic conferencing
products demonstrated double-digit revenue
growth worldwide in 1997. |
