Lotus to target 6 million Microsoft Exchange users
Tags :Domino 8 Microsoft Exchange
Haven't seen this announcement? Of course you have. Lotus says it everyday in an attempt to get customers to migrate over to Domino. The same tools that are in place to migrate you in are the same to migrate you out. Why would Microsoft make the same statement that started getting talked about last week? Well to stir the pot and prep more announcements on future releases, mainly in the collaboration software space.
Does Lotus always know who uses Notes for mail/messaging or just applications? Possibly by the license type. Many people just buy the package that includes both, but they may use something else for email. We run into if often.
So the fight becomes what does my friend/neighbor/competition run. If everyone moves to some new piece of software, look at BleedYellow and PlanetLotus for perfect examples, then many more follow. While this is Lotus specific for an example, the point is proven that we listen to those we think know the most or give the best argument. Microsoft sales employees are trained to tell you the best story possible. Do you know how often we have to deal with this scenario based on the number of customers we host and often represent in meetings? Far too many from both directions. 90% of the time the company has already made their mind up on what tey want to use for collaboration and email in the SMB space. The fight is over how much from there. Give me the best deal, not who can archive better and has chat.
If we drill down to basics, the training of the Microsoft employees is generally how to battle against the competition. That is always hot for them. The training of the Lotus sales is the software of the moment. If we bring them in to talk email to keep an account, the pitch Portal and Connections. If we bring them in for licensing talks, they pitch Portal and Connections. What is hot for the moment to them.
So what do we do? Sit and watch the 2 go back and forth over how many seats were sold, how many are installed and who is the case study. Then we go back to our dark holes of an office and play with it ourselves. Call our grandpa, flip a coin, spin a dial or get out the darts. Either way it is the cost factor once we decide both are just close enough to make either software work.
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On Monday, July 28th, 2008 by Chris Miller
