Analysis: Exchange aims to rival Lotus Notes

Microsoft?s ambition to rid Exchange of its email tag and propel it into the territory of groupware is becoming a reality.

A third-party developer, called Keyfile, has launched software that enhances Exchange with services to make it more like its rival, Lotus Notes.

Keyflow is a set of graphical tools that can be used to build document workflow capabilities without the need develop code.

Analysts are urging users to bide their time in adopting the technology. Meta Group senior business analyst Ashim Pal said the bolt-ons should be adopted tactically ? on a department or project basis.

?These products are not mature. Now is not the time to make a big commitment to workflow. If you need the technology then use it tactically, but be prepared to rip it out,? Pal said.

Kevin Dessoy, groupware services manager for actuary Bacon and Woodrow and a user of Lotus Notes, was sceptical about the chances of the third-party bolt-ons drawing users away from Notes, saying Microsoft?s current groupware strategy is too piecemeal.

?We would change if the functionality had a significant impact on the business. But Exchange doesn?t have significant impact. Notes is way ahead,? he said.

Meta Group?s Pal agreed that Notes has more flexible workgroup features, underpinned by IBM?s MQSeries middleware which manages message delivery across crowded networks.

Microsoft has largely been playing groupware catch-up this year, Pal said, adding that its products still require too much coding by in-house developers to join everything together.

?Microsoft doesn?t have the great vision to be able to tell how the bits fit together. They are not coherent when it comes to message queueing, and the transaction throughput is only suitable for small environments. If you?re looking at workflow from Microsoft, forget it,? he said.

Grant Pearson, chairman of the Lotus User Forum, labelled Microsoft?s strategy as ?dangerous?. He issued a warning to users to expect a ?bug nightmare? with the deployment of the bolt-ons.

He added: ?Users will need to keep up with versions of each separate product and there is no guarantee of compatibility,? he said.

Another concern is third-party support. Dessoy, who administers Notes users at eight sites for Bacon and Woodrow, warned that seeking support for third-party add-ons would be slower and more costly than support from a single vendor.

?We have enough problems getting support at the moment. If you are going to a third party, they are going to refer back to Microsoft and then eventually come back to you with an answer,? he said.

Despite reservations about Exchange bolt-ons, Pearson said Microsoft would nibble away at Lotus? dominance in the groupware arena using Exchange.

He pointed to the increasing pace of developments in third-party bolt-ons, coupled with the ever-expanding presence of Windows NT in the corporate sector. ?Microsoft is getting there slowly,? he conceded.

Ed McLauchlan, Keyfile?s vice president of worldwide sales, said Keyflow will help the adoption of Exchange because it will appeal to ordinary department managers. Unlike Notes, Key flow doesn?t require a specialist administrator to manage servers and develop workflows, he said.

?If I?m a departmental head I want to set up what I can and use it that day. I don?t want to have to call a programme manager,? McLauchlan said.

Keyfile is not the first company to help bridge the functionality gap between Lotus and Exchange. Eastman and Staffware have also launched Exchange bolt-ons that introduce replication ? a key feature of Notes ? into Exchange.

Replication enables a document to be stored on many servers, with all changes being published to each server, so that there are never two different copies of a document in existence.

? Report by Gavin Clarke.