Recently, there has been a flurry of activity in the groupware arena. Windows NT Magazine wanted to know exactly what the different vendors mean when they call their products "groupware" and which groupware application for Windows NT best suits the needs of today's companies. So we talked with Tim Dempsey, Director of Lotus Notes Marketing, Greg Lobdell, Product Manager for Microsoft Exchange, and Steve Richard, Product Marketing Manager for Collabra Share. We thought you might be interested in their responses.
edited by Jane Morrill
What is your product and what does it do?
Lotus: Lotus Notes is a platform for developing and deploying the client/server applications that structure information flow in the enterprise. It helps you to communicate, collaborate, and coordinate key business processes. Notes includes email but goes far beyond it. It enables you to share the collective intelligence found in word processing documents, email messages, and faxes.
Microsoft: Microsoft Exchange Server is an email server integrated with groupware. It provides messaging with an easy-to-use interface to integrate email, group scheduling, and workgroup applications. Exchange Server is scaleable and provides a client/server base with a distributed infrastructure, making it easier to design and integrate workgroup applications.
Collabra: Collabra Share is a group-conferencing product that enables you to share information and electronic discussions. Discussion forums allow you to discuss key issues, solicit input, communicate decisions, and store important documents. Share enhances team communications, allows continuous distribution of information, and reduces email overload and voice mail.
What is the single biggest enterprise problem your product addresses?
Lotus: Notes helps you manage document-oriented information. Many business processes from account management to customer-service tracking to policy management share this problem. Notes provides a distributed document database as a solution.
Microsoft: For administrators, Exchange Server provides administrative control thus lowering the cost of maintenance. For end users, Exchange Client provides a universal in-box for all types of information: email messages, faxes, voice-mail messages, documents, etc.
Collabra: Share addresses the problem of arranging frequent and meaningful interaction among large, busy, dispersed, and often traveling workgroups.
How large a system do I need before I consider your product?
Lotus: People use Notes in environments ranging from one individual connected to a public network to corporations with tens of thousands of employees using it for enterprise applications. So it really doesn't matter. Whether Notes is right for you depends on what you need to do, not on how many of you there are.
Microsoft: Exchange Server can benefit a two-person partnership, as well as an enterprise with hundreds of thousands of users. Email, Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP)/Internet Mail exchange, easy administration, information sharing, and "no code" application development are important to the small companies. For the large organizations, Exchange's connectivity and administration features are the focus.
Collabra: It makes sense to consider Share when LAN-based email is installed and you want to improve productivity, decision making, or quality by increasing teamwork. You can use our product with as few as 10 users or as many as thousands.
How scaleable is your product?
Lotus: One of Notes greatest strengths is its scaleability. There are several Notes installations in place today with over 30,000 users. In Release 4, to be delivered at the end of this year, Lotus has implemented a number of scaleability features, including larger directory support, larger database support, greater user support per server, and improved support of symmetric multiprocessor (SMP) systems. Improving the scaleability of Notes continues to be a top priority at Lotus.
Microsoft: It's difficult to determine the maximum number of users per Exchange Server, especially in a lab environment, without using such tools as simulators. Actual customer usage or vendor figures are often used to determine the maximum. The other variable in the equation is the configuration of the machine used. Microsoft will continue to work on improving the scaleability of the product between now and the time it is shipped.
Collabra: Share supports hundreds of users per server. It's designed to be scaleable across a large enterprise with thousands of users, using enterprise-strength replication to keep forums synchronized at different locations and employing administrator tools that allow you to perform most configuration, monitoring, and control centrally. Share has a registry that contains all of the enterprise's configuration information. It is automatically replicated between different sites. Share also has a Policy-Based Replication feature that allows you to configure replication across an enterprise from a single location.
Speaking of replication, what kind of replication does your system use?
Lotus: Notes provides synchronous remote procedure call (RPC)-based replication which works reliably even in complex configurations. It's bi-directional--changes can flow both ways--and done at the document level. It provides server-to-user as well as server-to-server replication so you can take your work with you. Notes' replication can even be selective, allowing you to take only specific information, if you wish. It can be peer-to-peer between servers, hub-to-spoke, or any mixture of replication styles. Release 4 will allow field-level replication, which reduces conflicts in bi-directional systems because it can "merge" separately changed fields of the same document.
Microsoft: Exchange Server enables you to have multiple synchronized copies of Public Folders in different locations no matter how you are connected. Synchronized copies of a folder can reside on different servers, distributing the processing load and improving response time. They can reside at different sites, reducing the amount of long-distance traffic needed to access data. If a server holding one copy of a folder becomes unavailable, other servers can be accessed transparently. Replication uses Exchange Server's fault-tolerant messaging infrastructure. Administrators only need to select which servers receive replicas of the folders, but they can also control when replication occurs and how information is distributed, if they wish.
Collabra: Share has implemented replication using email as the transport. This approach lets you replicate information to any location you can send an email message to. It's indispensable for collaborating with partners, via the Internet, and with remote sites, that aren't connected to the corporate LAN. In addition, it enables you to utilize your existing email infrastructure instead of building a new replication infrastructure. You can leverage the existing message routing, message-transfer protocols, message gateways, encryption, modems, and email-management tools for replicating.
What enabling technologies do you offer to remote/laptop users?
Lotus: Notes can replicate applications to remote PCs or laptops, so you can use your applications the same as you would in the office--creating, editing, or deleting documents and mail messages. Local databases are synchronized with the office server and mail messages are routed at a later time. Mail resides both on the server and locally, so you don't have to manage it manually, and you can use different computers without losing your mail. Selective replication, large-document truncation, and optional purge intervals help you to manage your disk space and connection time. Also, Release 4 will add usability features specifically for mobile users--selectable locations at which to store desktop and communications preferences, a Replicator interface to simplify that process, and a server "passthrough" capability so a single phone call can reach multiple servers.
Microsoft: Exchange supports remote users transparently: The client is remotely enabled without any additional software. And multiple user profiles enable you to switch from a LAN to Remote-ISDN to a remote modem painlessly.
Collabra: Share is designed to work with Remote Node solutions, such as Shiva, Remote Access Service (RAS), and NetWare Connect. The Share Client/ Server Edition, which is optimized for remote connections, minimizes the amount of data that needs to be transmitted over a dial-up connection by submitting only high-level requests to the server. This approach translates into good performance using a standard 14.4K bps modem. Share optimizes remote performance by preloading the next page of data in the background and handling attachments and embedded objects intelligently. If an embedded object is detected while using a low-speed line, it is displayed as a box with its size indicated. Then, you can view the embedded object by double-clicking on the box.
How does your product help end users?
Lotus: Notes helps average end users by providing a platform with which they can communicate with one another, collaborate on projects or issues, and coordinate processes and workflow. It can help them achieve their business objectives.
Microsoft: Exchange provides end users with email, a universal in-box, enterprise-wide directory services, group scheduling, discussion forums, document sharing, and integration with Microsoft Office applications.
Collabra: Share gives average end users the tools they need to combat information overload. It enables them to ignore discussions, view documents at a later time, and keep hot lists of important documents.