News
Messaging Wars
- By Scott Bekker
- 08/12/1999
The messaging battle continues between Microsoft Exchange and Lotus Notes. Out of Redmond today comes a report that Exchange has beaten out Notes for new seats in the first half of 1999 in domestic and worldwide sales.
The exact figures come from International Data Corp. (IDC, www.idc.com) which plans to launch a first half report in the next couple of weeks. In the report, IDC states that in the United States, 3,982,000 new seats of Exchange were recorded in the first half of this year, while 2,870,000 seats were recorded for Notes.
In worldwide sales, Exchange sold 8,102,000 seats, while Lotus sold 7,429,000. That's a difference of 1,112,000 U.S. seats and 673,000 worldwide.
Ian Campbell, an analyst at IDC, says champagne corks shouldn't be popping across the state of Washington just yet. Users of the legacy messaging server cc:Mail have already converted to Lotus Notes. Microsoft, however, is still in the process of moving everyone from Microsoft Mail to the Exchange Server.
"The numbers are interesting," Campbell says. "But I wouldn't sell any stock on this." -- Brian Ploskina
About the Author
Scott Bekker is editor in chief of Redmond Channel Partner magazine.