
Submission + - IBM's new inexpensive Notes/Domino push against MS (ibm.com) 1
Deviant writes: Speaking as an IT consultant, the one big gap in the Linux stack is in its messaging/collaboration stack. Outlook with Exchange is a fine product which many businesses truly rely on and it is almost impossible to match on Linux — server or desktop. The one competitor to MS in this space has always been Lotus Notes/Domino, which has always left many with the impression of being expensive, bloated and unfriendly. I certainly wouldn't have considered it for the small businesses that we usually sell on MS's SBS server product.
That is why I was truly surprised when I was told about the new Domino Express Licensing and Notes 8. This is a product that now has both native server and client versions for both Mac and Linux. Notes 8, as well as now being written in Eclipse, also includes an integrated office suite called Lotus Symphony. This should conceivably let a user do all of their work in the one application. And you now can license both the server and client components together for as low as $100/user.
Is this the silver bullet to take out the entire MS stack — server, client and office? Or will IBM drop the ball yet again?