Begin with an overview of problems and solutions relating to technology selection, starting with the problem:
1. Project teams have no effective way to identify the critical vendor and product questions necessary to successfully initiate the evaluation process.
2. Project teams have no ability to effectively prioritize the different criteria, once identified, relative to one another. As a result, final priorities are often more the result of internal political agendas than true needs and requirements.
3. Project teams have no ability to gather objective, validated, updated data on the available vendor alternatives. It is a well-known problem that vendors have a tendency to exaggerate product, service and corporate capabilities if it enables them to move to the next phase of the deal.
4. According to our research, the net result has been that over 80% of enterprise technology evaluations run over time and budget, and that once selected, over 50% of the implementations fail to meet functional and total cost expectations.
So what's the solution?
The solution is to create a structured, repeatable process for evaluating technology solutions and the vendors that provide them. Best practices drawn from TechnologyEvaluation.Com client organizations that have completed internal technology selections suggest that project teams should examine six key criteria groupings. The first three criteria sets should examine product specific capabilities, while the second three should investigate the software vendor's overall corporate capabilities.
So what are the criteria groupings?
1. Product Functionality - Simply put, this evaluates the features and functions delivered by the product, as it exists today.
2. Product Technology - This criterion defines the technical architecture of the product, and the technological environment in which the product can run successfully.
3. Product Cost - Initial and Ongoing cost of product, this is not TCO as it does not account for internal support costs.
4. Corporate Service and Support - This criterion defines the capability of the vendor to provide a high level of implementation services and ongoing support.
5. Corporate Viability - This is a critical yet often overlooked category that should examine the financial and management strength of the vendor.
6. Corporate Strategy - This evaluates the corporate road map and strategy of the software vendor with specific timelines regarding how the product will be developed, sold, and supported within the specific market.
Now that we have given an overview of the requirements of a technology selection, I would like to move on to an overview of the Collaborative Messaging Marketplace and as it exists today.
Today's Marketplace
We will be comparing and contrasting the three primary collaborative messaging servers within the industry today, comprising more than 130 Million end user licenses. These are, as you can see from WebTESS, Lotus Notes, Microsoft Exchange, and Novell GroupWise.
Lotus Notes R5 competes directly with Microsoft's Exchange e-mail server 5.5 and Novell's GroupWise 5.5. Microsoft will be releasing Exchange Server 2000 in the 2nd quarter of 2000, presently code named "Platinum".
Novell's offering comes well short of meeting the needs of collaborative messaging users in today's market when compared to Notes and Exchange, and continues to lose market share to them.
The collaborative messaging market is booming as e-mail has evolved into a mission critical application. Lotus Notes has just surpassed the 50,000,000-installed base mark, as has Microsoft. On the other hand, Novell appears to have gone into maintenance mode, holding onto their 20 million plus install base. However, we do expect to see some large improvements in Novell's next release of GroupWise, code named "BulletProof" which is based on XML and open standards to allow greater integration with 3rd party applications.
1. Project teams have no effective way to identify the critical vendor and product questions necessary to successfully initiate the evaluation process.
2. Project teams have no ability to effectively prioritize the different criteria, once identified, relative to one another. As a result, final priorities are often more the result of internal political agendas than true needs and requirements.
3. Project teams have no ability to gather objective, validated, updated data on the available vendor alternatives. It is a well-known problem that vendors have a tendency to exaggerate product, service and corporate capabilities if it enables them to move to the next phase of the deal.
4. According to our research, the net result has been that over 80% of enterprise technology evaluations run over time and budget, and that once selected, over 50% of the implementations fail to meet functional and total cost expectations.
So what's the solution?
The solution is to create a structured, repeatable process for evaluating technology solutions and the vendors that provide them. Best practices drawn from TechnologyEvaluation.Com client organizations that have completed internal technology selections suggest that project teams should examine six key criteria groupings. The first three criteria sets should examine product specific capabilities, while the second three should investigate the software vendor's overall corporate capabilities.
So what are the criteria groupings?
1. Product Functionality - Simply put, this evaluates the features and functions delivered by the product, as it exists today.
2. Product Technology - This criterion defines the technical architecture of the product, and the technological environment in which the product can run successfully.
3. Product Cost - Initial and Ongoing cost of product, this is not TCO as it does not account for internal support costs.
4. Corporate Service and Support - This criterion defines the capability of the vendor to provide a high level of implementation services and ongoing support.
5. Corporate Viability - This is a critical yet often overlooked category that should examine the financial and management strength of the vendor.
6. Corporate Strategy - This evaluates the corporate road map and strategy of the software vendor with specific timelines regarding how the product will be developed, sold, and supported within the specific market.
Now that we have given an overview of the requirements of a technology selection, I would like to move on to an overview of the Collaborative Messaging Marketplace and as it exists today.
Today's Marketplace
We will be comparing and contrasting the three primary collaborative messaging servers within the industry today, comprising more than 130 Million end user licenses. These are, as you can see from WebTESS, Lotus Notes, Microsoft Exchange, and Novell GroupWise.
Lotus Notes R5 competes directly with Microsoft's Exchange e-mail server 5.5 and Novell's GroupWise 5.5. Microsoft will be releasing Exchange Server 2000 in the 2nd quarter of 2000, presently code named "Platinum".
Novell's offering comes well short of meeting the needs of collaborative messaging users in today's market when compared to Notes and Exchange, and continues to lose market share to them.
The collaborative messaging market is booming as e-mail has evolved into a mission critical application. Lotus Notes has just surpassed the 50,000,000-installed base mark, as has Microsoft. On the other hand, Novell appears to have gone into maintenance mode, holding onto their 20 million plus install base. However, we do expect to see some large improvements in Novell's next release of GroupWise, code named "BulletProof" which is based on XML and open standards to allow greater integration with 3rd party applications.
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