Ian Randall was kind enough to lay out some additional thoughts on my recent post Business Reasons for Migrating from Notes/Domino to SharePoint. As I did with Mike’s comment, here’s my response. Please note the two points of background I laid out on my response to Mike.

Ian’s Comment
Here’s Ian’s comment … I have made one change to it for ease of reading, and that is to number the specific items in his 24-item list:

Mike, it’s more than just the need to purchase the email platform. To compete toe-to-toe with Lotus Notes & Domino you need to invest in the following range Microsoft products (ignoring the OS):

(1) – Active Directory W2k3 – Part of the Windows server licensing
(2) – Exchange Server 2003
(3) – Exchange Server 2003 CAL – Includes Outlook 2003
(4) – IE 6 SP1 – for full OWA functionality including S/MIME and gzip network compression
(5) – Windows Live Communication Server – Only runs on Windows Server 2003
(6) – Windows Live Communication Server CAL
(7) – Windows Messenger 5.1 or Office Communicator 2005
(8) – Outlook 2003
(9) – Windows XP Pro
(10) – Windows SharePoint Services 3.0
(11) – 2007 Microsoft Office System
(12) – SQL Server – Purchased per CPU or Per Server w/CAL
(13) – Microsoft Operations Manager or 3rd party solution
(14) – Microsoft Systems Management Server or 3rd party solution
(15) – Office 2003 Professional – with InfoPath
(16) – Visual Studio .Net
(17) – .Net Framework on all clients and servers
(18) – BizTalk Server 2004
(19) – SharePoint Portal Server 2007
(20) – SharePoint Portal Server 2007 CAL
(21) – Windows Server 2003 as an application server with IIS
(22) – Microsoft Application Center Server 2000
(23) – Microsoft Content Management Server
(24) – Microsoft Office SharePoint Designer 2007

While many organisations may have already invested in some of these products, no direct comparison is possible without considering the whole investment.

Additionally, you also need to have access to an extremely broad skill range to get the full value from your investment in the Microsoft startegy.

I suspect that for many consultants that generate the bulk of services revenue from Microsoft, they encourage this complexity because it makes it easier for them to generate a higher margin service revenue and easier for them to compete with in-house expertise.

Microsoft Consultants also seem most excited about the recent changes to Sharepoint. But I would like to see some more balanced input from consultants who have expertise in both Microsoft and Lotus collaborative products.

But if my sums are correct the above Microsoft products are about twice the cost of the equivalent Lotus/Domino alternatives.

So the cost justification to switch platforms must take into account other factors than just software costs.

Another factor limiting migrations is that Microsoft still have no magic solution to mitigate the huge redevelopment cost to for many applications that have been developed for the LD platform over the years. So many so called migrations to Microsoft end up needing to support both software platforms for an indefinite period.

In many situations it’s more of a coexistence strategy rather than a vendor migration strategy.

My Response
I agree with the broad brush of what Ian puts forward, but see some specifics in a different light to Ian’s advocacy. Those being:

• Some of the items in the list come with other items … For an organization with Windows Server, Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 is definitely required (Ian’s item #10) but is included in Windows Server. And Internet Explorer 6 (item #4) is included with Windows on the client desktop, or can be downloaded at no charge.
• Some of the items in the list aren’t needed to compete with “Notes/Domino” per se … Live Communications Server (Ian’s item #5) and the corresponding user CAL (Ian’s item #6) and software (Ian’s item #7) are competitive in intent with IBM Lotus Sametime, not Notes/Domino per se.
• Some of the items are natural competitors to themselves … Ian lists the need for “Outlook 2003” (item #8), “2007 Microsoft Office System” (item #11), “Office 2003 Professional – with InfoPath” (item #15) as three separate items, but the general fact is that a end user will have one or the other, not all thereof. And “Outlook” is included in the office suite. That reduces the list a bit.
• Some of the items are generally required, not just for a Microsoft infrastructure … .NET Framework, for example, is required more generally by some applications that have been written by Microsoft-aligned independent software vendors … so it’s not a case that this is required just-and-only to compete with Notes/Domino. It’s a broader play.
• Some of the items are only required by some people, depending on their role … Developers will need Visual Studio.NET (item #16) for Windows application development, and Microsoft Office SharePoint Designer 2007 (item #24) if they are building applications for SharePoint, but not every user requires them. The equivalent in the Notes/Domino world is Domino Designer.
• Some of the items deliver general value far beyond just email/collaboration … Microsoft Operations Manager (item #13) and Microsoft Systems Management Server (item #14) can be used to manage and administer Microsoft’s messaging and collaboration tools, but they deliver general management and administration value across the full item-scale of Microsoft products, and through add-ins, beyond. So it’s a case of needing it for messaging and collaboration, but getting broader value “for free”. If you wanted this in an IBM world, you don’t get it with Domino Administrator … you’d need to investigate a Tivoli product.
• Other reactions … Microsoft Content Management Server (item #23) is not needed going forward if the organization has Office SharePoint Server 2007 (the correct name for item #19), because Web content management capabiilties are included in the new SharePoint Server offering.

So … yes, it is complex, and yes there are numerous specifics that need to be considered, but I definitely don’t see it as “give up two products from IBM — Notes and Domino” and therefore “you must invest in 24 from Microsoft” to get equivalent value. Thus I agree with Ian’s concluding comment, “no direct comparison is possible without considering the whole investment“, without necessarily agreeing with his methodology as put forward here.

Other points I agree with, but don’t see them as being different in an IBM-aligned world:

1. You need access to a broad skill range to get the full value from your investment in either strategy. That’s true in both worlds.
2. Do consultants always encourage the most simple solution to a customer requirement, or do they encourage “complexity” for good (“future flexibility”) or bad (“higher service margin”) reasons? If this behavior is endemic in a Microsoft world (as Ian charges), does it mean that it never happens in an IBM world?

Two final points … ONE … I will make a separate post on the charge that “Microsoft is twice as expensive as IBM”, and TWO … yes, I agree that the cost of migrating Notes applications is often the deal killer or that it forces a coexistence strategy.