More E-Mail Accounts At Lower Costs

MICROSOFT AND IBM'S Lotus Software division have some new messages about messaging: lower costs, more users, better control, and improved integration.

At the Microsoft Exchange Conference in Anaheim, Calif., this week, the company will disclose details about the next version of its Exchange messaging server, code-named Titanium. Due next year, the software will include an improved messaging API for better performance as well as support for eight-node clustering with failover designed to work with the upcoming Windows .Net Server.

The clustering will let companies serve more E-mail accounts from centralized systems, saving the costs associated with needing an Exchange server for each branch office, group product manager Chris Baker says.

Centralizing E-mail servers is risky, says Marc West, CIO at video- and PC-game maker Electronic Arts Inc. If the network goes down, employees in the same building couldn't even E-mail each other, he says. "We're not seeing significant improvements in how to deliver an E-mail service effectively." He'd rather Microsoft let companies centralize E-mail servers while keeping lightweight local servers that would preserve users' work in an outage.

IBM, Microsoft's chief rival in the groupware market, last week rolled out new releases of its Lotus Notes, Domino, Sametime, and QuickPlace collaboration software. The new versions are more tightly integrated, IBM says. For example, IBM's Tivoli management software now can oversee Domino and Notes installations, and Domino and Notes are closely linked with IBM's DB2 database and WebSphere application server.

Also, Notes and Domino 6, Lotus' core messaging and collaboration products, offer more security features and anti-spam management tools.

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