Shootout between MS Exchange 2007 and IBM Domino 8

ITComparison.com have published the results of a comparison between MS Exchange 2007 and IBM Domino 8. This comparison was last updated a month ago. Either I missed the Lotus community blogging about it or the entire Lotus community missed blogging about it. Either way, Good News can always stand a second reading :)

Here are some of the highlights:

• IBM Lotus Domino has implemented replication for ages to be one of the most reliable and efficient replication methods available.
• MS Exchange 2007 is the first Exchange version to support replication. The replication was not reliable in the RTM release and got a bit better with SP1 but still not the best. In addition, Exchange 2007 replication is not efficient and requires a large amount of dedicated bandwidth which can be expensive.
  
• IBM has kept again the Install & Forget approach. After Domino has been installed you only need to visit the box if you need to add or enable a feature. It does not mean administrators will lose their job, but will have an easier life.
• Microsoft as usual has kept their product maintenance quite time-consuming doing updates for exchange, operating system fixing failures and recovering data stores. It seems they are trying to help administrators look busy to keep their jobs.
  
• IBM has release Lotus Domino 8 as a solid product fully tested and ready for production, but was a bit late to market.
• Microsoft as usual early to market with half raw product at the RTM version of Exchange 2007 with many bugs and features missing few examples:
• - Public folders Management GUI
• - Replication was not working unless implemented directly by Microsoft with some secret hotfixes.
• - Single Copy Cluster was not working unless installed with certain hotfixes in certain orders which was not mentioned any where on Microsoft website and not applying the fixes will make the cluster resources jump from a node to the other.
• - Note: these were few of the issues Microsoft fixed with SP1, but even SP1 had its own issues that Microsoft admit in the release note of SP1 and the installation of SP1 has not been smooth for many customers.


• Exchange 2007 get to be cheaper only if you calculate the initial licenses for non redundant setup. In all the other calculation and TCO Exchange 2007 will be in a loss situation. Exchange 2007 require newer 64-bit hardware and more servers (at least 6 server in case of redundancy) where Lotus Domino can reach full redundancy with two servers only, this is due to the new roles Exchange 2007 came up with. More servers means more licenses and clustering with Exchange require windows enterprise licenses which not required with Lotus Domino. All this give Domino an initial setup advantage when you look at the full setup cost. In addition, if your setup require features like forums, portal, and instant messaging you will have to pay for an extra three separate products with Exchange where all of these are integrated into Domino server for free. All that Make Domino the TCO winner.

I thought this crowd was an IBM front until I read some of the other comparisons these guys have done:

• VMware VI3 VS MS Virtual Server 2005 R2
• VMware VI3 VS Citrix Xen Enterprise
• MS Virtual Server 2005 R2 VS Citrix Xen Enterprise
• Microsoft Windows Hyper-V (WSV) VS VMware Virtual Infrastructure 3.5
• HP Blades vs IBM Blades
• Double Take vs XOsoft WANSyncHA
• Mac OSX Tiger/Leopard VS Microsoft Windows Vista
• Ubuntu VS Microsoft Windows Vista
• Mac OSX Tiger/Leopard VS Ubuntu

Now I'm just waiting for the Lotus Foundations v. Essential Business Server shootout to appear.
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