Lotus software alternatives to Microsoft SharePoint

IBM had quite interesting conference call today about Lotus alternatives to Microsoft SharePoint and Windows SharePoint Services. I think that it was more one sided view but anyway, there was some really good points inside.

I just hate price comparison, because it cannot be true, both IBM and Microsoft are doing special bids or has other ways how to improve their price. Also as far as I agree that you have to have a MS Windows and MS Office to use SharePoint I don’t think it is fare enough to count the price of these products into SharePoint price.

When you compare the idea of MS and IBM there is one difference – MS wants everything to communicate with Office which is the main tool for every user, while IBM don’t care too much about the user tool, just want to enable them to use it from any tool they are using. Cannot say which idea is better or which like more but when you imagine your LN client with Quickr connector you have almost the same result MS has with Office.

I really like the idea of Quickr connector, which enables you to send email and save attachments directly into Quickr and send just a link to them. That looks wonderful, till you get this email off-line and need to get on-line to download it. On the other hand it is possible to have a local „replica“ of Quickr, while MS enables you to just download the content into Outlook where it isn’t linked anymore (cannot imagine the result after several downloads or changes).

There is also new product called Lotus Quickr Content Integrator which lets you integrate your documents from Domino Document Manager, Lotus Notes Team Rooms (two ways integration), Exchange Public Folders and SharePoint (also two ways integration). This also get you which database inside Lotus Notes you should use for documents sharing – not Discussion Database but Team Rooms is the right choice.

Built-in viewers is something „old“ – I think it was there from the first version and it is still there, which is good, because sometimes you just don’t have the correct software on the computer.

Lotus Connections and Quickr should be really nice product. Just think that you need to wait for Connections 2.0 as I don’t think that version 1 is something extra, I’m missing a lot of things there (but it is another story). And while you have just plain Quickr, the SharePoint Services (which are free with Windows server) have almost the same capabilities, when you combine Quickr and Connections there is no opponent on MS side. And then it is also interesting as I had a look on Quickr few days ago and wasn’t impressed at all. It is nice (and it is almost the same as QuickPlace few years ago) but there is just 3 templates (you can get another from SNAPPS), but I don’t see a huge profit from having an another blog template (you have one in Domino) or Wiki, so just Team Spaces are left which is fine to share documents about some project but it isn’t too much. Yeah, there is the argument about no involvement from IT side of company when you need a new place, but it isn’t a big deal for most customers I know.

Last but not least – I’m starting to love Skype. You even don’t need to pay for SkypeOut and are able to call to free numbers in states. Wonderful and easy to connect with this.

IBM thanks for this conference, I’m really looking forward to next one.