Panasonic Exchanges E-Mail -- Redmond Channel Partner

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Panasonic Exchanges E-Mail

Massive Exchange shop Panasonic is giving the Microsoft e-mail platform the boot, not just switching vendors but fundamentally changing the way its e-mail is handled.

LotusLive offers a service-based approach to mail, Web conferencing, social networking and collaboration.

This deal ain't no small potatoes. Panasonic could have over 300,000 users on LotusLive in the coming years. Bet the Microsoft rep who handles Panasonic mail didn't have a very merry Christmas!

There'll probably be more Lotus news next week when the longstanding Lotusphere conference takes place.

Do you use a non-Microsoft e-mail system, and if so, why? Shoot your experiences to dbarney@redmondmag.com.

Posted by Doug Barney on January 18, 2010 at 4:37 PM

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Reader Comments

Thu, Feb 4, 2010

Been using Notes for over 20 years. Wouldn't use anything else. Easier/cheaper to administer, more more powerful - it's not just email guys. As for the person with the "check server address" that's because of improper settings in location documents. Must be on an older version because it does use Windows controls. Can the client be better designed? Yes. Is the Domino backend the most robust? Even MS people admit it is. I support both type of systems - for me it's Notes - hands down.

Tue, Jan 19, 2010 Steven Newman Charlotte, NC

This article is leaving out a good bit of the story. Panasonic is and has been a Lotus Notes shop. They had 1% of their users on Exchange. The loss in Exchange seats is miniscule.

Tue, Jan 19, 2010

MS Exchange may or may not be the best mail solution out there, but as a past user of Notes I can tell you that Notes is absolutey awful from top to bottom. I will gurantee end user revolt soon. Hope they saved a TON of money. Good luck.

Mon, Jan 18, 2010 Travis

I will re-iterate the prior post, those poor users at Panasonic! Switching from Exchange is one thing, but switching from anything to Lotus Notes is something else. I have used both Exchange and Notes for years and Notes is the slowest, most costly to administer, non-userfriendly email client I've seen. I work for a large organization that is using Notes and here are just a few of the annoyances along with what was mentioned in an earlier post. In Notes, an empty mail file is 15MB and an empty archive file is 15MB as well. Notes OoO takes a long time to return that someone is OoO (4 hrs where I work). I don't get an email window pop-up in the lower right when new mail comes in like you get in Outlook since 2003. You don't have whitespace and don't have to run compact in Outlook, when you delete something, it instantly decreases that much of your mailbox size which is not the case with Notes. There is much less administration in Exchange due to this and due to the fact that your password are your Active Directory password and not something config'd by a Lotus engineer, and not tied to an id created by a Lotus engineer. ID's are unsafe as I could use an old ID file for somebody, use that same password, and would have access to their email even after they change their password. On Exchange I would have to change their AD pwd and they would know when it happened. Administration is required to reset passwords as they are specific to Notes. Sametime and webmail use even a different password than Notes. In Notes when reminders pop up, they pop up in front of you and if you are typing and hit the space bar they get marked as done, this does not happen in Outlook. When your archive is open in Notes and you send an email (fwd an email) while looking at your archive, the sent email goes into your archive instead of your regular sent mail. I could go on and on but these are just a few facts on why I prefer Exchange/Outlook to Domino/Notes. Exchange saves on storage, administration, is much faster to respond, and has a better, easier to use feature set. I've worked with both long enough to see the goods and bads of both, but I can't see any big disadvantage to using Exchange.

Mon, Jan 18, 2010 Andre

We switched from hosted Exchange to Kerio mailserver. I also recently switched a local school from Exchange to Kerio. Cost is a big factor and with the school the big issue was the server that Exchange was installed on was not properly setup. Another consultant wanted $20,000.00 to move their Exchange system to a new server and install the correct version of Exchange and Windows server. I was able to move the mail system to an existing server, that wasn't being used, and improve the overall performance, security and stability of the mail system and the file server. I did it all for under $3,000.00. Exchange is a powerful and complex mail server that has great enterprise level capabilities but not everyone needs that level of mail server complexity. Exchange can also be a bear to configure. Kerio, on the other hand, has as many features as Exchange in most areas and in some cases has more features. Kerio is also much easier to setup and configure than Exchange. I can install and configure a Kerio mail server in an hour at most. Try that with Exchange. It also includes great spam filtering and a wonderful webmail interface that is better than the one Exchange provides.

Mon, Jan 18, 2010

Oh no they're not - they are about to be using THE best Messaging and Collaboration software bar none. Sorry you are having problems - what version are you using? I'm willing to bet pre R8 - probably R5 or earlier. Don't get me wrong I am a big fan of Notes (simple to Administer, simple to upgrade, flexible) but MS are way better in other fields. Operating Systems, Office (although it is quite espensive to keep up with the latest version), Visio, quite like the Accounts package as well, Project the list goes on. But e-mail and collaboration? Notes / Domino every time.

Mon, Jan 18, 2010

Those poor users at Panasonic. They're about to floor their IT department with complaints. I use LotusNotes day in and day out as it is our corporate (I work at a Fortune 100) eMail client along with Domino server. It's a huge piece of junk. As a remote user it takes FOREVER to do the simplest of things. The application is poorly designed. Why does it check for new mail when I look up and address? Why does it "Check for server address" then "Check for the server" everytime I try to do something? Has IBM never heard of local caching? Additionally, the client doesn't even use the simplest of Windows controls that have been around for 15 years.