Why users hate Lotus Notes, Episode 2: The administrative inhibitions
Mat Newman October 12 2011 09:24:00
FACT: IBM Lotus Domino IS more efficient at storing data than Microsoft Exchange.I recently did a migration for a small business of 4 users (note IBM - that IS a small business!) that began with 11gb of data in their SBS/Exchange data store. After migrating to Domino, the total size of the Domino mail databases was 9.2gb. For the math inclined, that's a 16% saving in disk space. And then I enabled DAOS. After running compact on the mail databases, the mail files and DAOS storage totalled 5.6gb. Again for the math inclined, that is a 49% disk saving by switching to Notes/Domino from Exchange.
What has storage got to do with users?
This twitter post says it all really:
Since I've #gonegoogle from Lotus Notes and VPN and 100MB size limit, everybody in the 2000+ company is :-) |
Or from a users perspective:
Outlook is SO much better than Lotus, no more sucky 100meg restriction! |
Users DO NOT care WHY they have a mail quota, or why they can't send an email that contains a 5mb attachment. A quote from TWiL 72 is relevant here (paraphrased): "The computer on the users desk at work is no longer the most powerful machine they use". The same goes for the messaging infrastructure users deal with. Users no longer use email only at work. Users have a plethora of options available to them - especially in the personal space - none of which have a 100 megabyte limit on their storage, or a restriction of 5 megabytes on the size of attachments they can send.
What they DO see, is a Lotus Notes client that fails to send a 6mb attachment, or that bugs them every two seconds because they've exceeded their 100mb quota.
This is - of course - nothing to do with the capabilities of Lotus Notes. I have a number of clients who carry around multi-gigabyte mail database replica's with them. One client has a 13 gigabyte "active" mail database, which has auto-archiving enabled for everything older than 9 months.
From their perspective, users who complain that Lotus Notes's "sucks" due to the limit's imposed upon them ARE complaining about the Lotus Notes client. They do not differentiate that it's the restrictions placed upon them by their IT department that are actually the root of the problem.
The first quote above would indicate that the storage available to that company for messaging was restricted to only 200 gigabytes. That may have been justified 10 years ago when the company implemented Notes/Domino 6 and 200 gigabytes was a big deal, but today I can spend less than a hundred bucks and get a pocket drive with the same capacity.
Similarly for attachments. Surely your internet pipe is no longer the 1mb link that you implemented 10 years ago (unless you're in Timor-Leste!) and a 6mb data transfer is no longer a significant concern.
If you ARE worried about large attachments leaving your organisation, check out the EXCELLENT FileSendR utility by Declan Lynch on OpenNTF. You could also implement Notes/Domino 8.5.3 and take advantage of the amazing Connections Files entitlement now available to you.
Your users are not really complaining about Lotus Notes.
Users believe that Lotus Notes is the problem because it has pathetic storage restrictions, and is incapable of sending attachments of any significant size.
You and I know different.
It's time to review the restrictions you are placing on your users.
Preferably before the new CEO arrives and demands you give them Outlook, since the CEO had Outlook at their last post and knows that Outlook doesn't have a stupid 100 megabyte limit.
Perception is everything.
It's time to review the administrative inhibitions.
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