Michael D.

Osterman
Principal, Osterman Research, Inc.

Finding the Right Email

System
August 29, 2012
2012 Osterman Research, Inc.

About Osterman Research

Focused on the messaging, Web and collaboration industries
Practice areas include archiving, security, encryption, content
management, etc.
Strong emphasis on primary research
conducted with decision makers and
influencers
Founded in 2001
Based near Seattle

2012 Osterman Research, Inc.

Email

The Conventional Wisdom About Email

The email market is saturated
Email has become a utility and is
simply a cost of doing business
Social media and text messaging
are replacing email
Younger workers dont use email
anymore

2012 Osterman Research, Inc.

The Truth About Email

The email market is saturated
True, but so is the market for cars and TVs. New email systems are being adopted on a
regular basis (A May 2012 Osterman Research survey found that one-third of mid-sized
and large organizations are planning to migrate to a new messaging system within the
next 12 months).

Email has become a utility and is simply a cost of doing business

There is wide variability in the TCO of email (as discussed later in this Webinar) and it
should be viewed as a means of significantly reducing IT costs.

Social media and text messaging are replacing email

Not true. Email is still widely used in addition to social media and SMS. Osterman
Research has found that email systems are used 165 minutes per day by the typical
user.

Younger workers dont use email anymore

Not true. Younger workers in a corporate setting still use email.

2012 Osterman Research, Inc.

Important Questions to Consider About Email

What are your long term requirements for
communications?
How will email be used in three to five years?
How will email integrate with unified
communications in your organization?
What will your corporate computing
environment look like in the future?
How will you support mobile workers?

2012 Osterman Research, Inc.

Employees Use of the Cloud

Social media
Content repositories
Voice services
Enterprise applications
How well does your
enterprise email system
support cloud-based applications?
How well does email today integrate
users various tools?
2012 Osterman Research, Inc.

Unified Communications (backup info)

UC can significantly reduce corporate IT and telephony costs
UC is essential to support the growing trend toward telework
Email must integrate with telephony in order to meet user needs and
drive down IT costs

2012 Osterman Research, Inc.

Flexibility
Can your email system
Run as a traditional, on-premises application?
Run as a private cloud application?
Run in the public cloud?

Can it preserve an identical user

experience regardless of how it is
accessed?
Can it integrate easily and
inexpensively with enterprise
applications?
How well does it support mobile or traveling employees, satellite
offices, contractors, others?
2012 Osterman Research, Inc.

Making Life Easier for IT

How easy is it to provision and manage users?
Can new users be enabled or disabled easily?
To what extent can users support their
own basic provisioning?
Can devices be remotely wiped?

2012 Osterman Research, Inc.

Total Cost of Ownership

In a 500-user organization, there is a 163%
difference in TCO between the least and most
expensive email platforms
In a 20,000-user organization, the difference is 325%

2012 Osterman Research, Inc.

An Important Caveat
The following slides compare

VMware Zimbra
Microsoft Exchange
Google Apps
IBM Lotus Notes Domino
Novell GroupWise

All are solid platforms from leading vendors

We are offering our perspective from an objective viewpoint on five key
metrics that any IT department should seriously consider
In the interest of full disclosure, all of these vendors are current or past
clients of Osterman Research

Deployment
Issues to Consider

How many options are available for deploying the solution?

What will your IT infrastructure look like long term?
Will substantive changes in the current IT infrastructure require a rip-and-replace or just a minor
modification?
VMware
Zimbra

Evaluation

Microsoft
Exchange

Traditional
software
deployment on
existing physical
or virtual server

Traditional
software
deployment on
existing physical
or virtual server

Third party cloud/

hosted

Internally cloud/
hosted

VMware cloud
partners

VMware cloud
partners

Virtual appliance

Google
Apps
Internally cloud/
hosted

IBM Lotus
Notes Domino

Novell
GroupWise

Traditional
software
deployment on
existing physical
or virtual server

Traditional
software
deployment on
existing physical
or virtual server

Internally cloud/
hosted

Third party cloud/

hosted

Browser Experience
Issues to Consider

Evaluation

User experience can differ from one browser to another, or between thick client and browser
Different user experiences can drive up help desk cost and potentially impact user productivity
Level of integration with Web services can also impact user productivity
VMware
Zimbra

Microsoft
Exchange

Google
Apps

IBM Lotus
Notes Domino

Novell
GroupWise

No difference in
user experience
between browsers

Some difference
in user experience
between browsers

Minimal
difference in user
experience
between browsers

Minimal
difference in user
experience
between browsers

Minimal
difference in user
experience
between browsers

No difference in
user experience
between thick
client and
browser

Some difference
in user experience
between thick
client and
browser

Offline support
via thick client via
beta app (requires
Google Chrome)

Can be integrated
with other
services via plugins

Limited
integrated with
other services via
plug-ins

Integrated with
some Web
services out-of-the
box

Can be integrated
with other
services via plugins (primarily for
Outlook, not
OWA)

Full offline
support via thick
client

Offline support
via thick client

Easy integration
with other
services
Full offline
support via thick
client

Full offline
support via thick
client

Unified Communications
Issues to Consider

Unified communications is becoming more important as a means of reducing IT and telephony

costs
Increasingly important for remote workers to be able to access all computing resources
Can improve user effiency
VMware
Zimbra

Evaluation

Integrated with
Cisco and Mitel
UC solutions
Can be integrated
with other UC
offerings
Click-to-dial,
voicemail, chat
and presence are
integrated into
the base product

Microsoft
Exchange
Can provide UC
functionality via
Lync

Google
Apps
Can provide UC
functionality
through thirdparty providers

IBM Lotus
Notes Domino
Integrated unified
communications
via IBM
Sametime and
IBM Sametime
Unified Telephony
Can provide UC
functionality
through thirdparty providers

Novell
GroupWise
Can provide UC
functionality
through thirdparty providers

IT Management
Issues to Consider

Evaluation

Email and collaboration are utilities for which costs must be driven as low as possible
There is significant disparity between the level of IT labor required for various solutions
IT labor is a more critical issue in expensive labor markets
VMware
Zimbra

Microsoft
Exchange

Google
Apps

IBM Lotus
Notes Domino

Novell
GroupWise

Three-year IT
labor cost for 500
users: $130K

Three-year IT
labor cost for 500
users: $82K

Three-year IT
labor cost for 500
users: $25K

Three-year IT
labor cost for 500
users: $127K

Three-year IT
labor cost for 500
users: $58K

Three-year IT
labor cost for
10,000 users:
$531K

Three-year IT
labor cost for
10,000 users:
$1,146K

Three-year IT
labor cost for
10,000 users:
$379K

Three-year IT
labor cost for
10,000 users:
$1,076K

Three-year IT
labor cost for
10,000 users:
$409K

Total Cost of Ownership

Issues to Consider

Email and collaboration continue to be expensive elements of the IT infrastructure

One of the key areas in which there is wide disparity in TCO between competing solutions
Long term costs, including IT labor, are essential to proper evaluation of overall TCO
VMware
Zimbra

Evaluation

500 users,
on-premises
$9.38/user/mo.

Microsoft
Exchange
500 users,
on-premises
$13.85/user/mo.

10,000 users,
on-premises
$3.38/user/mo.

10,000 users,
on-premises
$12.17/user/mo.

500 users,
cloud/hosted
$5.98/user/mo.

500 users,
cloud/hosted
$9.40/user/mo.

10,000 users,
cloud/hosted
$5.64/user/mo.

10,000 users,
cloud/hosted
$9.05/user/mo.

Google
Apps
500 users,
$5.57/user/mo.
10,000 users
$5.22/user/mo.

IBM Lotus
Notes Domino

Novell
GroupWise

500 users,
on-premises
$14.66/user/mo.

500 users,
on-premises
$11.58/user/mo.

10,000 users,
on-premises
$11.95/user/mo.

10,000 users,
on-premises
$9.10/user/mo.

For More Information

Osterman Research, Inc.

+1 253 630 5839
+1 206 905 1010
info@ostermanresearch.com
www.ostermanresearch.com
ostermanresearch.wordpress.com
mosterman

2012 Osterman Research, Inc.