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RFP Collaborative Computing Solutions

Novell submitted a simple and straightforward migration plan. The GroupWise cc:Mail gateway and the Message Router Gateway f rom Spire Technologies permits coexistence with Lotus cc:Mail and Digital All-in-One users while the users are migrated. All users would be migrated during Phase I. In the second phase, enhanced services--such as fax, electronic forms and workflow--would be implemented. The total cost for the GroupWise solution is $662,787 (see "Pricing Summary," below).

GroupWise still lacks support for the Internet Mail Access Protocol version 4 (IMAP4) and Network News Transfer Protocol (NNTP), as well as billing and accounting utilities. Although Novell drew fiber rings at the core locations, this network upgrade was not addressed in the proposal.

Lotus Development Corp.'s Solution Summary
MegaSystems' decision is quite simple. Lotus Development Corp. Notes clients with Domino servers is the only communications infrastructure available that delivers on all of MegaSystems' needs an d objectives. And it delivers best-of-breed functionality in each major area of functionality. Additionally, MegaSystems cannot accept any risk of failure with this mission-critical infrastructure and, as such, should go with the only true fault-tolerant offering--Lotus Domino with server failover and load-balancing. MegaSystems expects rapid growth and security of investment, so scalability is mandatory: Here Notes with Domino towers above any other product. MegaSystems cannot afford to install a whole new network infrastructure, so it needs a solution like Lotus' that leverages its IS investments. To top it all off, the entire Notes and Domino system is tightly integrated, which increases user acceptance, decreases administrative support, speeds time-to-benefit for workflow applications and decreases the cost of ownership.

· Objectives and Features. MegaSystems has an extensive list of collaborative computing product features that are necessary to support its enterprise. No other solution supports a s many as well as Notes and Domino. Features and functionality such as paging, faxing, videoconferencing, voicemail integration, legacy database integration and more are available to Notes and Domino customers.

· Best of Breed. Not only is Notes and Domino an integrated solution with the many inherent advantages, but the individual compo nents are considered best-of-breed by many analysts and customers. These components include client/server messaging, workflow application development and hosting, calendaring and scheduling, Internet Web application and site hosting, directory services, security, object store and fault tolerance.

· Fault Tolerance. None of the other vendors can deliver true fault tolerance in which the system simply will not go down. Regardless of the technical difficulty--bad CPU, loss of dedicated connection, corrupt drive or other catastrophe--Notes environments can support automatic failover with Domino Advanced Services or reroute traffic through working connections. Add itionally, Domino Advanced Services offers dynamic load-balancing, where heavily loaded servers can spread client requests to other servers in a cluster.

· Proven Leaders. Lotus, a division of IBM Corp., is the recognized market leader with more experience and more installed customers than any other competitor in this field. Lotus today leads the client/server e-mail market with 11.2 million seats (five times Microsoft's installed base). It also leads the file-share e-mail base with cc:Mail, and IBM leads the host-based e-mail base with Office Vision/PROFS.

· Scalability. The true test of scalability is proven customer installations of the size and complexity matching MegaSystems' needs. Lotus has two customers using Notes and Domino in installations exceeding 100,000 seats. We also have dozens running more than 30,000 seats, and even more in MegaSystems' 12,000-employee range.

· Preservation of Current IS Investment. Notes with Domino is the only collaborative technology delivered on almost every server and client platform. This flexibility lets MegaSystems save thousands of dollars in its current infrastructure. Other competitive offerings limit platform choice, don't offer functional parity across platforms, or fail to exploit the specific features of certain platforms, such as integration with Windows NT user administration, or leverage of Unix scalability.