While it may take longer to train users in collaborative and industry-specific applications, actual training costs tend to be roughly equivalent when Notes or Exchange is used primarily for e-mail. Larry Fletcher, a senior account executive at New Horizons, one of the largest information training companies, says most businesses migrating to a completely new messaging system specify about a half day of training for Notes or Exchange e-mail, although he would recommend a full day. Pricing varies, but he says half-day onsite training for 1,000 Notes or Exchange users, including computers and setup, costs about $125,000. XLConnect, a smaller training and turnkey systems vendor, offers a similar package (but without computers and setup) for about $51,000.
Training administrators and roll-out staff also becomes a TCO issue. A rule of thumb for certified training is to expect charges of $375 to $425 per day. For Windows-certified administrators, New Horizons suggests an eight-day class for Exchange 5.5; for Notes systems administrators, it suggests a two- or three-day class. I/G OpenWare's Ioele recommends five days of training for a tech with three to five years of mail experience, and up to eight days for someone with one to three years. He would add three to five days of training if collaboration capabilities will be tapped in either Notes or Exchange, and three to five days for training in Microsoft's Internet Information Server. Basic OS infrastructure training, he says, can take eight to 15 days, depending on existing organizational capabilities.
But training TCO can be minimized. One publishing company cut costs in its MS Mail-to-Notes migration by bringing in trainers for a week and running at least part of its 40-person technical staff through one-day crash courses. A consultant was also hired, at about $1,000 per day, to write applications and aid with the migration. Approaches to helpdesk training vary, with some organizations providing a bare minimum and others significantly augmenting end-user training.
Extra Credit
Yet another factor stretching the arithmetic bounds of TCO is the role of messaging systems as a platform for applications, management and directory services. The still nascent value attached to purchasing the right directory or metadirectory service (to build directory-enabled applications that integrate human resources, mail, operating system, security/single sign-on and a variety of other applications) remains difficult to assess.
Similarly, the applications development advantages of the major messaging systems each present their own ever-evolving strengths and weaknesses. Forrester Research's Eric Brown suggests that messaging acquisitions be thought of as a five-to-eight-year strategic infrastructure commitment--one that IS aligns with corporate strategies around Java development models or commitments to Microsoft's COM (Component Object Model) and DCOM (Distributed Component Object Model).
Gartner Group's Austin adds that if the goal is collaboration and the need is immediate, "Lotus makes it easier to build collaborative applications and improve communication and workflow. It's much easier to use Lotus to deploy applications that bring value to the enterprise."
I/G OpenWare's Ioele, however, says that over time, the differentiators between Exchange and Notes will disappear--at which point the most compelling cost differences will probably lie with the ongoing expense of adding applications. At that point, there may be new competition based on HTML from Internet mail providers such as Sun and Netscape. And it's much too early to predict who will win that war.
Christy Hudgins-Bonafield can be reached at cbonafield@nwc.com.
|
REPORTS
ANALYTICS
Follow 
