Does the Tail Wag the Dog? How Messaging is Defining the Infrastructure
TCO (total cost of ownership) messaging analysis may be tough, but it's about to become unavoidable for many businesses. Too many dollars are riding on mail for businesses to continue to ignore its long-term cost implications.

During the last three years, messaging has ascended in most businesses from a mere productivity tool to a first- or second-tier strategic and mission critical application. For many it's not only the most frequently used desktop application, but a key determinant of the overall desktop investment. At Digital Equipment Corp., for example, a messaging dictate calling for 32-bit desktop support spurred desktop upgrades around the globe. In some companies, messaging applications are, in fact, the catalyst for a desktop system in the first place. So, while some managers still see messaging as a tail on the applications dog, others are looking to see if this tail is wagging the dogıand this dichotomy helps explain the dramatic differences in the business value and cost propositions put forth by businesses and research houses analyzing messaging TCO and ROI (return on investment).

If as the Gartner Group suggests, the cost of acquiring a messaging system is less than 10 percent of TCO, ignoring TCO during this period of frenzied messaging acquisition and consolidation will likely lead to significant and unexpected costs. Service providers also suggest that small and mid-sized businesses will begin to examine TCO more closely to determine if it's wise to outsource corporate messaging to still budding managed services.

Certainly, many factors are pushing businesses to make significant messaging investments during the next few years. For one, it's clear that older cc:Mail systems are not Year-2000 compliant, and users are still awaiting word on how older MS Mail Systems will fare. But even if these and other legacy mail systems meet the Year 2000 test, most will still be phased out because of scalability, manageability and reliability concerns. Fixing the e-mail mess is a top priority in many businesses.

By some estimates, legacy cc:Mail and MS Mail servers alone support 20.7 million usersıand Gartner estimates that 66 percent of these legacy mail systems will migrate to Notes and Exchange by 2000. In addition, many businesses no longer wish to pay the high administrative and complexity costs of managing multiple coexistent mail systems with poor service delivery. Businesses, too, are relinquishing mail systems that rely on expensive mainframe cycles (despite depreciation on this equipment) and that lack support for Internet mail. Finally, businesses are also coming to realize the value of mail systems with regard to customer satisfaction, elimination of delays, information accuracy, single keying of information for application integration and database upkeep, time savings, paper savings, reduced communication expense, easy updates, facilitating work across time zones and providing a platform for future applications.