| |
Lotus Notes Software
- Is it right for your organization?
What is Lotus Notes software?
It is a desktop productivity program that empowers users to get more done with the tools they have available each day:
- Email
- Calendar & Schedule Planning
- To-Do List, Task Management/Delegation
- Personal Address Book & Contact Mgmt
- Collaboration & Productivity Features built-in:
- instant messaging & online presence awareness
- shared team discussion databases
- reference databases (document libraries)
- workflow management features
- personal information management
(Expanded details &
features of Lotus Notes software
are available here)
Why should I consider Lotus Notes software for my business?
Common reasons are: increasing productivity, providing empowerment & effectiveness to end users in your organization, and low cost of ownership; unlike any other messaging or collaboration product on the market.
How can productivity levels increase by using Lotus Notes?
The Lotus Notes software program is what's known as an "Integrated Collaborative Environment". This means that many different capabilities are provided to the end user all within one simple software program interface. This furnishes the user with ease-of-use, and all capabilities accessible from one common workspace (i.e., no waiting for a variety of other different programs to start up on the desktop, and avoidance of potential application conflicts).
As a result, the user is able to get daily activities accomplished in less time and at lower cost. This is just for starters.
Collaboration features exist which afford the user intuitive capabilities to collaborate with knowledge workers & others with expertise in your organization. These include:
- Business-grade Instant Messaging (interactive, online conversations)
- Presence Awareness (seeing employees online and available)
- Discussion Databases (team members can share information & idea-exchange with one another - create as many databases as needed for differing requirements including project management, new idea generation & development, document-sharing, and many other uses)
- Workflow Management Features (examples include marking Inbox items for follow-up purposes; easily placing an Inbox email on your calendar or to-do list or delegating the item to a team member; saving inbox email into document libraries for information sharing with team members).
These built-in features allow the worker to zip through daily information tasks quickly & capably (instead of being overwhelmed by the barrage of daily corporate communications).
Instead of "Water Cooler Conversations" or "Cubicle Interruptions" (which inevitably turn into 15 or 20-min. conversations), a truly electronic collaboration environment can be fostered, resulting in noticeable increases of productivity, reduction of costs, and improvement in organizational output.
For example, which scenario would you rather have at work in your company: a 15-minute cubicle conversation resulting in interruption to one’s business day, OR, a quick question answered in 30 seconds to a minute by an expert in the company, thereby saving time, resources, and productivity levels? If you answered with the latter, that can result in very substantial productivity increases and employee performance gains for your organization.
Does Lotus Notes software require special management or upkeep?
Usually the platform runs itself with occasional minor input from an administrator or IT staff. Management of the software can either be centralized by your IT Staff, or can be fully decentralized with departmental control and front line support. If an organization chooses to add custom applications or features to their Lotus Domino Server, additional help may be needed such as from a Domino application designer or support person.
Who uses this product?
In the time since coming to market in 1989, Lotus Notes has shipped over 120,000,000 user seats, to over 60,000 organizations. Lotus Notes/Domino has been Number 1 in the messaging and/or "integrated collaborative environment" market annually (IDC and/or Gartner).
Major Fortune 100 Companies as well as numerous government agencies are using Lotus Notes & Domino software to communicate & collaborate effectively, and also to efficiently use & process daily information streams which inundate organizations.
Smaller companies have also found big advantages with Lotus Notes software including its integrated collaborative environment, efficiencies in handling multiple data streams, and reduced time to process information.
What is unique about Lotus Notes software?
- Product enables increased user productivity and cost-savings stemming from the use of unique communication & collaboration features
- Employees can manage their Email, Calendar, To-Do List, Contacts, and Collaborative Functions all from within one simple screen.
Technically this is called an Integrated Collaborative Environment; realistically it helps the user work faster & more productively in the same interface without having to launch numerous different applications to get one's work accomplished.
Such a portal gives way to greater capabilities empowering the individual to manage tasks more quickly, organize workload better, gain access to others with expertise, and solve problems rapidly.
What good is communication - after all, isn't Lotus Notes "just another e-mail program"?
On the contrary, communication is the heart, soul, and lifeblood of an organization, and any productivity whatsoever is dependent on effective communication. Lotus Notes, like any good messaging software, is good at e-mail; however it goes way beyond that into the realm of workspace productivity; interacting with your daily information streams; doing something with the data that flows into your desktop; reacting to emails efficiently; following up on new pieces of information; creating actionable items you can react to for business accomplishments.
Why should I purchase Lotus Notes/Domino Software rather than MS Exchange, Novell GroupWise, or some other product?
Aside from the benefits mentioned above, you can see a
detailed laboratory report
by Network Computing Magazine - it compares Lotus Notes software against the competition.
How costly is this product?
There are two platforms of pricing available from IBM:
- One platform is at standard cost and primarily designed for large enterprise-sized corporations & organizations. Please contact us for a customized quote that will meet your organization's unique messaging & collaboration requirements.
- The second option is designed for Small or Medium Companies with under 1,000 employees and is the same Lotus Notes software product but
at much lower cost
to small business.
A new pricing structure for small business, and an increased emphasis by IBM to support small businesses render the cost of this product very low compared to the competition and is an effective entry point for small businesses to utilize an efficient collaborative environment just like the 'big boys'. This product is referred to as "Express" Offerings, and it is priced as follows. One or more of the following is appropriate based on your company's communication requirements:
Lotus Domino Messaging Express:
• This is a complete business messaging and group scheduling solution containing e-mail, calendaring & scheduling, to-do/task management, & contacts management, and includes team workspace collaboration tools such as discussion forums and reference databases plus integrated presence awareness and instant messaging.
Price: $ 105 per user
Lotus Domino Collaboration Express:
• In addition to providing the above features, Lotus Domino Collaboration Express also allows your employees to leverage a large portfolio of industry-specific and cross-industry applications in the marketplace. High-value Domino-based applications address business focus areas such as business controls and reporting, customer relationship management, sales force automation, human resource, help desk, and call centers, as examples.
Price: $ 145 per user
Lotus Domino Utility Server Express:
• An application-only solution (no messaging or group scheduling) that is priced per server CPU for smaller enterprises that want unlimited access through a web browser or separately-licensed Lotus Notes client to custom applications you develop in-house or from hundreds of available third-party Domino applications. Lotus Domino Utility Server Express provides a foundation to help you extend collaboration to your customers, suppliers and partners by facilitating online communities and implementing Web-based customer self-service applications.
$2,757 per processor
An Example Scenario:
20-person Company with Electronic Communication & Collaboration Needs:
20 users x $145 = $2,900 total cost of Lotus Notes software licenses. This includes the centralized server software functionality from which the Notes clients can connect, and have distributed communication to others in the Company. The functionality included in the above is the same: Email Messaging, Group Scheduling, Personal Information Management capabilities, instant messaging & presence awareness built-in, collaboration features such as discussion databases and team workspaces, reference databases (document libraries) with basic workflow, and access to the custom application power of Domino.
Contact Us
- We have been an IBM Business Partner for over 5 years, and are an IBM-approved Reseller
- We are also an experienced computer network systems integrator
- We can help you evaluate your business requirements and make recommendations of solutions that can benefit your organization.
Please fill out & submit the short form below. We will follow up promptly to help you:
You can also reach us directly at (760) 216-6560. We look forward to hearing from you!
Lotus Notes Service and Support
I LINK TECHNOLOGY Homepage
IBM, Lotus, Lotus Notes, Domino, and Domino Designer are trademarks of International Business Machines Corporation in the United States, other countries, or both.
Other company, product, or service names may be trademarks or service marks of others.
|
