It was a good question, I thought, as I prepared to cut my Notes experience out of the body of my resume, and paste it into a footnote. Then, a miracle happened. Instead of determining to compete with or ignore Web technologies, Lotus announced its strategy for embracing them. It's very good, and I'll get to it later. That's a stretch, in the context of Notes services.
Exchange does many things very well.
It is my contention, obviously, that true groupware is more than just E-mail and shared folders. A typical Notes domain consists of many Domino servers, spread over a wide area. Users registered in a Notes domain can, security permitting, access databases on any server in the domain. Domino servers can be connected to each other with anything from a dedicated T1 line to a lowly modem. Domino servers manage multiple Notes databases, the user access rights to those databases, and communications with other servers.