The Exchange email client continues to gain editing tools, and, if you download new tools from the Microsoft home page, Microsoft Word can be configured as both an email client and a browser. Obviously, Microsoft would like to find a way to leverage its installed base of Office products. We also understand that using Microsoft Word as an email client can be an exercise in patience building. While their approach appears somewhat kluge-like, Microsoft may have thought about this more than you think. When you add a new user to the Microsoft address book, you can select whether or not that user has Exchange and can therefore view rich-text.
Lotus is in an interesting position relative to the other major contestants.
Although Lotus currently is the market share leader in terms of email seats, we suspect that most analysts would consider them a distant third. Also, Lotus seems comfortable adopting HTML as an email standard. Recently, Lotus announced a feature for its mail servers whereby users can access their mailbox from any browser worldwide. What Lotus lacks is the ability to diffuse its products quickly. The momentum of Netscape on the client side and Windows NT on the server side will be difficult to offset.