At least that's what most industry experts think. An InformationWeek April telephone survey of 200 businesses found that 41 percent of those businesses that have or are consolidating on messaging are doing so with Microsoft's Exchange. Other respected estimates put Novell in second place based on user surveys that reflect bundling and other practices that influence the actual use of Exchange. But many analysts think it's largely irrelevant whether GroupWise is No. 1 or 2 because its numbers include older architectures and it draws its customers from an already besieged NetWare base.
Similar controversies surround market share in general.
Figures weren't available for GroupWise. In some cases, the reduced numbers reflect bundling, or product acquisition without deployment or even turning off the product. Our projection is that Lotus keeps its lead in this space for three years or longer. At that time, many analysts predict that messaging will be equally divided among Notes, Exchange and a catch-all category including Internet mail and GroupWise. There remain, however, a cadre of both businesses and analysts who predict that standards-based server mail systems like SunMail and Netscape will eventually overcome the competition.