Time Technology News archive
Lotus Notes and Sharepoint - Time to live together?
July 2009
Our recommendation would always be, when considering a collaboration and document management tool, to take a serious look at IBM Lotus Quickr (see previous article). However, there can be no doubt that the number of businesses that have chosen to use Microsoft Sharepoint to satisfy this requirement has increased in the last few years. With a low cost of entry (Base level system is free with Windows Server, although you will need to purchase Microsoft SQL server if you don't have it), many organisations that use IBM Lotus as their e-mail platform have chosen to 'have a go' with Sharepoint, and who can blame them. There can be no doubt that it is pretty easy to get quick business value from Sharepoint, and consequently its use has often extended significantly across the organisation. Many IT functions now find themselves committed to a 'co-existance' strategy such that they need to insure that Sharepoint integrates seamlessly with their IBM Lotus infrastructure.
Mainsoft, a US based software company, has created a solution to this challenge. Sharepoint Integrator for Lotus Notes is a highly functional product that impressively integrates the Lotus Notes client with your Sharepoint environment (some say better than Outlook integrates with Sharepoint). For more information on this product please visit Mainsoft Sharepoint integrator. Time Technology are investing in the skills to be able to work in a Lotus Notes/Sharepoint environment, recognising the need to be able to help our customers with this growing challenge.
As a footnote, please be warned that the ease of use of systems such as Sharepoint and Quickr, does tend to bypass best practice for document repositories. Also remember that these are not full Enterprise Content Management environments and attempting to use them as such can end in some major headaches down the line. If your requirement for document storage is anything more than for sharing information on a short to medium term basis, you should take a step back and create a Content Management Strategy for your business. The answer to your needs may well still be Sharepoint or Quickr but, importantly, you will have a heads up on where you might have to invest in order to avoid major problems in the future.
