Any preference? GroupWise or Domino

[AgTech]

We are currently running Netware & GroupWise as well as NT 4.0 in our office. We are upgrading to Win 2k shortly and are planning to migrate our file server from Netware to a new Win 2k box and reduce the dependance on the Netware environment (currently 4 machines use the Netware OS).

We are looking at two options: (but are open to others)

1. Keeping one box with Netware and run GroupWise mail server on an Win NT (or 2k) box (fresh mail server install)

2. Migrate all users to Lotus Domino/Notes

Has anyone had any experience with both GroupWise & Lotus? Interested in your experiences. We have had some database error troubles in GroupWise that have not been remedied by routine maintenance or rebuilds. We also heavily depend on the sharing of calendars and it seems Lotus may not support the same functionality.

In testing Lotus 5.0.10 we have found that utilizing Windows roaming profiles is not working with the Notes client. Also we have concerns about the amount os folder navigation (and typing) our users may have to do with Notes. In GroupWise their login via client and web are very simple as they are not exposed to the directory information we have seen in the Lotus environment. Are we missing an end-user feature that woudl make this cleaner for them?

Any input would be a great help.

 

[dhayse]

I do not have experience with GroupWise but there is an IBM Redbook that may provide some insight. Here is the link:

http://publib-b.boulder.ibm.com/Redbooks.nsf/RedbookAbstracts/sg245650.html?Open

 

[Ankton]

I have had experience with both apps and each has its pros and cons.

Personally I would go notes as this would reduce your licensing costs as far as Netware and groupwise are concerned. I think that you have to have a licence for each object in the NDS these days (not sure on this one).

Calendaring is quite good in Lotus Notes it has group calendars and resource allocation functionallity.

As far as roaming profiles with notes is concerned, do this
1 install notes locally on each pc for each user
2 Create a share <username> on a server and copy the lotus folder from the c: drive (local installation folder) to this share
3 Map a drive to the share <netuse x: \\server\lotus\%username% apply security to this so only the person it belongs to can access it and maybe an administrator
4 configure your shortcut to lotus notes so that it is pointing to the share and not the local install folder eg. target x:\Lotus\Notes\notes.exe
start in x:\Lotus\Notes
5 In notes -> File -> preferences -> user preferences ->local database file = x:\Lotus\Notes\data