Yesterday, Ed Brill posted an article about a document that Google is using as a Gmail vs. Notes reference guide. His blog post
can be found here.
While Ed and several people in comments mention that some of these are false for particular reasons, I would like to go through each of them briefly to see whether there is validity with the assertions Google is making. I believe you will see that if these are the top 10 reasons Google promotes as the "key differences" between Notes and Gmail, then there really is not much reason to choose Gmail over Lotus Notes.
- I'm sorry Gmail, but I can "access mail" from my Notes server every way that I can imagine accessing my Gmail account - plus I can use a fat client that allows me to access Lotus Notes applications. I can use Lotus iNotes for access "via the Internet".
- Again, I'm sorry Gmail, but Lotus Notes 8.0 + has something called "conversations" (as you put it) that can be used from my Inbox or any other folder to show me each message in their context.
- OK, this has been debated a lot by us Lotus people over the years. Lotus Notes had this years ago, but now has gone the route of using folders. I do like the labels option with Gmail. I'm sure I'll get some flack, but really there isn't much of a difference except semantics. I can "folder" messages into multiple folders.
- In Lotus Notes, use View > Search This View (Alt-V-E) - Then click more and you have a ton of search options.
- OK, I really find this hilarious! Why? All of the screenshots in the Gmail document show the Lotus Notes 7.0 client. But in this table above, Gmail cites that Lotus Notes has instant spell checking. Why is this funny? They tout a feature of Notes that wasn't available until version 8.5! Also, Notes can spell check after composing too. Also, if you use a browser other than Internet Explorer, then instant spell checking is native to the browser. I'm using Google Chrome to compose this and have instant spell checking in my browser.
- "Virtually unlimited" space. I'm not sure how much storage users can get with Gmail for domains, but I have seen many mail databases over 50 GB. Can you do this with Gmail? Storage is a commodity now - it all depends on how much your organization wants to give you with Lotus Notes.
- If allowed, Lotus Notes users can also archive to a file on the server as well as to their desktop. Then these messages are all available in "the cloud" per-say.
- Since stars are bigger, does this mean they're better than flags? Just askin...
- I guess it is nice that you can use Notifier or Google Talk to get new mail notifications. Lotus Notes has (and has had for a while) something called "Notes Minder" that does this. One could also probably write a Sametime Bot to notify you of mail via Lotus's IM platform. Also, does anyone find it funny that Gmail states "receive notifications of new chat messages using Google Talk". Yes, I would love for my chat client to be able to notify me that I have a new chat message by alerting me via said chat client. #recursive
- Using Lotus Notes, I can go to my "conversation thread", select the documents in the thread and then forward them. Not really much different except that this isn't a menu option in Lotus Notes.
Also, it's noteworthy that Gmail doesn't provide a directory lookup for your domain. Do you just have to guess that you've spelled the name/email address correctly?
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Chris, Outstanding job. The people at Google missed a few though...
I was somewhat surprised that Google would be as grossly ignorant about Lotus Notes as Microsoft. I would have expected a little more effort in their "take-down" of Lotus Notes. Looks like they're even more behind in their understanding of it than Microsoft. But sometimes there is advantage when a company is being arrogant in their estimation of their competition.