Hot on the heels of Candle Corp (see separate story), IBM Corp owned Tivoli Systems Inc has expanded its line of management tools for Lotus Notes/Domino and added a new offering for Microsoft Exchange. The software is meant to enable system administrators to deploy and monitor Domino and Exchange environments and is designed for use with the Tivoli Management Environment (CI No 3,244). Users can track the performance of Lotus applications, automate particular functions and anticipate the effects of taking a particular server off-line. The modules also slot into the company’s newly released Global Enterprise Manager (GEM), designed to provide a graphical overview of the Exchange and Domino environments and give central control over the entire messaging system. The company defends its decision not to come out with a module for Novell Inc’s GroupWise product, commenting: it’s a matter of priority, we’re looking at where the market’s going and the potential for growth, but we may well expand beyond Exchange and Notes. Figures from Lotus for the third quarter 1997 suggest Notes has an install base of 15.3 million compared to 7.5 million for 1996. Comparative figures for Microsoft Exchange are 7.2 million and 0.75 million respectively with GroupWise on 8 million for 1997 compared to 7 million for the previous year. And the rival offering from Candle? Kevin Cunningham, Tivoli’s product marketing manager for Notes comments: I have to give them credit it goes pretty deep but it’s only a point solution, it doesn’t do anything for cross mail system management. Cunningham quotes figures from analysts Gartner Group which suggest that by 1999 30% of Notes sites will have an Exchange server and vice versa. The Candle product manages Notes as an island and doesn’t give the same level of control over networks and operating systems, he adds. So if Tivoli had a silver bullet to take out one of its competitors? I think it’s got to be Candle simply because they’ve been around longer. Cunningham says there is plenty of room for growth in this market, quoting figures internal figures suggesting that 84% of Notes users currently do not use any management tool and 5% use Lotus’ own NotesView software. Tivoli is currently fighting it out with the likes of Computer Associates Inc, BMC Software Inc and Candle for the remaining 9%, a market that Cunningham estimates is worth around $100m. Tivoli Modules for Domino and Exchange will ship in March, priced at $500 per server. Initial clients supported will include Windows NT and all the major Unixes with OS/2 and S390 versions to follow.
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