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How to save money with Lotus Foundations vs Microsoft SBS?

Posted by on Feb 2nd, 2009 in IBM, Lotus Foundations | 6 comments

Vaughan Rivett recently posted an online video and a calculator showcasing the cost saving advantages of Lotus Foundations vs the ‘competition’ aka Microsoft Small Business Server.

Unfortunately, for us North American folks, the pricing is in New Zealand dollars. But none the less, it shows you the advantages of going with a more efficient platform. Mind you, he is playing nice and hasn’t even mentioned the included one-touch backup technology that’s already built in. On the Microsoft side, you have no competing technology ‘yet’.

I have put together a video clip which shows how to compare the price of Lotus Foundations with the price of a Microsoft Small Business Server (SBS). I had offered a calculator on a previous blog post, but there appeared to be some questions in regards to comparing apples for apples. There may also have been some questions about where I got the final figures from.

Before we get to the calculator here is a video which gives an explanation of how to interpret the results:

Check out his blog posting with the calculator by clicking here.

  • http://st1.rivettassociates.com/Web/Vaughans.nsf/ Vaughan Rivett

    Hi there,
    Thanks for your comments in reference to the post I have on my blog.

    Just in reference to the comment you made about your local prices. If you know the prices you can click on “Edit” above the chart and enter in the relevant information.

    I hope that this works for you and your readers.

  • http://www.elegantsolutions.ca Boyd Carter

    Hello Bilal and Vaughan,

    Can you make the case even more compelling by creating a TCO model. Gartner says: “More than 75% of the IT budget is spent on
    maintaining and running software applications”. And Microsoft says: “The initial purchase is usually only 5% of the TCO of a program”. Source: http://www.siia.net/ondemand/test/ppt/tcoanalysis.pdf. It would seem that Lotus Foundations would have an irrefutable and compelling TCO case if you use a TCO Calculator from an independent third party such as SIIA. Symplified did, look at this outcome: http://www.siia.net/ondemand/2008/symplified%20wp%20saas%20tco%20analysis%208-1-08.pdf

    Why can’t Lotus Foundations do something like what Sykmplified did?

  • http://www.elegantsolutions.ca Boyd Carter

    Symplified, pardon the “fat finger”

  • http://www.hurwitz.com Laurie McCabe

    Add in the savings from not having to have IT consultants/staff to deploy and manage Foundations, and its more compelling.

  • http://st1.rivettassociates.com/Web/Vaughans.nsf/ Vaughan Rivett

    @Bilal
    Can you email me and can we work on @3 together? What do you think?

  • Anonymous

    Interesting calculator, thanks for the video demonstration although since I work for easy saver complaints I have seen quite a few models of these calculators but its hard to tell how this compares to them without using it.

Blog by Bilal Jaffery. Copyright © Bilal.ca 2011