Despite having a shiny new version of its Notes/Domino software on the market, Lotus Development Corp is still losing market share to Microsoft Corp’s groupware offering, Outlook. A new survey from International Data Corp finds that of 21 million new users added in the first half of 1999, Microsoft gathered the most new ‘seats’ with 8.10 million worldwide. Lotus added a further 7.43 million users overall and Novell Corp’s GroupWise came in a poor third with 3.22 million new users.
The survey is bad news for Lotus which shipped its much delayed R5 client and server software in April and has been talking up the collaborative features of the software ever since. However, the picture isn’t all gloom for the IBM Corp company, Lotus lost out to Microsoft in the US but is still stronger in Europe. Lotus is also leading in the Asia-Pacific market, which is expected to be one of the fastest growing markets for groupware into the next century.
