During the past few weeks I have been reviewing two systems from the major Cloud offering players: IBM LotusLive and Microsoft Cloud (Offic365).
Below is a table which I compiled based on my application review and interactions with the support personal. My intent is simply to compare two competing product lines based on my personal experience during the setup, configuration and maintenance of both systems. I realize that my conclusions might be subjective and cold be a result of my personal experience with both products. I hope that this will not influence your decision in regards to the selection of your future Cloud platform.
| Feature | IBM LotusLive | Microsoft Cloud |
| Trial Sign up | On-line sign up is easy.The account activation email did not reach my mailbox a couple of times and I had to contact technical support via email. | On-line sign up is easy. |
| Sales support | A phone number is available.I was not able to reach a sales person a couple of time when I really needed to. Wait time was excessive.Sales support is not available after working hours. | Sales support is available after hours. I was able to reach a live person off the continental US call center within less than 5 minutes wait time. |
| Technical support | Full production support available during the trial period.The 800 number is available.Also, not very urgent issues could be handled via support@lotuslive.com support email. The problem resolution sometimes takes more than one email communication, though.
I am personally not satisfied with the technical support. It has been about 3 weeks since the one of my issues has been reported to tech support. However the problem has not been resolved yet |
Full production support available during the trial period. The 800 number is available. Tech support is available 24×7 with almost no wait time. |
| Linking to a domain name | The trial nor demo accounts do not allow to link my domain name to the trial email server. | Was able to link multiple domain names to the trail email server.The process is completely automated and works flawlessly. |
| Mobile access | Not available during the trial period | Available. I installed it on client iPhones during the trial period. |
| Password change | The account administrator has no ability to reset nor to change the user password. The user activation deactivation is not available either.[11/07/11] – this feature has been added. Administrator can change/reset the passwords users | Available |
| Social Networking | I would call LotusLive the Corporate Facebook! That’s what makes LotusLive a unique environment currently. | None. |
| Activating a production account | I have not gotten to that point yet.According to the tech support the activation of the account may take between one to four weeks. | Very easy and can be done online. Took literally 5 minutes to downgrade an account and then move it to the production level without losing any of the settings nor data used in the trial account |