Simple Research – Lotus Notes vs Outlook
Disclaimer: I am not a statistician and I do not claim to know anything about statistics.
For a long time I have wondered if the disturbing lack of Lotus Notes shops is just a Milwaukee issue. I finally decided to stop wondering and do a little research. I decided to use a very (un)scientific method… search Monster.com.
My searches were simple. I searched for the word “Lotus” in Milwaukee. The search found six results (jobs). Yikes! Chicago looked a bit better with 29 jobs and New York City looked great with 55 jobs.
Case solved! There are plenty of other Lotus Notes shops in other cities! I shouldn’t have FUD (Fear, Uncertainty, & Doubt) about Lotus Notes.
Then I got curious… what is the percentage of Lotus Notes jobs compared to jobs that contain the keyword “Outlook.” My results were a bit frightening.
| Lotus vs Outlook | ||
| City | Lotus | Outlook |
| Milwaukee | 6 | 56 |
| Chicago | 29 | 174 |
| San Francisco | 33 | 138 |
| Seattle | 7 | 142 |
| New York | 55 | 363 |
| Houston | 19 | 190 |
| United Kingdom | 77 | 569 |
To be fair… this data is terribly unreliable. For instance… doing a search for the word “sales” in Milwaukee returns 470 jobs. Many employers must not list their email system in the job description. Maybe companies that use Lotus Notes figure the software is easy enough to use so it is not listed as a job requirement.
Would I use these numbers to claim I know the market-share of Outlook vs Lotus Notes? No… I would not. Do these numbers worry me? Yes.
There are 6 Comments to "Simple Research – Lotus Notes vs Outlook"
You should have probably tried searching for “Domino” vs. “Exchange”. Outlook will feature in a lot of jobs that require proficiency in office productivity software and those jobs could be for clerks/administrative staff e.t.c
You will hardly see a tech job asking for Outlook skills, rather it will be Exchange if its an MS shop.
IMO
I was looking for all jobs that contained the words Lotus or Outlook. I didn’t want just tech jobs.
I wanted to research how many companies were using Lotus or Outlook not who was hiring for those technologies.
Um, I don’t think your analysis really means anything. I support several small companies who pop into an ISP for their email, using Outlook. These companies will never, ever hire based on mail client expertise but still will list Outlook as a technology that they use. Could they use Notes ? Sure, but they already have Outlook due to their use of MS Office. Even searching on Domino or Exchange will not yield a realistic analysis since Exchange has significantly higher support requirements.
To continue on the first poster’s comments, most companies list Microsoft office skills the same, mentioning word/excel/outlook. I’ve seen job descriptions for the company I work for list outlook as a “needed skill” and we have been lotus since the company started. Not once have they listed Lotus as a needed skill, they just assume that we will be able to train them on how to use it.
It’s a fair guesstimate. Thanks for being brave. Growth for the Lotus community is probably not going to come from the same corporate-windows client base that has dominated for 15 years. IBM seems to be competing by changing strategies: developing Lotus Symphony, Connections; creating full multi-client Notes support; updating Quickr; updating Sametime; building Lotus Foundations; and whipping up LotusLive.
This is not a gradual shift in the wind. The challenge for those who enjoy the Lotus collaboration platform, is to ride this tornado.
@Bob and JT
I agree. I really do. But you look at those stats and you look at all of the marketing for “Support Microsoft Exchange” (remember the iPhone fiasco?) and wonder about IBM/Lotus’ strength in the email arena.