Response to the Radicati Market Analysis Study of June 2004, Jul 23
Michael’s analysis of this reports sounds very interesting. It’s on the top of the pile to read tomorrow.
I think the fragmentation of IM has to end. I think in order for IM to be excepetionally useful either everybody has to get a Yahoo, MSN, AIM, IRC, ICQ, etc. ID our we figure out how to send IMs another way.
In some way Convoq’s approach is pretty close, except that in order for it to show your IM contacts’ presence that app has to be running. So ostensibly you’d be running AIM, Yahoo, and MSN simultaneouly. It, unfortunately, doesn’t seem to piggy back off Miranda (my favourite multi-channel IM tool). It might work with Trillian, but I don’t know.
Regardless, here is the text of Michael’s post. You can download the PDF with his complete analysis on his website.
I’ve been an analyst, researcher and consultant in the messaging and collaboration market since 1994. During that time, I’ve watched Microsoft and Lotus closely, commenting on many of their respective moves directly to clients, and in publications via Ferris Research. This paper is a response to The Radicati Group’s recent White Paper, “IBM Lotus & Microsoft–Corporate Messaging Market Analysis” (June 2004), available at www.radicati.com/reports/single.shtml.
My overall analysis of its White Paper is that it is a headline grabbing publication lacking analytical rigor, logic and appropriate follow-through. The paper is unbelievable in this respect, making me wonder whether it is really an independent publication, or marketing material sponsored by Microsoft. The author seeks to compare two platforms that are entirely different in terms of scope and imagination, and then recommends a path for clients. I strongly believe that the author entirely misses the point, is totally wrong in the commentary on Microsoft’s messaging strategy, and therefore provides market share growth figures that are just plain wrong.