The Inertia of the Desktop on Messaging Decisions

By Michael Osterman
in

Messaging systems are a cost of doing business. Like any utility that must operate 24×7, email and, to a lesser extent real-time communications systems, are vital to the operation of just about any information- and communications-focused business. And, like a utility, decision makers need to drive down the cost of providing messaging services while not compromising on the quality of those services.

There are a number of very good messaging platforms offered as on-premise or cloud-based solutions that are significantly less expensive than many of the current messaging systems in place today. Many of these alternatives offer the same or better performance, they run on less expensive hardware, they support higher server loadings, or they can be managed with less IT staff involvement. So, why don’t more companies flock to these alternatives?

A key reason is the current desktop infrastructure, which is dominated by Microsoft Outlook. Outlook is a very good desktop client, it provides most or all of the functionality that users require, and it’s more or less ubiquitous in the workplace. It integrates nicely with Office, the dominant desktop productivity application, and is offered “free” with Office.

In a survey we conducted during 2010, we asked IT decision makers and influencers in mid-sized and large organizations the following two questions:

  • “If you could replace your backend messaging infrastructure with one that provided significantly better performance, server loading, lower costs or other significant advantages, but that required you to switch desktop clients, how likely would you be to switch?”
  • “If you could replace your backend messaging infrastructure with one that provided significantly better performance, server loading, lower costs or other significant advantages, but that allowed you to keep your current desktop clients, how likely would you be to switch?”

What we found is that if the desktop client had to be switched, only 16% of respondents indicated that their organization would likely or definitely switch. However, if the desktop client could be retained and only the backend of the messaging system was swapped, that figure jumped to 43%—a difference of 2.6 times.

As I see it, there is both a near-term and a long-term story here. Near term, for alternative messaging systems to gain traction they will need to be compatible with Microsoft Outlook; for users of Outlook Web Access, the Web experience offered by an alternative will need to be virtually identical. The reason is simple: IT departments don’t want to go through the difficulty of swapping out Outlook or whatever client is currently on the desktop, and they want to avoid the inevitable wave of help desk calls every Monday morning that will follow a weekend of migrating X% of the user base to the new client. Most IT departments are already time- and resource-constrained as it is, and adding a new burden is going to be actively avoided whenever possible.

Longer term, however, I believe that the user community will need to embrace new interfaces as organizations migrate their users to the cloud for purposes of cutting their IT costs, but more importantly as they seek to reduce their real estate costs and taxes by having more users work from home. Giving users browser-based access to their communications and collaboration resources is a major benefit for organizations seeking to cut costs, and users will simply need to become less attached to their comforable desktop experience. Ultimately, the convergence of a change in user attitude—coupled with vendors providing increased functionality in the desktop experience—will lead to the desktop environment becoming less influential on messaging decisions, and greater flexibility for IT departments as they seek to reduce the cost of messaging services.

Published March 15, 2011