Our Outlook Express e-mail system is malfunctioning. We`re thinking of trying Lotus Notes. What’s the best way to buy this system? We just want basic e-mail.
Is Eudora better than Lotus Notes? How?
Thanks!
As as IT professional that has experience with Lotus Notes in two different companies I say don’t. Lotus notes is inferior in most ways to MS Outlook systems. It has a really screwy interface.
Can you describe the type of system that you are working with? Is it just the client (what you have on your PC) or do you need an e-mail server too.
Outlook Express is NOT an ‘email system’, it is a POP client. Eudora is also a POP client. Their functionality is limited to downloading email from a POP server, and forwarding outgoing messages to a SMTP host.
Lotus Notes, and Microsofts version, Exchange could qualify as an email ‘system’, but it’s better known as groupware. Not only will they handle email, but shared email folders, group and personal calendars, address books, distribution lists, and other office collaboration tools.
I am not a big fan of Notes, but it has to better than using a POP client even in a small 5-10 person office. My unfamiliarity with installing and maintaining Notes leads me to assume it’s not really made for an office sans IT administrator. Someone better versed in Notes would know the answer to that.
Exchange is very well suited for a small 5-10 person office, especially the SBS version, which is basically a file server/print server/groupware package pre-loaded on a computer (the server), for around $1000 for 10 users, including the computer and 10 Outlook clients (not the same as outlook express).
It’s easy to set up and maintain, although I might recommend a consultant do the initial setup, but a relatively computer literate user can maintain, with remote support from a good consultant. IMHO, best bang for the buck, and it can grow up to 75 users quickly and cheaply.
I’m sure there is Open Source Groupware that would be worth checking out as well.
Thanks so much for your prompt reply!
We don’t need a server. We use cox.net.
Whenever I try to “reply” to an e-mail I received, our Outlook Express sends up a window that says, “The Address Book failed to load. Outlook Express is incorrectly configured, please re-install”. After I click on the “OK” box, another window comes up that says, “There was an error opening this message. An error has occurred”.
We have tried to re-install the address book, but I don’t think that is the problem, becuse we seldom do anything to the address book.
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/q191946/
looks like a quick registry fix.
Notes is far superior in areas like security (not generally susceptible to the crap that brings down MS systems) and groupware. It’s not as “intuitive” because it’s not really a Windows look and feel sort of software. There are some areas that are nice, and you can do some cool things with Lotuscript and building integrated workflow applications. But if you’re not doing stuff like that or have a need for it then it might be overkill.
da pope,
Thank you for that page, but I’m running XP and the repair instructions are only for 95 and 98.
From just a cusory look, it appears that fix is valid on an XP machine as well.
Don’t do the re-install part, look at the part that talks about re-creating a ‘.wab’ file. You’ll lose all of your entries, but it’s a good place to begin troubleshooting. Don’t delete the ‘*.wab’, just rename it. Outlook Express will create a new address book. If the error is gone, you can suspect an entry in your old book.