Ed Brill

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1. 1  John Head http://www.johndavidhead.com | 10/20/2008 10:10:50 AM

   While I am always one to take a shot at the MS direction, let's get real .. most customers using Sharepoint today are doing thru ESA's and not paying these prices.

1. 2  Ed Brill http://www.edbrill.com | 10/20/2008 10:15:18 AM

   if that's the case, why do you suppose a SharePoint community blog would publish this table?

1. 3  Sean Cull http://www.seancull.co.uk | 10/20/2008 10:38:25 AM

   Is it not a Microsoft Gold Certified Partner blog rather than a community blog ?

1. 4  Ed Brill http://www.edbrill.com | 10/20/2008 10:56:35 AM

   OK, a vendor who has created a community site then :) Either way, it's not like they have any reason to be biased against MS in these calculations.

1. 5  Scott Marchione http://scottmarchione.blogspot.com | 10/20/2008 11:29:08 AM

   I've already commented on Keith's blog regarding this calculator, and I can tell you this. In my own corporate environment I just completed an eval of Sharepoint vs. Quickr, and from our standpoint we chose Sharepoint, and maybe a surprise to the Lotus Community, but Sharepoint would cost less for us to purchase in the fact that we already have a SQL server 2005 box that we would use for the data, we already have a server to install it on, and we already user WSS3 because it comes with our ERP software, Dynamics. The cost to purchase licensing for external use is what really sealed the deal for us. The IBM price per PVU, even at our level G discount put the Extranet licensing at $52,000 just for the extranet licensing, $10,000 more than MOSS for Internet Sites. IBM requires that 200 PVU's be purchased when installing on a VM, and that might be the reason that the price turns up so high. I will say this, our sales person did a great job of working on the pricing for us, getting us an additional 10% off, which brought the price closer to Sharepoint, but the deal expires at the end of next month, and our fiscal year doesn't start until April, so spending the money this fiscal year wouldn't be possible. On the pricing front, Quickr loses, at least for my scenario....This should in no way be taken as "Sharepoint is better", because I don't feel that way. I like the UI much better with Quickr, and I appreciate the ease of integration with our Notes clients, and the development possibilities, but for how we intend to use our Collaboration software, either would do the job, and either would provide scalability to extend the uses to our customers and to our business partners, one just does it for less money... to quote Mr. Ripley... "Believe it or not!"

1. 6  Matt Cook  | 10/20/2008 12:06:15 PM

   > IBM requires that 200 PVU's be purchased when installing on a VM

   I have never before seen any info re: PVU's and VMs. Admittedly, I hadn't been looking either.

   Is this just true of Quickr or to which IBM products does this apply when installing on a VM?

1. 7  Scott Marchione http://scottmarchione.blogspot.com | 10/20/2008 12:45:49 PM

   @6 As part of the subcap licensing, IBM requires a minimum of 200 PVU's when installing Domino on a VM server, and in the case of Quickr for Extranet access, the same model applies. Also you are required to run a monitoring utility and provide quarterly reports to ensure compliance, aka you don't add additional processor cores to your VM for two and a half months, and then knock it down to 2 when someone looks. I don't blame them for this, there is really no way to keep track of the processor cores being used on the VM's any other way.

1. 8  Charles Robinson http://www.cubert.net | 10/20/2008 1:15:40 PM

   Ed, your glass house is a little fragile. :-) Can you point me to a Domino or Quickr licensing calculator? I found the online PVU calculator ( https://www-112.ibm.com/software/howtobuy/passportadvantage/valueunitcalculator/vucalc.wss ) but I haven't found anything that will let me seamlessly integrate that with product pricing.

1. 9  Ed Brill http://www.edbrill.com | 10/20/2008 1:19:50 PM

   @8 this isn't on Microsoft.com -- it was built by, as pointed out @3, a Microsoft partner/integrator. Maybe that's an opportunity for an IBM Lotus partner :)

1. 10  Dave Armstrong  | 10/20/2008 1:26:44 PM

   I agree with most of the comments - this calculator is being misinterpreted... for two main reasons:

   1) If you are even considering SharePoint, odds are you already have Windows Servers, SQL, etc. So the full cost above is not additional cost for sharepoint, it is the full cost of your infrastrcture.

   2) The calculator is showing MOSS pricing, not SharePoint pricing. There is a difference.

   The cost of an existing MS shop wanting to add SharePoint, but not MOSS is not prohibitive.

   That being said, I think total infrastructure and supports costs still are cheaper in a Domino environment. But I don't have a fancy calculator to prove it. :)

1. 11  John C. Cummins  | 10/20/2008 3:15:46 PM

   This is a typical Project Liberate discussion isn't it? :)

   For a lot of these types of projects, there is only a plan/budget to change/add certain pieces of infrastructure. For example, the customer is set on Win 2003 server with Office 2003 and/or 2007 as a client. The customer is not ready to evaluate the whole platform where he might make a very different decision.

   For example, what if the customer went with Symphony and/or Open Office instead of MS Office 2007? How much would he save? What if he wants a workflow that has a PDF or a ZIP file? Both of those were not possible when MOSS 2007 first came out. Not sure about the status now...

   Depending on what the customer is willing to evaluate, the answer to this type of comparison could change either way.

1. 12  Clayton Price  | 10/20/2008 4:29:57 PM

   This is just FUD and I thought you were better than that Ed.

1. 13  Bob Williams  | 10/20/2008 4:49:41 PM

   The other thing this website doesn't take into account is that you don't need all the pieces. If you have the Enterprise piece, you don't need the Forms licenses since the Enterprise CAL includes Forms++. Plus, if you get the Internet Server, you don't need the Forms Server for the Internet. It's a pretty bad calculator given the work I've done both with Lotus and SharePoint. . .

1. 14  Ed Brill http://www.edbrill.com | 10/20/2008 4:52:21 PM

   I don't see how it's FUD, Clayton. This comes from a Microsoft partner website and it even includes check boxes where you can toggle on or off the various pricing components. I am highlighting it because we often hear from customers that "Sharepoint is free" (or we already got it in our Enterprise Agreement) but there is much more to the story than the free licenses.

1. 15  David Bell  | 10/20/2008 5:20:31 PM

   @13 - true, but the costs of those items is a fraction of the total shown; $26k.

   The other thing that is not clear is if you have MOSS 2007 standard cals (which you can't deselect), do you have to pay for MOSS 2007 Enterprise CAL's on top of that or is the standard CAL superceded and included in the enterprise CAL ?

   The thing that kills me here is that the biggest ticket item is for the Windows server CALs, and then you pay to access the application on top of that !

   Why are you charged to access the OS AND the application ?

1. 16  Clayton Price  | 10/20/2008 7:15:27 PM

   Anyone who has paid $400 for a Windows Server CAL deserves Sharepoint. Even IBM could obtain CAL's for a fraction of that ;-)

   My point is....the numbers aint right !!!

1. 17  Ed Brill http://www.edbrill.com | 10/20/2008 7:23:35 PM

   hmmm....good point. I wonder where they came up with $400. There's a feedback link on the right side.

1. 18  Martin http://martinhumpolec.cz | 10/21/2008 2:25:23 AM

   @15 - if you want the Enterprise licencing you have to pay the standard as well.

   @14 - well Sharepoint Services is kind of free and from my point of view their functionality is about the same as Quickr's one. The full Sharepoint has a lot of additional value which is hard to mimic with Quickr or even impossible.

   And with Quickr as well there is the strange difference between the Domino one and the Websphere one, from which I like the WebSphere one much more as I have a feeling that the Domino one is harder to use from user perspective while, on the other hand, offer probably much easier development for all us Lotus developers.

1. 19  Charles Robinson http://www.cubert.net | 10/21/2008 8:35:23 AM

   @15 - It's similar to the difference between Domino Enterprise and Utility. With Enterprise you need licenses for each authenticated user. With Utility (at a much higher price point) you get unlimited authenticated users.

   Windows Server requires a CAL for each authenticated user, too. Microsoft recognized the licensing was cost prohibitive for MOSS and with Windows Server 2008 they introduced External Connector licensing. For approximately $2000, in addition to the cost of the server license, you get unlimited external authenticated users. The license downgrades to Windows Server 2003 or Windows 2000 Server. { Link } That would be a nice addition to the calculator, if someone wants to suggest it. :-)

1. 20  Charles Robinson http://www.cubert.net | 10/21/2008 8:39:07 AM

   I just noticed that it includes the External Connector licensing already, and it has both that and the Windows Server CAL's selected. It appears you still have to have a bit of knowledge about the licensing to make sure you only select the parts you need. In that scenario you can uncheck the Windows Server CAL's and drop $400,000 from the price and still be licensed properly.

   Incidentally, it took me about 2 minutes on Google to find the answers to these questions. I'm not casting aspersions, I'm just saying the information is out there and not that hard to find.

1. 21  Kerr  | 10/21/2008 9:29:00 AM

   @20, You do need the 1000 CALs if you have 1000 employees though, don't you? The External Connector only helps you put stuff out in your extranet / internet for external users. Or am I missing something?

1. 22  Charles Robinson http://www.cubert.net | 10/21/2008 11:55:38 AM

   @21 - Yes, but you should have those already if you have a Windows infrastructure. If you deploy Windows in per seat mode, the CALs you purchase gives you access to any Windows server in your network that is configured for per seat access. If you use per server access (which I have never seen in the wild), you have to have a separate set of CAL's for each server.

1. 23  Kerr  | 10/21/2008 12:28:43 PM

   @22, Penny... Drops... Ah ha! ;)

1. 24  Tim Lorge http://www.groupwarenews.com | 10/21/2008 7:11:33 PM

   I know this is now an old topic BUT what about the hardware costs? I don't pretend to be a SP sizing guru but let's just say for S&G, you had a roll-out of 50,000 users. Using the qty of 1000-2-2-1 as you have in the example, doesn't that roughly mean one would need either 250 servers or server instances? How does that get managed? What sort of Exchange infrastructure would have to be on top of that? Again, we're talking a huge roll-out but man o'man!

1. 25  Tim Lorge http://www.groupwarenews.com | 10/21/2008 7:15:51 PM

   BTW ... the SP software costs alone on that 50,000 are about $38.2 Million. For Quickr, we're looking at $3.5 million or about 90% cheaper than SP.

1. 26  Keith Brooks http://www.vanessabrooks.com | 10/22/2008 6:59:13 PM

   @8 Pricing for Lotus/IBM software is on their respective sites.

   Quickr is listed at $75/user or in PVU's.

   As Ed said, I posted it because it was a Microsoft BP who published it and when I ran the numbers it was expensive, more than I thought it eould be.

   As pointed out you may not need it all, and various CALs do and do not cover all acess.

   It's not FUD, although may hit the Fear factor, definitely no uncertainty here, nor is there any doubt about it.

   But if you had looked into this properly and priced it out, you should either agree with the #'s or get something lower.

   That is all I was after.

   And yes, it is a Liberate type idea.

1. 27  John R. http://www.shareminds.com | 11/18/2008 4:51:56 PM

   Try "ShareMinds" - Cloud Based ECM Solution

1. 28  Tom Cruz http:www.uol.com.br | 4/12/2009 6:43:58 PM

   Ed ... I really thought you were better than that ... the calculator is as misleading as the conclusion - IBM got to do a better job than that or it will end up the OS2 away...