Microsoft Exchange and HCL Notes are competitors in the enterprise collaboration and email management category. Microsoft Exchange seems to have the upper hand due to seamless integrations with Microsoft Teams and OneDrive and its robust collaborative features, though HCL Notes offers strong application development and security.
Features: Microsoft Exchange is noted for its continuous improvement, integration with mobile devices and third-party applications, and reliable collaboration via tools like Outlook. It integrates smoothly with Microsoft Teams and OneDrive, providing stability, scalability, and robust email management. HCL Notes excels in application development and offers flexibility in workflow applications with strong security features, although users find it somewhat outdated.
Room for Improvement: Microsoft Exchange requires improvements in storage management, spam filtering, search capabilities, and easier integration with non-Microsoft products. It also faces challenges with deployment complexity and the need for regular updates. HCL Notes users highlight the outdated user interface, calling for modernization, and criticize its rigidity, lack of new versions, and unsatisfactory overall user experience.
Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Microsoft Exchange supports deployment in on-premises, public, private, and hybrid clouds, offering more flexibility than HCL Notes, which is primarily on-premises and hybrid. Exchange benefits from broad community support but has issues with customer service delays, whereas HCL Notes has a straightforward support structure but limited updates as it ages.
Pricing and ROI: Microsoft Exchange is perceived as expensive, particularly for small to medium-sized businesses. Its complex pricing models can make it costly for larger user bases despite integration with Office 365. HCL Notes is generally seen as more cost-effective due to its straightforward pricing and value in licensing and application development, though its ROI varies due to its outdated interface compared to more modern solutions.
Once Notes is running, it performs reliably without issues.
I would rate HCL technical support as eight out of ten.
The Microsoft support structure, while technically proficient, involves case transfers across different global locations.
The scalability of the product is really good.
The licensing and associated costs make it challenging to scale, especially when user numbers increase.
I think HCL can make its product better by being more visible on the market because most companies don't support or use HCL anymore.
It could be modernized by the development team.
The biggest issue with Microsoft Exchange is its high cost, especially in pricing for license upgrades and expansion to more users.
Microsoft Exchange is costly, and its licensing model can be expensive over time as more users require licenses.
We use HCL Notes for its offline capabilities, including the ability to work offline.
Microsoft Exchange is a user-friendly and easy-to-deploy solution, which is beneficial for handling emails even without professional support.
| Product | Market Share (%) |
|---|---|
| Microsoft Exchange | 11.3% |
| HCL Notes | 3.5% |
| Other | 85.2% |
| Company Size | Count |
|---|---|
| Small Business | 11 |
| Midsize Enterprise | 1 |
| Large Enterprise | 9 |
| Company Size | Count |
|---|---|
| Small Business | 41 |
| Midsize Enterprise | 27 |
| Large Enterprise | 35 |
HCL Notes is a secure on-premises email client that allows teams access to email, calendar, and contact management capabilities. The solution integrates other collaboration tools seamlessly along with HCL Domino business applications, into a single workspace. HCL Notes is most commonly used in corporate environments for email, but can also be used to create websites, custom applications and business workflows, discussion groups, and document libraries. In addition, the solution enhances user experiences, helps internal teams collaborate with internal and external stakeholders, and streamline communication management operations.
HCL Notes is available for Windows, Apple iOS, and Android.
HCL Notes Features
HCL Notes has many valuable key features. Some of the most useful ones include:
HCL Notes Benefits
Some of the benefits of using HCL Notes include:
Reviews from Real Users
Below are some reviews and helpful feedback written by HCL Notes users.
An Administration & Technical Director at a tech services company says, "Its security is absolutely stratospheric. In an application, you can lock down to field-level security. For example, I could log in and see a field in an HR database with salaries. When you log in, you see exactly the same database, but the field with the salary just isn't there. So, you can literally have field-level security on it, and you can also have secure encryption. For example, I could give you that database allowing you to see the salary, but a calculation that shows how much they get per month in another field is encrypted. So, you won't be able to see that because you don't have the encryption key. You can implement high-level security very simply."
PeerSpot user Bogdan C., Kierownik Biura Informatyki at an insurance company, mentions, “The most valuable feature is the access that it provides to documents. This offers us an easy way to make changes.”
Marcos S., Diretor at MASTERDOM, comments, “The solution is practical, good interface, and performs well. The usability of the old applications to the new version of the client is very good. The migration is very good for some legacy applications.”
Built to deliver the enterprise-grade security and reliability that businesses require, Microsoft Exchange provides email, calendar and contacts on your PC, phone and web browser.
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