IBM Or Microsoft For Collaboration — Or Both?

Choosing a collaboration platform — which often comes down to two vendors, IBM and Microsoft — is a highly strategic technology decision that has wide-reaching infrastructure and architecture implications. Often it is fraught with political and technical landmines because the decision touches on many related technology areas and people in a wide variety of business and IT roles tend to get involved. To make the most well-rounded, fully thought-through decision, narrow your choices down to two main vendors. Then analyze how each vendor stacks up in terms of: 1) fit with your enterprise collaboration strategy; 2) fit with your applications and infrastructure standards; 3) fit with your enterprise content management (ECM) strategy; 4) your desktop and office productivity standards and refresh cycles; 5) vendor support for a coexistence strategy; and 6) cultural fit.