Suite Dilemmas

摘要

Messaging software has become so criti-cal that it's hard to imagine businesses functioning without it. Online collabora-tion products have also become vital. The question is, should you buy a messaging/collaboration suite from one vendor or purchase individual products for e-mail and collaboration from several? There are pros and cons to both strategies, industry analysts and IT managers say. But more organizations seem to be choosing the suite option. For most software implementations, there's typically a 50-50 split between companies that buy best-of-breed applications and those that purchase all-in-one suites. But for messaging and collaboration applications, it's more like 70% to 80% favoring suites, says Nate Root, an analyst at Forrester Research Inc.