Both IBM and Microsoft are trumpeting their respective messaging platforms this month and the two roads are diverging.Both vendors a couple years ago drew up big plans for a unified data store across messaging, database, applications, which they promised would simplify data management. Well, IBM has jumped ahead in a piece of that vision. Big Blue confirmed this week that the forthcoming Lotus Notes Domino Version 7 will offer the ability to store Domino data in IBM DB2. Microsoft, meanwhile, earlier this year deferred the WinFS unified storage technology in Longhorn and last week said that the next version of Exchange, due in the 2006 or 2007 timeframe, will stick to the JET database technology. Earlier Microsoft officials had suggested Exchange might adopt WinFS or SQL Server 2005, formerly called Yukon. As users look ahead to messaging upgrades, how important is this distinction?Significant productivity benefits can be gleaned through a unified data store across e-mail, content creation, database, and storage, according to The Yankee Group senior analyst Dana Gardner.“There is a lot of lost productivity when you don’t have a common format for all of your different data. Attachments and spreadsheets are difficult to manage and finding things is [going to get] increasingly difficult,” Gardner said. IBM and Oracle have a lead over Microsoft in moving to a more unified data platform for messaging, but IBM has a huge global installed base with Notes, Gardner said.Although Microsoft laid out strong TCO gains in Exchange 12, IBM and Oracle customers can get a jump on some of the productivity benefits of having a common data layer.“There are some risks for IBM as users consider their options for Domino, but the advanced enterprise that exploits the DB2-Domino tag team and builds out a common data architecture using DB2 Integrator products to gain broad control over content and data will gain significant long term productivity,” Gardner said. “Microsoft will still have its users mucking around in spreadsheet marts and Exchange public folders for their intelligence assets for years to come,” he said.Oracle, meanwhile, which built its three year old Collaboration Suite on its relational database technology, claims its database underpinnings translate to better reliability, security and scalability.Another big benefit is to enable processes that can access structured and unstructured data seamlessly, according to Rob Koplowitz, senior director of technology marketing for Oracle Collaboration Suite. “For an end user who is ensconced in a business process to be able to access unstructured data that supports the process simply and easily is a big advantage,” Koplowitz said.“I don’t think IBM has gotten all the way there with a DB2 option on the back of Notes,” he said.Oracle plans to introduce a third release of its collaboration platform, called Collaboration Suite 10g, sometime mid year. That offering will add IM, VOIP, and content management features. Technology Industry