Learn What Makes MS Outlook Different from Lotus Notes

Let us have a look at these two email clients separately and distinguish the features and qualities served that differentiate the clients from each other.

MS Outlook - MS Outlook is a part of MS Office suite. It is used for sending and receiving emails and helps for personal Information Management. Personal Information Management means that it can manage all your personal information like your contacts, tasks, notes, etc. Also used for calendaring and journals. It is associated with MS Access share Point Server and MS Exchange Server to coordinate meetings, for shared mailboxes, folders and calendars.

Lotus Notes - Lotus Notes is primarily a Database System developed by Lotus that has built-in email functionality. Now, it is an alleviation of IBM, provides a shared client-server platform with many functionalities like calendaring, emailing, to do tracking, contacts management and instant messaging etc. The file format of Lotus Notes database is NSF; the other term used for NSF format is OSD (On-Disk Structure). The file type of .NSF files are Mailbox and Address book.

Comparison Between MS Outlook and Lotus Notes

1. Company-If we talk in general terms, various products are developed by different companies. This statement also suits in the case of software.

a) MS Outlook - As concluded by the name of Outlook, it is completely visible that MS Outlook is developed by a well-known company Microsoft

b) Lotus Notes – This email client is developed by Lotus, latterly adopted by IBM and now it is known as IBM Notes.

2. Supported Platform-Each application needs an operating system to run, also known as platform. Both email clients have different platforms to run.

a) MS Outlook - Outlook application runs only on Windows Platform either it is of 32-bit or 64-bit including various version of it such as Windows 8, Windows 7, 2000, 98, etc.

b) Lotus Notes – This application can run in various environments Linux, IBM OS, Sun Solaris, Red Hat, Windows 7, XP, and Vista etc., but it will not work with 64-bit Windows.

3. Server- Each email client has a server for sharing or transferring the data; it works as a centralized resource in a network.

a) MS Outlook – It is a self-contained application that works with Microsoft Exchange Server and Microsoft SharePoint Server.

b) Lotus Notes – Lotus Notes has its own Lotus Domino server, also known as IBM Domino server.

4) Data Storage Format – Every application has an individual data that stores in database in different formats supported by that application.

a) MS Outlook – Outlook data is stores in the form of PST (Personal Storage Table) file format but working in offline mode stores the data in OST (Offline Storage Table).

b) Lotus Notes – Lotus Notes database files stores in NSF (Notes Storage Facility) format. These databases can be downloaded from Lotus Domino server.

5) Interface and Features – Here we are talking about email clients so both have their different features including some additional features.

a) MS Outlook – Behind the email facility, Outlook provides you the facilities of Calendars, Journals, Tasks, Contacts, etc. A better GUI makes the user free from training.

b) Lotus Notes – It is bundled with many features as Outlook but does not provide a better GUI to its user that makes it a little bit complicated to use by an individual

6) Migration – There may be various reasons to transfer a file from one application to another are known as migration. It can initiate from/to any of the application.

a) MS Outlook – Migration of a PST file to the Lotus Notes application may arise various problems such as attachment lost because Lotus Notes has comparatively low features.

b) Lotus Notes – Conversion of NSF file into PST file is possible without losing important data contained in a file since Outlook has same features as Outlook. 

Conclusion - In the above section, I have given the basic introduction about MS Outlook and Lotus Notes and their basic features. I have focused on the differentiation between these two email clients by pointing their features simultaneously. Therefore, as per the above discussion, it is found that at some point Outlook proves itself better than Lotus Notes and somewhere Lotus Notes found better. However, if we go through the conclusion then Outlook has some additional advantages including conversion of files. This conversion is done in easy steps with the help of various tools; some of them are NSF to PST Converter