The future of email

As Ed
mentioned, Fortune
have a free partial transcript
of an interview with Ray Ozzie and Bill Gates where they discuss email
and where they see it going.  Not a bad read, but I draw exception
to Bill’s Stance on competitors.
"In terms of how we take workflow, collaboration, document search,
business intelligence, e-mail, and telephony and make them better for information
workers, we’re relatively unique."
Unique? Yes.
The Best? No.
Workflow, collaboration, document search?  Notes has always been superior
on these levels, and continues to do so.

In addition, when asked about Open Office, Bills response is

"Well, most people already own Microsoft Office, and so it’s free
to them, whereas OpenOffice is not the same quality, not innovating, and
doesn’t have all the modules. We compete with our installed base by innovating.
"

Yeah… Microsoft Office is free, isn’t it?  Also, I think Bill
has innovation confused with acquisition…