Staff: Who’s who in collaboration platforms? The latest Forrester Research Wave from Erica Driver et al crowns IBM and Microsoft as the leaders.

Driver’s quite impressed by Microsoft’s security and IBM’s messaging. In addition, she gives both kudos for their vision. Oh well. Two out of four ain’t bad.

Lotus-meister Ed Brill wonders, “How could IBM have the lowest score of any vendor on cross-platform?”

Good question. Especially since his Domino/Lotus combo runs on Windows, Linux, AIX and others, while Microsoft Exchange/Outlook runs mostly on Windows systems.

On the other hand, while he’s a little fuzzy on the facts, Microsoft’s Peter de Haas points to a June 2005 study by IDC that claims Windows 32 and Windows 64 garner 83.9% of the worldwide Integrated Collaborative Environments Revenue, by Operating Environment. [pdf]

In other words, it appears de Haas is saying most Domino/Lotus shops are running on Windows, along with the rest of the world… Which makes Windows a cross-platform solution by… definition? Huh?

Anyway, it’ll set you back US$795 to see how much brainpower Driver pumped into her report, beyond these public meanderings:

The also-rans can take solace from the near-whimsical nature of Driver’s Executive Summaries, which do a bang-up job of undermining reader confidence in the authors’ ability to properly weight the 98 criteria she compared.

We’re guessing many serious collaboration buyers will shop elsewhere for advice.

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