I've been working with MS and Lotus products since '90. I've hired/fired and trained many admin/dev's on both platforms. I believe this comes down to a fundamental philosophy - MS assumes the end users are dumb. You can see this in the easy to use UI that it creates for users and will usually give a pretty icon for the user to hit. IBM/Lotus assumes the end users will be smart. You can see this by apps that have function over look and feel. Same goes for the admins. MS wants to cater to the 'power user', so the installs are easy and quick. Config options are there, but not required. (very smart move in order to increase adoption rates) IBM/Lotus expects the admin to be an engineer. Development, well Notes has made it really easy for 'Joe the Accountant' to crank out an application in a few minutes. Double edged sword, in my opinion. Now we end up with a ton of poorly written apps. But, you can also be a highly trained programmer and crank out some incredible apps in Notes using almost any language you prefer to program in.

I can't wait until Google offers and enterprise Messaging and Collaboration environment that is worthy. The analyst firms are saying that the MS and Lotus will be battling for 2nd place with in the next few years.