… as Exchange cools. That’s the view of Steven Birchfield, president of Automation Space LLC in Tucson, Ariz. His company adds workflow tools to both e-mail systems, and he’s sensing a shift in IBM’s favor. “Lotus Notes will gain a little bit of market share in 2005,” Birchfield forecasts. He says that in the past nine months, he hasn’t seen one company move from Notes to Exchange, a common phenomenon in recent years. But he has seen a handful move in the other direction. Birchfield recalls that Microsoft Corp. initially wooed top Notes developers and paid them millions of dollars to port their products to Exchange, which he gladly did. But unlike some, Birchfield didn’t abandon Notes. That was a wise move, since IBM has apparently adopted Microsoft’s approach and is bringing Exchange vendors to the platform. Birchfield’s advice to new customers of his TrackerSuite for Lotus Notes and TrackerOffice for Exchange isn’t to swap platforms, but to “leverage the skills and experience you already have in-house.”