Google and Microsoft up their efforts to target Lotus customers

July 14 2009

In the last few days, both Google and Microsoft have made interesting announcements pertaining to their efforts to convince IBM Lotus customers that migrating away from Notes in difficult economic times makes some kind of business sense.  On Sunday at their partner conference, Microsoft told partners in their Notes Transition program that "Notes Compete" has funding for three additional years, after running for four already.  

While some might admire tenacity, I think the move smells of desperation.  Microsoft has essentially admitted that seven years and hundreds of millions of dollars are going to be needed for organizations to consider migration, make decisions, and then the hardest to complete, actually migrate.  That smell apparently permeates the conference, as Warren Elsmore wrote in his first day summary:

Biggest lie so far? 'We have countries that are now completely Notes-free'
Meanwhile, Google's efforts to go after Notes customers with GAPE took an interesting twist today when Google announced free Notes to Google migration tools.  Everybody has free something-to-something migration tools, they are essentially table stakes.  But they otherwise only trotted out an already-used customer reference and a white paper.   That white paper is interesting -- much like Microsoft before them, Google's answer to "what do you do with Notes applications" is actually five answers -- Sites, Spreadsheets (really?), Gadgets, Apps Scripts, App Engine.  Isn't that all marketing-speak for "do over"?

What the two moves have in common is that migration is not an obvious exercise, especially when the alternatives from each vendor are commoditized, yesterday's-news offerings.  Google's entry point to these conversations seems to be their $50/user/year advertised price for GAPE, but the industry seems to be finally coming around to the realization that what you pay for e-mail SaaS does not equal your fully-loaded operational costs.  It would not surprise me if Google is seeding the market in non-economic terms to get a few customers to try moving.  

In either case, what's the real attraction? GAPE is a set of commodity services that was roundly trounced by LotusLive Connections at Enterprise 2.0 last month.  Microsoft's BPOS delivers a limited set of collaborative functionality.  IBM, on the other hand, offers the most complete spectrum of collaboration solutions -- on-premise, in the cloud with LotusLive, or even "in the fog" (self-managed, autonomic appliances like Lotus Foundations).  We have proven out reliable, scalable, secure, open, and flexible.  At Gartner's recent collaboration conference, analysts described Lotus Notes as being at the head of the client e-mail pack...realizing the vision of "contextual collaboration" more than any other vendor.

I am definitely watching and aware of competitor moves and measure their potential impact to the Notes marketplace.  The best way to respond, though, is for us to bring forward more references and success -- such as we did in our press release several weeks ago, and you'll see in more announcements this week and beyond.  I'm always happy to find room to tell more stories of success from customers and partners in our space.  And I'm looking forward to the acceleration of LotusLive, the release of Notes/Domino 8.5.1, and a few surprises along the way.  By next week, we'll have moved on from tools and pronouncements.

Ed Brill | Highland Park, IL USA Category:  Messaging  Add/View Comments [63]

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  1. 1  tonyo  | 7/14/2009 1:16:05 PM

    So when are we going to see Apple and Oracle make a move to migrate Notes apps to their platform as well? :)

  1. 2  Ben Langhinrichs http://www.geniisoft.com/showcase.nsf/GeniiBlog | 7/14/2009 1:25:39 PM

    Obviously, with our CoexLinks product, we are sometimes part of a mail migration strategy for companies moving to Exchange (or more recently, to Gmail). Equally obviously, we are often part of the retention strategy for Notes/Domino applications, since CoexLinks makes it easier to coexist, and thus less important to migrate applications.

    We now have companies that have been looking to migrate mail who are looking at our iFidelity product, which starts to shift the mail paradigm back as well. If Notes+iFidelity can produce better mail than Exchange or Gmail, and iNotes+iFidelity can produce better webmail than OWA or Gmail, then the question shifts back towards what integrates best with applications. The best part (for me personally, as a fan of Notes/Domino), is that we don't lose a sale if the customer changes their minds and decides not to migrate, so we can start to be part of the mail retention strategy as well as the app retention.

    Mail migration is relatively cheap, app migration is relatively expensive, but in order for GAPE to make any sense as a competitor to Notes/Domino, a company would pretty much need to do both, with the combined cost of both. I can see how GAPE is pretty scary for Microsoft, since the bloom is definitely off the Outlook rose, and increasingly questions are coming up about Sharepoint as well, but it is hard for me to see a large number of customers moving from Notes/Domino to GAPE. Just my opinion, of course.

  1. 3  Neil Wainwright http://www.nexonia.com | 7/14/2009 1:30:43 PM

    Hi Ed. I'll keep beating the same drum...accelerate the atractiveness and ease of development within Notes. They want to knock Notes out? Make it even more attractive and easy to build for. Good luck to them...building web apps isn't for the faint of heart, and if IBM can put the simple tools in the hands of departmental developers, the original Notes grassroots will start all over again. Well, anyways, it's a thought.

    ...Neil

  1. 4  Tim Tripcony http://www.timtripcony.com | 7/14/2009 1:34:48 PM

    I've been invited (by a former colleague, who in turn received the invitation from the Google Apps Channel Manager) to a Google webinar called "Position Apps to Lotus Notes Users" Thursday afternoon: { Link }

    I'm tempted to attend, just to find out firsthand how they plan to spin GAPE as being somehow functionally superior (or even equivalent) to N/D... except countering that strategy isn't my job; building the kinds of applications that set N/D apart from other platforms, on the other hand, *is* my job. So I'll be doing that instead. But I urge those of you who do get paid to communicate that functionality gap to consider attending, to find out exactly what it is that Google is telling their partners.

  1. 5  Nathan T. Freeman http://nathan.lotus911.com | 7/14/2009 1:46:18 PM

    Belay that. Tim just got assigned to attend the webinar. :-)

  1. 6  Ed Brill http://www.edbrill.com | 7/14/2009 2:33:13 PM

    Gotta like this quote in Network World:

    "Application conversion will always be problematic," Cain says. "After any Domino shop migrates to another e-mail vendor, the applications live on for at least three more years. For complex Domino applications, there is no such thing as "conversion." Complex Domino applications require a complete rewrite to move to an alternative platform. It is indeed a stretch to think that Domino applications will be converted to Google App applications anytime soon."

    { Link }

  1. 7  Henning Heinz  | 7/14/2009 2:40:39 PM

    If you move forward with XPages you have to rewrite much of your applications anyway. So you then just decide if you move forward with XPages or to something else. And yes I think IBM made a mistake here. The competition will take it.

  1. 8  Darren http://www.dadams.co.uk | 7/14/2009 2:53:44 PM

    'We have countries that are now completely Notes-free' - I'm sure there are some obscure tiny island nations which are inhabited by 50 in-bred natives and a seal colony... and they probably have an Enterprise Agreement.

  1. 9  Ben Poole http://benpoole.com | 7/14/2009 3:04:53 PM

    "... how they plan to spin GAPE as being somehow functionally superior (or even equivalent) to N/D... "

    It's a fair point. What we have to bear in mind though, is that many organisations currently on Domino don't use it to its full potential, and so the lighter offerings from MS / Google et al may still be attractive, nay even equivalent in terms of functionality *for those organisations*.

  1. 10  Ed Maloney  | 7/14/2009 3:09:29 PM

    Also from Network Word "Lock says CIOs are concerned about three things with online applications: functionality, security/privacy and how do I get there."

    They are not asking the 4th question, how do you get your data back? Details on migrating away from their offering are equally, if not more important than how to get there.

  1. 11  Henning Heinz  | 7/14/2009 3:11:53 PM

    Well I don't know what the Vatican City is running but this is the one that first came to my mind. But if I look at the "world's largest companies Domino or Exchange wiki" it does not look that bad for Microsoft.

  1. 12  Aecio F. Neto http://www.harvest.com.br | 7/14/2009 3:52:48 PM

    When will (general and even IT) people understand that Notes is not like Exchange? That Notes is not like Gmail?

    You can easily migrate any Exchange, qmail, postfix, any other MTA... to google apps and many other calendar manager too.

    How about corporate resources like room reservation, multimedia projector reservation - handled by Notes/Domino or Exchange?

    How about custom workflow applications built in Notes/Domino?

    IBM should manage its Notes/Domino marketing better to avoid such comparison of Notes vs Exchange, Notes vs Gmail (or apps).

    Notes/Domino has fantastic workflow framework that is never mentioned or remembered.

    Why?

  1. 13  Dwight Morse http://www.lotus.com/notesanddomino | 7/14/2009 3:55:49 PM

    My favorite quote in the article is where the Google Product Manager shows how little he knows about Notes.

    "Vander Mey says many Notes applications are used as document repositories and that Google has tools that are similar to creating those types of applications."

    He must have read about Notes documents and confused them with Office documents.

  1. 14  Hal Ninth  | 7/14/2009 4:05:12 PM

    Deleted

  1. 15  Ben Poole http://benpoole.com | 7/14/2009 4:09:57 PM

    @13 I don't get it. There *are* a lot of Notes apps out there used as document repositories. IBM even provide a vanilla template to do just that... And Google Documents acts as a document repository. So where's the mismatch? As we've already discussed, Notes does a whole lot more, but if people don't know that, who's fault is that?

  1. 16  Nathan T. Freeman http://nathan.lotus911.com | 7/14/2009 4:27:03 PM

    @15 - Remember: blame the customer. ;-)

  1. 17  Volker Weber http://vowe.net | 7/14/2009 4:28:32 PM

    Dwight, it is VERY dangerous to assume the other party is stupid.

  1. 18  Nathan T. Freeman http://nathan.lotus911.com | 7/14/2009 4:39:18 PM

    @17 - Some might even call it stupid to assume the other party is stupid.

  1. 19  Henning Heinz  | 7/14/2009 4:46:44 PM

    @10 Ed Maloney

    "They are not asking the 4th question, how do you get your data back?"

    You can just take it. They are not locked. Of course there is a question how you will get this data back into a system like Domino or Exchange. There currently are no migration tools away from Google Apps although I believe they would not be hard to write. The demand just isn't there (yet).

  1. 20  Sam Carberry http://dexmare2m.com | 7/14/2009 6:55:08 PM

    So maybe it's just because I follow these lotus blogs but where is the information about moving from exchange/sharepoint to Lotus Domino?

    We all know Domino is better but how are we conveying this to the outside world?

    In everything I've seen of sharepoint, Domino still kicks butt by a large margin, but nobody seems to be pushing it?

    If you just sit back a defend a minority position they _are_ going to win. The 'haha isn't this a ridiculous' message is path to failure. Bring on the attack kittens...

  1. 21  Baiju Thomas  | 7/14/2009 8:11:38 PM

    The real power of Notes/Domino is not email. It is the applications. I think the world is aware only about email capabilities of Domino and very little about its strength as an application development platform. Hope IBM realizes this now and thanks for all the effort going in this direction.

  1. 22  Rishi  | 7/14/2009 8:18:13 PM

    I've spill my coffee after reading "Lotus notes applications can be migrated to Spreadsheets". It's not April fool moth :)

  1. 23  Gavin Bollard http://dominogavin.blogspot.com | 7/14/2009 8:25:02 PM

    I figure it's worthwhile making it clear how I see it. (hence the giant comment).

    1. Pure Email is *almost* dead.

    Exchange/Outlook is a "dying" product - it might not know it and it might last ten more years but in the end, if it doesn't become something other than it is - it's dead.

    Anyone who just uses Notes for email, particularly if they're lazily sitting back on an old version like 6.5, is using a dead/dying product. I don't mean that domino is "dead" but I do think that the days of using a rich client for pure email/IM are ending.

    2. There is NOTHING quite like a Domino Application

    Despite sharepoint's best efforts, there is still nothing that works as simply, robustly or well as a Domino application. There's nothing that is so rapid to develop, so compatible with previous versions or so easy to modify (we all know where the code is stored - unlike a ground-up application). Nothing has the richness of functions, built-in email, clustering, replication, multi-platform capabilities etc. Domino applications are NOT going to go away. Quite probably NOT in my lifetime - it's here to stay provided that IBM are smart about where they take the product.

    3. The future is the web.

    Ultimately, the web will be storage AND applications. The operating system will be the browser. The Google OS and Linux are good demonstrations of this. Linux isn't taking off simply because they have Open Office... it's taking off because most of what people do these days needs only a web browser. It's obvious that the Chrome OS will be capitalising on this.

    How does notes/domino have a future?

    I can't see the server being replaced for a long time. Truly, users don't care about the server. They only care about what they see. The Domino server doesn't have to do a lot of changing to keep alive and kicking.

    The client is the browser. Not the Notes client. The only way forward is for the Notes client to work on the web. It seems to me that Eclipse is the first step on this road, but there's a long way to go and I have no doubt that IBM will be there to make it happen.

  1. 24  Rishi  | 7/14/2009 8:25:38 PM

    Even migrating LN teamrooms to SharePoint site is horrible and waste of time and money.After LN to SP migration, Readers and authors fields will be dead in SharePoint and no way you can escape , security is gone and documents are visible to all. You need to put another effort to set security but migrated documents are not secure as was in LN.

    You can't re-start Workflow on those documents which were in middle before migration. It's gone too. There are plenty of issues in migrating just teamrooms and Google is saying to migrate in spreadsheets, I guess they never done case studies on LN :)))

  1. 25  Rishi  | 7/14/2009 8:31:10 PM

    Only one thing IBM needs to spread "Lotus is not only an e-mail, it's

    MS Exachange+Visual Studio+Active directory = Lotus Notes "

    Still lots of dumb people think Lotus Notes is just an e-mail and spreadsheet solution.Poor felllows ....

  1. 26  John Turnbow http://www.recondite2.com | 7/14/2009 8:53:02 PM

    With this said in the Google article "He said many of the Notes application functions could be rewritten as Web-based applications and supported on the Google platform".

    Everyone always forgets who's money it is that they are spending, it's the companies, not yours. All of these change overs still require years of license fees to the other vendor MS/IBM/??? whoever. There are apps at some companies that after 10 years still run Notes apps, but they are an Exchange shop.

    It comes down to what people use Notes for, if just mail, then do what you want.

    If it's more than mail, then think about your new conversion project being the cost of a SAP conversion (ok I exaggerate a little, just a little). You've got to rewrite the code in a new software, means new programmers, new database systems, new DBS's new security, new hardware, additional software to do all the things that Notes does. Oh, then we start the data conversion or porting, anyone thinking any of this is a small job or a small cost is just deceiving themselves and their management and not being a good steward of the corporations budget. Even if you go to the cloud, the only thing missing is the "new" hardware and support of the old is still there.

    Always need to evaluate what Notes is being used for.

  1. 27  Bilal Jaffery http://www.bilal.ca | 7/14/2009 9:06:42 PM

    Maybe I should bait Google with one of my 'MS Fail posts'? Google FAIL. Love to see reaction from the Google advocates.

  1. 28  Rishi  | 7/14/2009 9:08:12 PM

    I agree with @26 , I was part of one of the big IBM~MS migration project and still don't understand what makes the company decide overnight to adopt MS and re-write/migrate every single LN applications into .NET/Java.That company was using stable domino environment for more than a decades and just one chief has joined from MS and company has adopted MS in spite of complexity,downtime and money.He must be a magician who hypnotize every member in the board room.

  1. 29  Stuart McIntyre http://blog.collaborationmatters.com | 7/14/2009 11:46:06 PM

    @27 And what would that achieve?

    Listen, the cloud is coming - even IBM can see that. Like it or not, GAPE is a valid solution for small to medium businesses, and in some corporate departments/geographies. Remember, the vast majority of organisations have less than 10 employees { Link } particularly outside the US.

    GAPE is attractive, cheap, easy to understand, easy to buy, intuitive and lets the organisation just get on with doing what they do best - running their business.

    As Nathan and others have pointed out, telling customers they're stupid simply alienates them, in fact 'telling' customers anything at all is the wrong approach. Show them the benefits of the Lotus portfolio, guide them as to why it might be the right approach for them, maker it easy for them to buy, deploy and consume. Make the Lotus portfolio the obvious solution for them - this is most definitely NOT happening right now.

    This migration tool is almost certainly as much BS as the MS efforts of the past few years. However, it doesn't really matter - its enough to indicate to the customers that they have a valid option to help them migrate. Once they know that, they'll find creative ways of moving to a solution they prefer for other reasons - even to the point of leaving their old mail behind.

    Ed, please stop banging on about Google outages, MS migration campaigns and the like. Instead, lets see some posts on how IBM is making Notes and the rest of the portfolio more appealing and consumable by SME/SMBs. Lets hear how you're planning to win the mindshare of those millions of organisations with fewer than 10 employees, fewer than 50 employees, heck even fewer than 500 employees, then we'll have a real alternative to GAPE and other similar offerings.

  1. 30  Ed Brill http://www.edbrill.com | 7/15/2009 12:03:36 AM

    Stuart, I started this blog seven years ago in part because there was so much FUD in the market, and few Lotus customers knew where to get "real" answers. That notion, while abrasive to some readers, has won and saved more business than any other tool I've used in that time. Over the years, I have evolved to far-less-frequent competitive commentary. Two of 15 current posts on the edbrill.com home page are directly competitive; one probably would not have come up but for that undercurrent of FUD that happened a few weeks ago coming out of Redmond. The sidebar, chat, email, etc. was quite supportive on that, as it is when I do step back into the competitive space.

    Having said all that, as you know I have been working hard on a plan to address some key product and market issues around Notes/Domino. My peers in the Lotus executive team are doing similar kinds of things for their parts of the business. The most frustrating part of blogging for me since I moved back to product management is the stuff I can't talk about yet. In a few hours, we'll be making just such an announcement. In fact, you've inspired me to blog about it before bedtime, instead of waiting to the morning.

  1. 31  Mike McP http://www.openntf.org/Projects/pmt.nsf/ProjectLookup/mPortal | 7/15/2009 7:54:29 AM

    Google must have:

    A) Learned about Lotus Notes from IBM marketing/sales literature.

    B) Learned about Lotus Notes from the delivered templates from IBM that come with the install.

    That's the only way I can think of that they believe they can replace Lotus Notes with Google Apps. Sadly, the people who read Google press releases learn about Notes the same way, so it'll probably win some sales.

  1. 32  Nathan T. Freeman http://nathan.lotus911.com | 7/15/2009 8:25:26 AM

    @31 - No, Google also learned about Lotus Notes by lengthy interviews with prominent IBM business partners who were invited to provide insight on the Notes marketplace.

  1. 33  Dwight Morse http://www.lotus.com/notesanddomino | 7/15/2009 8:41:04 AM

    @15 - @18 I'm glad I sparked a discussion, please don't assume that I'm implying that the other party is stupid. I'm just trying to say that the quote implies that the most significant functionality in Notes is as a document repository. They don't mention any other kind of app in the story.

    Based on the thousands of customers that I've spoken to during my time at Lotus, document libraries is not the primary function for their Notes deployment. The ability to take attachments out of a Notes database and put them in another repository is not what people have been waiting for.

    So, to spark another conversation (can't help myself), I would submit that assuming that because a company does one thing very well (search), it does everything well is a mistake. I remember Netscape being lauded as the successor to Microsoft in 1995. I'm not saying that it can't be done. I'm saying that it's not automatic.

  1. 34  Nathan T. Freeman http://nathan.lotus911.com | 7/15/2009 9:05:48 AM

    @33 - "because a company does one thing very well (search), it does everything well is a mistake."

    Wow, Dwight. You're leading with your chin there.

    Google Maps, Google Earth, Google Chrome, Google Android, Google Finance, Google Mail, Google Translate, Google Health, Google Reader, Google Talk

    And you might have heard of YouTube, Blogger and Picasa.

    If 'don't assume that they're good at it' is your competitive plan, I am very afraid.

  1. 35  Kevin Mort http://www.theglobalmind.com | 7/15/2009 9:17:15 AM

    @29 - Indeed we have to show customers the benefits the platform can bring to bear. And occasionally we'll run into pain points to talk about which help the effort.

    Take a situation I had with a VMWare customer the other day. He's complaining about scalability and resource usage etc. Well they haven't bothered to implement the ESX features which directly address their concerns. That's a combination of customer ignorance and vendor apathy.

    The rub is that when we see some of these comments on why a custmoer converts which make factually inaccurate statements about the platform. Whether it is Ed or someone else, there's nothing wrong with countering those comments with the truth. If it happens the customer was ignorant to proper methods etc, then we've got another challenge, that of proper education and perhaps partner involvement to help guide the customer.

  1. 36  Dwight Morse http://www.lotus.com/notesanddomino | 7/15/2009 9:21:35 AM

    @34 I hoped it would get some attention. B-)

    My competitive plan is not to sit back and wait for them to fail. In fact, saying that we should assume that everything a company touches will turn to gold has nothing to do with competitive plans. Seeing email for what it is (a catalyst for work and not a unit of work) is more Lotus' competitive plan.

    But what we're talking about is the shiny Google toy that everyone seems to want to bring home. Buying technology (YouTube) and me too applications (Chrome, Google Talk) does not make them good at enterprise applications. (poke, poke B)

    YouTube, Maps, Finance, and Health are natural extensions to their core competency. Google Apps is a departure from that, and as such, should be met with some skepticism.

  1. 37  Volker Weber http://vowe.net | 7/15/2009 10:10:49 AM

    You could run some Smarter Planet ads. That will help.

  1. 38  Nathan T. Freeman http://nathan.lotus911.com | 7/15/2009 10:34:04 AM

    @36 - ROFL. Chrome as a "me too" application?

    Man... and people wonder why IBM is called arrogant. Wow.

    IBM, of course, doesn't have a web browser. In fact, I'm fairly sure they didn't even help Mozilla Foundation with funding. Who was it that did that? Oh.... yeah... Google.

    IBM, of course, never gets new technology through acquisitions. *eye roll*

  1. 39  Michael Kinder http://www.acadiasolutions.com | 7/15/2009 12:30:41 PM

    Ed, thanks for continuing to contribute to our community. But I have 1 big question. We just read how Google and Microsoft are actively marketing against Lotus Notes/Domino. What is IBM doing? Why aren't they "attacking" (and I don't mean by negative ad campaigns) the current issues with Microsoft, and better enabling our Partners to keep Lotus Notes/Domino, or better yet, ejecting Microsoft? I have to tell you it has seemed like an unbalance fight for a number of years now.

    Mike Kinder

  1. 40  Dwight Morse http://www.lotus.com/notesanddomino | 7/15/2009 12:54:33 PM

    @38 I feel like you keep changing the subject. The "me too" comment was meant to get a response, but Chrome is not the first browser created. Lotus had a browser in 1996 and went away from it when the investment became significantly more than the return. It's possible that Google will come to the same conclusion with GAPE. Not a lot of people using Netscape Communicator today :P

  1. 41  Ed Brill http://www.edbrill.com | 7/15/2009 2:12:04 PM

    @39 we have done plenty but there is always more to be done. Did you not see our attack "momentum" press releases in the last few weeks? They've had decent coverage and attention. How about the Think Thursday calls, the techtalks, the podcasts, the webinars, the program dollars, the rebates, etc?

  1. 42  Chris Doig http://www.chrisdoig.net | 7/15/2009 2:28:49 PM

    Seeing that this thread is also discussing doc repositories, there is one small but important place where SharePoint beats Notes hands down. Consider this: your Notes client has many open tabs, and you open a notes doc to edit an attachment. Your day is busy, you get distracted and without realizing it you close the original Notes doc, while leaving your attachment open. You continue to edit the attachment, and later save & close it, thinking that the (now closed) notes doc will be updated. That is the point you realize you have lost a few hours of work! I have done this so many times that I am now wary of editing docs from within Notes.

    If you open a doc from SharePoint, you can close IE and still save the doc back to SharePoint. This simply works much better than the current Notes way because you never accidentally loose anything.

    By the way, this sort of functionally used to be in either R5 or R6, where you could make a categorized view appear as part of the Windows folder tree, and docs looked like folders; attachments became files. As far as I know it was removed because it was so slow.

  1. 43  Andy Mell  | 7/15/2009 2:49:04 PM

    I came to this thread relatively late, just read through it all and the comments.

    After all that, I still do not see any reason why a company using Notes for email only should not migrate to Google Apps? Its likely going to save a bunch of money. Is there a clearly stated list of say 10 reasons why I should not move to Google Apps published somewhere?

    Where is the "Switch from Google Apps to Lotus Notes" promotion?

  1. 44  Hal Ninth  | 7/15/2009 3:32:07 PM

    Deleted

  1. 45  Charles Robinson http://www.cubert.net | 7/15/2009 3:39:20 PM

    @41 - "How about the Think Thursday calls, the techtalks, the podcasts, the webinars, the program dollars, the rebates, etc?"

    Is that something that is being advertised or is it only for Business Partners? The reason I ask is I haven't heard about any of that, but if it's not being marketed toward me that would explain why.

  1. 46  Ed Brill http://www.edbrill.com | 7/15/2009 3:50:11 PM

    @45 I was specifically listing resources for Lotus business partners.

  1. 47  Michael Kinder http://www.acadiasolutions.com | 7/15/2009 6:13:42 PM

    @41 - No, not really. I have seen the discounted price for the software, 25% off I believe until 8/5. Nothing else though. I can only base my perception on what I see. To me, there is a lot of talk about how others are coming after Lotus (which can be a sign that we have a good product). But what is IBM doing? I have never seen a good campaign to inform the world that Microsoft is wrong in their assertion that Exchange and Notes are the same - never. Now that we are fighting a battle where everyone thinks of Notes/Domino as nothing more than email, and we fight this on at least 2 fronts (MSoft and Google) still nothing. Granted we in the trenches have a part to play - but it seems to me that IBM does not really want to build this area. I see stuff about Exchange and Sharepoint everywhere. I have even decided to become knowledgeable about Sharepoint as I may have no other option, it is winning so much market share right now. Based on what I have seen, they have stolen the Notes/Domino/Quickr model and made everyone believe they are giving the world something new. Yet, IBM has never been able to get that message out properly - and we suffer some more. Can't IBM see that it will work, since it is a similar model that they have that does work? If compared to a war, those on IBM's side are now forced to fight a battle that makes no sense, is difficult to specify the reasons there is a war, and makes Notes/Domino look expensive. Its pretty clear that at one point the battle was about email and PIM functions. MSoft took us to task and won. Now, there is an interest in document management and collaboration. We have a superior technology in Quickr, plus Notes/Domino. Yet once again, MSoft is taking us to task. Why? I think it resolves around KISS - MSoft focuses marketing on simple to use, functional, and user friendly - the stuff decision makers care about. IBM focuses on the stuff geeks care about. Bottom line, decision makers don't care how easy or hard it is on their IT people (anyone out there doubt that?). They care about their users making good use of technology to help the bottom line. They (the decision makers) have trouble seeing that running a bunch of linux servers rather than MSoft servers is more secure and costs less, than seeing that their many other employees save time and cost them much less.

    I may be over simplifying things, and by no means do I feel I have the answers, but the "Smarter Planet" message says nothing to decision makers - nothing at all. Right now they want their businesses to survive and hopefully grow in the near future. If the planet is smarter for that great, but that will not help them make a decision. What will it do for their users, to make them productive, so they make money. End of concern.

  1. 48  Henning Heinz  | 7/16/2009 3:14:52 AM

    @44 Hal

    The explanation that I read was that while the majority if not all are existing IBM Lotus customers only insiders would know this. It is an answer to the common theme that hardly anyone is using Lotus Notes nowadays.

    I have no explanation for Bayer (their investment in Domino is huge). If you retire your old client and the current development model, move everything to a powerful but slow and fat client infrastructure and hide your development roadmap for Notes and Domino so that many outside of IBM do not even know what is coming next year (and what not) some loss has to be expected. The hope is that the "New Lotus Notes" will become more attractive to all that survived and for new customers.

  1. 49  Michael Kinder http://www.acadiasolutions.com | 7/16/2009 8:54:06 AM

    @44 Hal

    Great link on Bayer, sad point is once again this is proof that a company had a product and did not leverage it. There is no evidence any of this will change when they spend a fortune to move. Actually, it is more likely that things do not get much better and it just costs them a fortune. This is also LIKELY an example of where Lotus Professionals really need to assist IBM in keeping a foot hold in companies. I think we all know that using Lotus Notes/Domino and Quickr that we can provide essentially the same features that an Exchange/Sharepoint shop can. I believe it can be done cheaper - and we can do even more. MSoft has managed to make everyone believe that "users are empowered" and can create these great processes and applications with Sharepoint. Out of the box there are some good tools, but the truth is, to do anything substantial you need a .NET programmer. Really not a different scenario with a Lotus Notes/Domino environment.

  1. 50  Mike McP http://www.openntf.org/Projects/pmt.nsf/ProjectLookup/mPortal | 7/16/2009 9:52:25 AM

    @42 QuickR connectors do that. QuickR is a better comparison to Sharepoint, but true it would be a cool feature in Notes. With free QuickR personal as part of your Notes CAL, it shouldn't be too tough to implement.

    @47 Non-technical decision makers in general just roll with wherever they see everyone else going, for fear of being left behind. If consensus is that MS has more marketshare, they don't want to be left behind, so it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.

  1. 51  Charles Robinson http://www.cubert.net | 7/16/2009 11:51:47 AM

    @46 - Thanks for the clarification. :-)

  1. 52  Henning Heinz  | 7/16/2009 12:51:46 PM

    Michael,

    Bayer is not that kind of Lotus customer that does not know how Lotus works. You know they even run their Website with Lotus, they had Sametime licenses, they use it internally (Intranet) and there are dozens of reference implementations with custom applications. They cooperate with very well known Business Partners in Germany. I am not sure if they run QuickR but I have my own view about QuickR anyway. If 100.000 seats are on the go be assured that Microsoft will make the move less painful.

    The fact that the company really knows what IBM has to offer makes me a bit nervous.

  1. 53  Shaayn,Bangalore  | 7/16/2009 1:27:29 PM

    @25.."Only one thing IBM needs to spread "Lotus is not only an e-mail"

    Yes,Its not only an email client. But most of the users give more importance to their mail client.They want to see their mail client as an important tool for day to day work.Still there are many people who identifies lotus notes as "IBM's Outlook".

    We are giving Notes/Domino technical support to a 20K+ employees company which is hardly using 3-4 notes applications. Some of them are going to be migrated to another platform very soon.

    Had IBM developed a mail client like Notes/iNotes 8.5 3-4 years back, I think, notes market share scenario would have been different now.....

  1. 54  Michael Kinder http://www.acadiasolutions.com | 7/16/2009 2:25:52 PM

    @52 - thanks for clarification, but that is why I put LIKELY in my comment, I didn't know for sure but felt it a possibility. I cannot even count the times I have been told by a customer they wanted to do something, but other Lotus professionals told them they couldn't, yet they clearly could. I have to admit some of my feelings may be misapplied right now as I am out of work currently, and finding the sheer lack of Lotus Notes/Domino ops, and the sheer abundance of Sharepoint work disappointing. I do not feel this is an "IBM needs to fix it" situation, but they could be doing more to help, in my opinion. As I mentioned in my other reply to which you clarified, I believe it is up to us in the community as well. I am fixing an environment where they wanted to change the mail domain and a consultant went in and started changing the Organizational Certifier. When they did this, they used a 4096 key, yet most of the clients were still 7.0 and they could not get renamed, etc. Needless to say, it is a mess that I almost have cleaned up, but to change the mail domain should have taken less than 1 hour and caused little to know pain. It puts a bad light on the Domino environment and it sucks!

    Mike Kinder

  1. 55  Chris Gleeson  | 7/16/2009 7:15:50 PM

    Quote:

    "Microsoft's BPOS delivers..."

    /Quote

    Not an acronym I know, but does it stand for Big Piece of S***? Sorry, just couldn't resist, bad me.

  1. 56  Alan Lepofsky http://www.alanlepofsky.net | 7/16/2009 9:03:15 PM

    @55, I've said the same thing several times on Twitter! Each time I see an MS rep write BPOS, I chuckle. ;-)

  1. 57  David Bell  | 7/16/2009 11:32:33 PM

    @42 - "Your day is busy, you get distracted and without realizing it you close the original Notes doc, while leaving your attachment open."

    Have you not seen the preference that enables you to turn off the warning prompt that shows by default when you do precisely this ?

    It has been in Notes for the last couple of years or so.

  1. 58  Chris http://edge4.blogspot.com | 7/21/2009 9:51:31 AM

    The marketing problem remains - look at all the noise that google and MS are making. Videos, conferences, emails, blogs, and more. The only response by lotus/ibm to the casual browser is this blog entry, wordy PRs.

  1. 59  Ian Randall  | 7/22/2009 8:53:39 PM

    When I type in "Lotus Notes" in a Google search, why do I get so many hits promoting migrating from Notes to Google appearing so high in the hit list? I can't believe that a simple search of this nature would generate this outcome "naturally".

    If it's not a "natural" search outcome, then is this not a blatant abuse of monopolistic power by Google to promote their own commercial interests?

  1. 60  Ed Brill http://www.edbrill.com | 7/22/2009 9:25:57 PM

    @58 are you saying that IBM doesn't have videos, conferences, emails, blogs and more?

    @59 Interesting thought. I guess "do no evil" doesn't apply to not letting their own anti-other-party stuff bubble up to the top of search results.†

  1. 61  Mike Brown http://www.browniesblog.com | 7/23/2009 5:28:11 PM

    @59,

    When I Google for Lotus Notes, the top 5 hits are from IBM and also the Wikipedia Entry (number 1 hit). The first Notes to Google migrate page is at number 6; still artificially high, maybe.

    Cheers,

    - Mike