ITWorld: IBM puts clunky in the cloud
October 9 2010
We had tons of great press on this week's formal announcement of LotusLive Notes, but a few of the articles took a more negative angle...this one's subhead is "20-year Old Lotus Notes Gets Puffy Makeover":
Lotus Notes, which even during the '90s was clunky and nostalgic in a bad way got a cloud-computing makeover today.Now, the last sentence shows a very clear lack of understanding of what the cloud means, since a) companies don't have to build the back-end infrastructure and b) Domino hasn't exactly been a "giant infrastructure", well, in a long time, if ever.
LotusLive iNotes [sic] is the latest in a string of increasingly alarming facelifts foisted on the aging messaging platform by changing technology and IBM's compulsion to not ever give up on or try to convert customers from a product as long as anyone is willing to hang onto it. ...
The new version, Lotus Live, includes all the calendaring, IM, web conferencing, file sharing and other features of full-bore Notes. The launch ensures continued suffering for employees of giant corporations that consider the ability to build a giant infrastructure more important than the possibility of using it.
But that's not the point. The point to me is, I am beginning to wonder -- ok, accelerate my wondering -- as to whether if we had simply announced "IBM Cloud Collaboration" the reporter would have had to peer past the point of his biases and try to understand what IBM really announced. Whether he might take a look at whether Notes 8 is different than whatever prior experience or stereotype he applies to the "20-year old". Whether he might want to know about an environment secure enough that there won't be reports of unauthorized vendor reading of email, why an installed client is relevant and important to be an included capability in a cloud offering, and what it means that the strongest brand in IT has entered the cloud collaboration space with such strength.
It might not have made such a great headline. But the headline and article might reflect a broader perception issue, and if that is the case, I really want to think about how to overcome it. I know that the default response to this posting will be "more advertising", but Lotus Knows we're on taxis in Brisbane, billboards at Victoria Station and other UK print, on the radio, and in the pages of Wired Magazine. Advertising doesn't change the fact that Lotus Notes is going to be 21 years old in seven weeks. And if your visceral recollection of Lotus Notes is a stack of 5.25" floppy disks being installed on an OS/2 server running NETBIOS, then is any amount of advertising/marketing going to change that?
I much prefer the tone and tenor of the line in ReadWriteWeb:
We wonder if Ray Ozzie ever thought that he would someday looking from Microsoft's executive suite to see IBM release his Lotus Notes creation into the cloud.but even that is a start with a look in the rearview mirror.
LotusLive Notes and Engage combine to provide more capability, more access, more security, and more roadmap than Microsoft, Google, Cisco, Salesforce, or anyone else in the cloud collaboration space. Now we have to tell the world, with a view to the present and future.
Link: ITWorld: IBM puts clunky in the cloud >
Post a Comment
- 2
Brett H | 10/9/2010 1:22:29 PM
This is a typical all be it misinformed view of Notes in the media Ed. You may think that the default response from the 'verse may be "do more advertising" but just more of the same ethereal kinda wooly stuff that's out there now from IBM is not going to change minds either. What can is the same mantra we've been trying to get across since R8 first came out. Show the darned product!
All the advertising in the world won't change anyone's mind if all they have in their head (like the unfortunate IT World author) is the old clunky R's from the 90's. Show the product, show the product, show the product!
How many time do we have to say it?
- 3
Tripp Black http://www.mindwatering.com | 10/9/2010 1:33:48 PM
You asked, so here my 2 cents ....
1. Bias to the point of Bigotry
Some will never understand and will never try to do so. I came from small biz. If it wasn't Microsoft, it wasn't an option. The attitude is "just give up, MS owns the world".
(You don't realize they don't until you see the light. However, that's a reason why I need the Designer still so I don't have to run a VM of Windows, but that's a tangent.)
I was part of that camp until an IT Director patiently shoved Notes in my face until I actually tried it several times. (The app dev in R5 Designer got me.)
Anything "old" is considered obsolete and reinventing the wheel is common IT practice. Rip-n-replace is the standard and Improving the wheel with Lotus is a foreign concept. Once you are out of MS, you realize that nothing is everything not even Lotus Notes. What's the best tool hopefully becomes what's the best tool because it's the best.
For us e-mail would be a Mac Server or a Ubuntu Postfix server for just e-mail. However, collaborative applications is what hooked us on Notes/Domino and apps is what keeps us.
2. Advertising and Society
Wired is pretty generic IT and good exposure. However, a spot on cable news, cable sports, and would get more of the masses if you are wanting a culture hit.
Also, a lot of the kids now would be only running PCs if it wasn't for their iPods and iPhones. They're schools have PCs because MS gives them away. Even the private school we had a daughter in for K and 1st got rid of the Macs because MS foundation would basically give them everything for free. The kids grow up with the MS paradigm.
Continue the open doors with the blogs, IdeaJam, and the like. I didn't see the "nifty fifty" I heard about, but continue to push/sponsor cool sexy apps on openNTF or notes.net.
3. Better SMB.
Target SMB better. I didn't even know OEM was available until talking with a IBM BP a few months ago when we were participating in a SameTime UC beta. I haven't seen OEM Redhat or SUSE or Ubuntu with Domino available on my eServer or my Dell server? Give away the server CAL over 1000 and give OEM client licenses with the eServer. Continue to improve the licensing so that adoption and growth are encouraged.
In other words, keep the entry cost minimal and the value/ROI high. This seems obvious to me. If I got to purchase an IBM eServer right now, I see options:
Operating System
No operating system
Red Hat Ent Linux Adv Platform w/Red Hat Support (5731RRH)
Red Hat Ent Linux Adv Platform-IBM Remote Tech Supp also purchased (5731RSP)
Red Hat Ent Linux Adv Platform-IBM Support-Line purchased separate (5731RIS)
Red Hat Ent Linux HPCC 4 Pack Up to 2 Socket w/Red Hat Basic Supp (5731RHP)
Software Applications
Microsoft System Ctr Virtual Machine Mgr 2008 R2 Workgroup Edition [$0.00]
4. I agree on forward thinking completely.
Be nostalgic, sure. But its what you can leverage from the past and present to the future that matters. That's one of the many core advantages of the Domino platform.
- 4
Scott Skaife | 10/9/2010 2:10:04 PM
This horse isn't dead yet, but I'm going to start beating it anyway.
If you want to change the outdated perception of Domino, you have to give people exposure in an environment where they don't have preconceptions, and where they won't have dozens of other people telling them how much their software sucks before it even gets loaded.
The way to do that is to create a single user redistributable distribution of Domino. If I could write an application using Domino in a single user installation where they did not have to pay an ongoing license fee, no doubt a lot more people would be running Domino applications. It is a lot easier to get an IT department to allow a single application for a user than it is to get them to install a server and a bunch of clients.
Here is the path to more Domino installations:
1) IBM release a single user redistributable which can be branded to the application instead of IBM. Put only as much IBM branding in the single user redistributable as there is Java branding in Notes.
2) Get Domino developers to release a bunch of must have applications that can be distributed either freeware or as single user purchased applications.
3) Have millions of users running Domino and not realize it overtly.
4) Watch as the number of Domino developers explodes.
5) Watch as the number of books on Domino development explodes to help the huge number of new Domino developers.
6) Collect huge amounts of money as businesses start buying the full Domino server and clients add multi-user capabilities to the mission critical applications that they are already used to.
7) Watch as the perception of Domino stops being that of an out dated email system to being that of an advanced powerful multi-platform development environment.
8) Slip in there the periodic opportunity to point out to a reviewer that is bagging on Domino, that the application that they raved about a few weeks prior IS a Domino application.
- 5
Tripp Black http://www.mindwatering.com | 10/9/2010 3:58:09 PM
I was going to let the lie slide again, but I'm tiring of hearing it accepted as fact: "giant infrastructure" to run Domino.
Two real world servers we run:
A:
SBS 2008 Premium with a 15 user e-mail load with the 2005 SQL Express server installed serving 1-2 concurrent users and <50 GB e-mail storage = 6.5 GB RAM, 2 Processors, 175 GB drive space used.
B: Lotus Domino 8.x on Red Hat 5.x.
1.5 GB (no X Windows GUI, 1.75 GB w/GUI), 1 Processor, 6-8 GB drive space used for OS and Domino serving 50-100 concurrent mail (Notes a IMAP) using 120GB of drive space for mostly e-mail and a handful of Domino apps.
Which is the "giant" in comparison?
Lotus Domino on Linux requires 1/4th the resources of SBS Premium while serving 10x the users with Full Text Indexes and auto inbox refresh so their mail experience doesn't suck but is productive. This rough 1/4 is assuming you don't fully include the drive space overhead for the OS and WSUS /Auto updates.
- 6
Henning Heinz | 10/9/2010 4:27:41 PM
Sue them. If you don't want to sue them you would need to radically change the way Notes works nowadays. If you don't want to change how Notes works nowadays you would need much more supporters. Hardly anyone would bash on Notes if there would be a storm of outraged responses.
But I am aware that you think Notes already works wonderful since V8. Then you should try to invite those people to learn about the platform. If the platform is really good those people might change their mind and write about it.
The marketing response would probably be to rename the product. Maybe this would work for some that don't like Notes but might harm those that have gone with the platform for many years and your competitors will spin their own version.
Personally I don't think that those articles don't matter much. You can also find those about SAP, Oracle or Microsoft.
- 7
Tim Tripcony http://xmage.gbs.com | 10/9/2010 5:35:55 PM
"...the aging messaging platform..."
Wow, in addition to confusion over which service was actually launched (LotusLive Notes vs. LotusLive iNotes) and bias bordering on bitterness, he even failed to realize the nature of the platform: Notes isn't a messaging platform; Notes is an application development platform that contains integrated messaging features.
In his defense, though, a lot of people make that same mistake.
- 8
Bill Dorge | 10/9/2010 9:43:24 PM
Ed,
LotusLive gives IBM an opportunity to reach customers that it has never had before, with the lowering of the entry point being one now. Now you don't sell and market to these micro, small, and medium sized businesses like you have been accustomed, you kind of have to get in their face so to speak. It also makes this a great IBM partner play, because these are people we know and see, but never really had a product for until now, it's actually kind of exciting.
Do you need to do more marketing? I'd say different kinds with LotusLive, getting it out to the people. Small businesses are like consumers, they tend to shop in a lot of the same places.
You change perceptions one person at a time, and you have the avenue to reach out to a whole new set of customers that can start with Notes as it is today and in the future. Notes and Domino has always been a great cloud platform, and with 8.5.2, it's even been made better, we just need to get out and spread the word.
I'm ready!!
- 9
Phil Salm | 10/9/2010 10:36:49 PM
@2 Absolutely correct.
@3 I agree with your 3rd point. A simple, clear, affordable and easy SMB approach is needed.
@4 I agree. Stick it in Symphony for free, and get an app store going ASAP.
I heard an IBMer say recently, we need to get away from the religious wars around email. That's the surest way to lose this battle. If anything, a religious revival is needed, with a heavy focus on converting the wayward.
By the way, how old is Microsoft Office?
- 10
Darren Duke http://blog.darrenduke.net | 10/9/2010 10:47:42 PM
I've left a comment asking him if he'd like to come on This Week In Lotus to explain his rationale and research process.
Also, he indicated that this was LotusLive iNotes. Tsk, tsk IT reporter, you were really taking about LotusLive Notes.
I wait with breath held for his response to my offer.
- 11
David (The Notes Guy in Seattle) http://www.bleedyellow.com/blogs/TheNotesGuyInSeattle/?lang=en | 10/10/2010 3:43:38 AM
Ed, you have an amazing product. The reason it has been around for 21 years is because it was so far ahead of its time when it started. The rest of the world is finally starting to catch on. Others are only just beginning to realize the concept of digital media and collaboration in ways that Notes has supported for years.
Regarding your advertising: the billboard on the back of a cab reads "Lotus Knows where you are going even when you don't." Does that convey anything about cloud computing? Does it tell people what Lotus software is? Does it invoke the reader's curiosity? Does it tell them where to go to find out more?
You stated. "the headline and article might reflect a broader perception issue, and if that is the case, I really want to think about how to overcome it. "
You might find what you seek in the first 16 pages of the book "Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion" by Robert Cialdini, PhD. You will find further insight in Chapter 3: Commitment and Consistency and Chapter 4: Social Proof. Amazon has it for $8 in paperback. For $13 you can read it on your iPad. The Chicago library has it for free. If you don't find it helpful, I'll buy you a beer for your troubles.
- 12
Palmi | 10/10/2010 5:02:39 AM
I aggree with olmost all of the comments here but Scott Skaife just nailed it "RIGHT ON" We really need his way of thinking inside Lotus.
- 14
Erik Brooks | 10/10/2010 9:51:31 AM
Wow... @2 has the best description I've heard in awhile about the Lotus Knows campaign and current marketing efforts with regards to product: "Ethereal."
Though it's not all bad. The brand recognition *is* getting up there in my opinion, but the *product* recognition isn't. And so many decision makers have legacy baggage of older products (123, old Notes, etc.) *being* the brand. Connections, Quikr, etc. don't exist as far as they're concerned.
- 15
Nathan T. Freeman http://ntf.gbs.com | 10/10/2010 9:51:41 AM
I'm not really sure why there's all this discussion when the question seems ultra-simple: did the press release that this guy received include screenshots? In the modern age of digital communication, was the announcement sent to the press designed to go over a teleprinter?
I remember IBM included screens in a press release once about a year ago. I remember the images themselves were housed some place besides ibm.com, and they had giant watermark copyright notices on them, bizarrely restricting reproduction.
Maybe the issue is a whole lot simpler than advertising or branding. Maybe you just need to include a proper digital press kit with your announcements instead of something that translates well to a telegraph.
- 17
Karlo | 10/10/2010 11:11:20 AM
The article is what I deal with everyday. Users asking what is lotus notes, or why we use it or why or are we upgrading to outlook? There is a bias against lotus notes and the reason is that IBM has not done a good job in making aware of the great product Notes/Domino is.
- 18
Volker Weber http://vowe.net/about | 10/10/2010 11:25:46 AM
I have often complained about the quality of screenshots from IBM, but his is good.
{ Link }
- 19
Neil Wainwright http://www.nexonia.com | 10/10/2010 12:02:07 PM
Hi Ed. It'll take years to change perception, but now that the product is lined up (are those pesky database icons fixed yet?) you should be able build better and better marketing plans. Leverage off the "cool" of iPad too. Maybe get a marketing hit-team together. Wouldn't it have been helpful and very marketable to have put an IBM team on-site at the Chilean mine for free...providing all the IT infrastructure and social media integration all back-ended with Domino? You could have had a documentary about it and it would have helped the mine infrastructure. Anyways, was just a a thought. These kind of rapid-response solutions would really turn heads. There are needs for this worldwide almost every month. The polluting of the Danube is the most recent event. Businesses need to move fast...and there is nothing faster than disaster-response. IBM would be leading by example....and doing good in the world at the same time.
Neil
- 20
Erik Brooks | 10/10/2010 12:34:55 PM
@19 - THAT is a cool idea.
I seem to remember Ed blogging about something similar awhile back... some app that was up in production in just a few hours.
No other platform can get collaborative apps up, securely, anywhere near as quick as N/D. Especially in a disconnected environment. Your idea could very well fit into the whole "Smarter Planet" initiative also.
Btw, Ed, your "Lotus Knows" logo in the upper right still looks "chopped" at the bottom. Here's a link to the graphic itself where you could see the chopping:
{ Link }
It also still has (on your page) a 1990's-style blue link border around it.
- 21
David (The Notes Guy in Seattle) http://www.bleedyellow.com/blogs/TheNotesGuyInSeattle/?lang=en | 10/10/2010 1:41:34 PM
Those books are equally important to professional development. "Sh*t My Dad Says" is in many ways just as illuminating and certainly more entertaining, but I don't expect you would use any of it to promote Lotus Notes. (Too bad!) As for "War and Peace", I thought that was already being used for the marketing campaign? ;-)
Since you are making such a sacrifice, If I find a way to get to Lotusphere, I will bring you a quality Seattle brew.
- 22
David (The Notes Guy in Seattle) http://www.bleedyellow.com/blogs/TheNotesGuyInSeattle/?lang=en | 10/10/2010 1:45:32 PM
@19, speaking of that, Does anyone know that Lotus Notes was used in the emergency operations for the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico? Yeah, that's what I thought. It actually played a huge role. Who knew?
- 23
yuval http://www.runtime.co.il (that’s in hebrew) | 10/10/2010 5:42:18 PM
A short story that will explain why it's time to replace the product name:
I have client with 2 locations, Tel Aviv and NYC. Tel Aviv employees reporting their time in a Lotus Notes application with both client interface and shiny new xpages interface, US employees which are fewer doing it with Excel files they are sending to finance every week (yes, people still doing it).
They also have an hosted BPOS environment which include Exchange and SP so they wanted to move all their people to report on a new SharePoint application. This of course turned to be too expensive so at the end of the day the CFO just sent us an email and suggested that maybe it will going to be a better idea if the NYC people will also use Lotus 123 like in Tel Aviv, even if it's somewhat outdated (his words). This guy probably worked 20 years ago with Lotus 123 and there is nothing you can do that will make him think on Lotus as anything else but old and nostalgic.
Change the name, (to something short) give it for free for organizations under 25 employees, build a nice set of templates around it and maybe you still have a chance to put it back in fashion, just maybe.
- 24
Bob Balaban http://bobzblog.com | 10/10/2010 6:34:51 PM
Ed, the reporter clearly needs a talking to, the article is stupid. However, IBM could (IMHO) help matters for all (customers included) by not adding to people's unavoidable confustion. To wit:
1) Massive misunderstanding of LL/Notes vs. LL/iNotes. The naming scheme is not working for you in this case.
2) I don't know if this is your intention or not, but lately the positioning of the product (in my perception of it) has been almost purely as a messaging platform. The fact that LL/Notes is solely messaging does not help correct this perception. You really need to be re-directing people's P.O.V. on this: the competition isn't Exchange/cloud, it's Azure and Sharepoint. It's the apps that matter most.
- 25
Erich Schmidt | 10/11/2010 7:20:50 AM
And did you see this today on Infoworld, with Bob Muglia of MS -- { Link }
"Some legacy customers are coming from, say, a Notes environment, [where] the cost of ownership in running that is a bit higher -- significantly higher, actually -- than, say, an Exchange installation is. The economic case for moving from an existing on-premises Notes installation to a cloud-provided Exchange and SharePoint is a very easy business case to justify. That's one set of examples."
This makes me angry! I'm a developer, I spend 95% of my time there; but I'm also the admin for 4 Domino servers, with 60+ Lotus Notes mail users and scores of custom applications. Bring Exchange in and we'll need someone just for the admin portion of that. And don't get me started on Microsoft in the cloud.
- 26
Nathan T. Freeman http://nathan.lotus911.com | 10/11/2010 1:51:23 PM
@16 - Hrmmm... I see one screenie that, if I click on it, takes me to a slideshow that includes what looks like 3 LotusLive images, plus a bunch of stuff I probably don't care about. So I don't know if that qualifies as "lots," but I agree that it's something.
Thus leading to the inevitable conclusion that this so-called journalist is simply unqualified for the job. Which really isn't a surprise. After all, if this guy knew anything about enterprise IT, he'd be a consultant instead of a reporter.
- 28
Emilio Penedo | 10/12/2010 9:15:10 AM
Ed, I know that if you had simply announced "IBM Cloud Collaboration", the competition and media would be saying that IBM is killing Lotus Domino/Notes (once again) before its 21st birthday, and that IBM would force all Lotus customers to move to "IBM Cloud Collaboration" for a big $$$$ premium.
- 29
mike | 10/12/2010 7:54:41 PM
If MS say Notes is dead, then people unfortunately listen.
I just hope with the death of Notes in this city it can bring itself to life and re-cycle in 5 years time.
We're replacing 4 domino mail servers with 18 Exchange servers. Go figure.
- 30
Stijn Soens http://www.gfi.be | 10/13/2010 5:05:30 AM
I frequently notice misperceptions of Domino on both management and end-user level. They are related to several aspects in my opinion.
Cost: Migrations to Exchange are often considered without knowing the actual impact and cost. Be more clear about that. There isn't any good reference that compares Exchange 2010 with Domino 8.5 on functionality level or architectural level. What is the cost to run an Exchange 2010 environment for 500 users (and I mean, how many server, licenses and administration) compared to a similar DOmino 8.5 environment (so same functionalities like web based mailfile and PDA synchronisation)? What is the cost for let's say 10000 users? Next to that, you could calculate a migration of a Domino environment to Exchange. In real-life, the messaging component is migrated and not the applications. So what is your total cost of performing these kinds of migrations for a number of users? License costs, migration tooling, administration of both platforms afterwards and so on. Compare it to an upgrade of the Domino environment. The cost difference will be huge while in the end, the messaging platform is different but functionality between Domino and Exchange will be similar.
Perception: well it's there and it won't go away soon. Let's face it, the standard client is considered as slow. The Notes community knows that IBM put a lot of effort to make this client faster and stable and this improves with every version released but the perception is still there. Actually, it's true if you compare it to earlier releases fo Notes. A lot of companies still see Notes as a messaging client and why should it do the same as before but slower. It's very hard to let them look at livetext and widgets since demo's with real added value are difficult to find. People want a client that responds very quickly while IBM has given them a slower client with a lot of unused potential. How many end-users still use the workspace as their main entry page to Notes databases.
One of the elements I already read was that Domino is mainly positioned as a messaging platform. I agree with that. I also notice that in the past, you could really show of with a Domino app you made in 2 days. Today, companies that run on Domino don't even know (and consider) they can do that out of the box. It's no longer a selling aspect and the collaboration strength of Domino moved away to products like Quickr and Connections. Yet, you can still build wonderful things and they keep running as you upgrade.
Next to that the client is still difficult to manage. In most cases, you can deal with these issues but you don't always have the tools. Try to update the standard bookmarks template, try to use standard connections and locations, try to update values in them, try to change elements on the workspace and so on, explain the user why opening a doclink can be extremely slow and you can't do much about that since you can't control the icon stack on the workspace. The client can be tuned via policies but a lot of elements cannot be touched unless you use scripting.
Maintenance: I find it VERY hard to keep my Domino servers up to date with the latest fixes, same for clients. It's difficult to explain to a customer that they should apply another fixpack if we just upgraded their servers. Same for the clients. Have you ever really used Smart Upgrade with a multi user installation and non-admin access. You need 8.5.1 for that and even then, you need to work with the SURunAsWizard which is not supported on Windows 7 and it's also quite unstable. There's still no real Citrix support and you should use scripts to correct values that brake during the install, things like that. Office updates are part of the Windows update process. It has its issues but truly silent upgrades would be really helpful.
Don't get me wrong, I love Domino because of it's flexibility and reliability. Technically it's much more superior then Exchange but in my opinion, MS is much better in positioning themselves in the non-technical end-user. The emotional, subjective element in selecting a product still seems to be very important. A customer once asked us 'why should I choose a Mercedes when I can buy a Ferrari'. The Mercedes is more reliable and cheaper to buy and maintain but hey, who doesn't want to drive the Ferrari. Notes 8 improved a lot, hopefully Vulcan can continue on that path.
- 31
Bryan Lue | 10/14/2010 5:39:21 PM
Honestly, it is a little clunky, advanced but clunky.
The interface could be more streamlined. There's almost too many features available upfront that you don't really need like widgets that are probably slowing things down.
The mail application is a lot better since 8 but still needs improvement. Should focus more on making things easier. Check out the new filtering features in hotmail. Something like that would be great.
Branding. Make Lotus Domino and all related applications a separate entity from IBM's website. IBM's site is horrendous and it's way to difficult to find things.
LotusLive's site looks a lot better and more pleasing. Why not adopt that web design for all Lotus products.
Also, make it faster. I know that's a typical complaint, but honestly, it's unusually slow.
- 32
Brent Whitfield http://www.itsupportpasadena.com | 10/16/2010 2:35:50 PM
@29 You and some of the others posting here illustrate that Notes Domino has a lot going for it compared to exchange. Telling each other how great Domino is through Eds column might make us feel better; but IBM still needs to go on the offensive - like they did after the R5 release to create excitement through great marketing and following up with compelling case studies. As a reseller of Notes since R4, I have to say, the "uphill battle" we face overcoming articles in the press, like this one, is exhausting!
A woeful article. I couldn't help but comment.