On decision making in product management

February 21 2011

In the weeks since Lotusphere 2011, there has been the natural community settling in and reflecting on what we discussed, future goals, vision, and opportunities. I've come to expect some of this to be negative once we all come down from the professional and emotional high in Orlando, and settle in for the hard work of the year ahead. My team experiences this too, for what it is worth -- a recognition that on the one hand we accomplished much together, and yet on the other hand, there is always more to do.

It is inevitable that any technology company plays a bit of 'buzzword bingo' when asked about future plans and directions. Aside from any legal issues around forward-looking statements, there can be mis-set expectations, delays in decision-making, and other unexpected consequences come when we are too specific about the future. For example, I've talked now about changing the restrictions on Domino Messaging Express and Domino Collaboration Express in an upcoming release. Inevitably, the questions have come about whether and when this will happen, and I find myself a bit defensively trying to hurry the next release along to make the changes happen. (Collin, if you are reading, maybe we can discuss options on this)

Another large hue and cry in the blogosphere in the last weeks was around Domino Designer on Mac OS. IBM hasn't given you a formal answer on whether and/or when you can expect to see such a capability in market. It was hard for me not to react defensively as the pile-on occurred, with many assertions that "IBM doesn't get it" in all manners of speaking.

It took a sidebar Twitter DM conversation for me to get through to a couple of people why I was taking it personally -- because now that I lead the Messaging and Collaboration business within IBM Collaboration Solutions, this is essentially my decision. Sure, of course, the development team scopes the work, telling product management when they could get it done; finance would have to be convinced of the business case to do it; sales and marketing would have to comment on how we would be more successful and how we would create awareness of such a tool, etc.  In the end, though, the product management team would have to drive this activity, trading it off against other potential activities that would help in the Notes/Domino business.

And that was the pain point. Companies never have enough resources to build or do everything their employees, or their customers, want. In a quiet moment yesterday, I was reflecting on how Microsoft Exchange 2007 went 64-bit, leaving all prior Exchange deployments and hardware obsolete. I was unrelenting at the time in criticizing this rip-and-replace approach from my competitor. Guess what -- it seems like it worked out OK for Microsoft. They could have invested resources in continuing to build a 32-bit server -- in fact, they did ship it as a "test" server configuration -- but instead, they put their energy into whatever it was their product managers deemed more important.

In the Domino Designer on Mac case, I am personally convinced we need to do this. It is NOT an easy decision just because I am, though. Yes, it's based on Eclipse now, which makes it easier to install/run cross-platform. We ship Domino Designer in 28 languages, so to ship it on a new platform means testing those 28 yet again. And testing that new Mac Designer against Domino 8.0.x servers that are still supported. And testing against all our server platforms. And designing and testing workarounds for Windows-specific capabilities in the Designer today.

The budget to do a full porting and testing of Domino Designer to Mac OS is in the millions of dollars range. Therefore I have three ways to approach it: trade the work off against some other list, ship some multiplier's worth of additional Notes/Domino revenue, or convince people much more senior than me that there is an investment case to spend the money to do it. For sure, my team and I have to participate in a triage discussion of what else we would do or not do if we make Domino Designer on Mac OS. All of those hurdles are high, and deliberately set there by the IBM processes that are put in place to ensure that we only ship products that we stand behind. This isn't Lotus as stand-alone company of a decade ago, where I got away with shipping the Domino Network File Store (DNFS) despite a 75-user per server limit, the use of a protocol that was nearly obsolete at the time, the ability to run only on Windows server, etc.

Either we are going to do something like Domino Designer on Mac right or not at all. That means it may take time, market demand, or tradeoffs. Those are the decisions my team leads, with all sorts of input we take from you in the community. It's why I sometimes blog speculatively, or specifically for surveys or other input. We want to know what you think. But if we don't do what you think we should do, that doesn't mean "IBM doesn't get it". It means we're weighing tradeoffs, resources, costs. This is what we do every day. We're not perfect at it, but we've not only kept the product going for 21 years, we've brought it into new markets (e.g. cloud/SaaS), new devices (Notes Traveler), new app dev tools (XPages), and new componentry. Sometimes, you'll like what we do -- but sometimes you won't. That doesn't make us right, wrong, or clueless -- it means we are running a business, just like many of you do.

This kind of triage is the most exciting, yet most challenging, part of being in product management. I've been interviewing candidates to join my team, and I talk about this frustration of having to see the future but trade it off against other futures all the time. It would be nice to live in an organization where there is no such thing as fixed resources, but this is the norm in your company and in mine.

My team and I, and the development team and architects, and the marketing team, and the senior executives, we all hear you. It's why we do Lotusphere and do sessions like "Ask the ___" and staff labs and do BoFs and take 1:1 meetings and read ideajam and do user groups and conferences. All of that input goes into the hopper and out the other end comes a release. In a mass market, we'll never please everyone every time, but we'll keep doing our best. I certainly appreciate the passion and energy, as you all are what keeps us going. Thanks.

Ed Brill | München, Bayern Deutschland Category:  IBM  Add/View Comments [75]

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  1. 1  Benjamin Chapman  | 2/21/2011 6:30:48 AM

    Ed,

    Thanks for spelling this out. Interestingly, I just found this article on ARSTechnica on Mac growth in various sized businesses: { Link } . You are spot on when you say we have to do this right, or not do it, and unlike our competitors in Redmond, cannot push something out that won't work on supported systems. I feel we've got a chance to strike while the iron is hot on the Mac. MSFT are all-but ignoring the mac, and hoping it goes away; their IDE is not on the Mac, and most of their productivity toolset does not have feature-parity (or even product-parity) cross platform.

    If we choose to "ignore" the commoditization of email for the moment, and just focus on the "what you can do around email" (apps, plugins, etc) - then Notes/Domino becomes a compelling argument, and the ability for developers to use platforms they like (and I saw lots of Macs among the 500 GBSUniversity folks) could help us hugely in the marketplace!

    JM2C

  1. 2  Henning Heinz  | 2/21/2011 7:00:13 AM

    Whatever you discuss here will always be incomplete because hardly anyone outside of IBM knows what you do instead of Domino Designer for Mac.

  1. 3  Fredrik Malmborg http://www.replikera.se | 2/21/2011 7:19:54 AM

    I understand why some want the Designer on Mac OS, but I cannot see how that can be more important than making sure that the mainstream users have their experience becomming the best. If we can make the users happy and to desire Lotus Notes, then there will be resources to make a Domino Designer for every OS you can think of.

    It is vital with mobile support like Traveler. ID-vault is great for the everyday support. Improved and simplified directory integration would be a competition killer. And people like Susan Bulloch and her team trying to get rid of the most frequently helpdesk calls should have lots of credits.

    So make a Designer for Mac OS if you like, but first get the users' ovations. I think you already done a lot, but as you said there are always more to be done.

  1. 4  John Foldager http://www.izone.dk | 2/21/2011 7:34:36 AM

    Since Designer is free, IBM should really consider making the Designer client some kind of open source. I know there are internal APIs that we might never get access to, but I do believe that the developer community would be more than happy to help migrate a working 100% Eclipse based IDE from Windows to Mac OS X and Linux. So what I am saying is... make the Designer 100% Eclipse based for Windows and let "us" help trying to migrate the Designer client to Mac OS X and Linux. IBM can continue its support for the Windows platform and make the Mac OS X and Linux versions completely "AS IS" for others to use. Then when "us" have migrated the client to Mac OS X and Linux and have done a lot of tests/debugging, IBM could consider support for one or both platforms later on. A win-win situation? I guess it could be!

    PS. The reason for me to want a Linux based Designer is because of the more open platform than what Windows and Mac OS X are. Linux is the better choice for me, but I do understand that a lot of people would prefer Mac OS X.

    Just my thoughts. :o)

  1. 5  Howard Shevitz  | 2/21/2011 7:40:35 AM

    I have to agree that although Designer on the Mac would be a boon, the reality is that the resources that it would take to port this (and all the 28 languages), and do it right, would be prohibitive.

  1. 6  Jesper Kiær http://nevermind.dk | 2/21/2011 7:52:47 AM

    @4 I agree with you John, that would be a great way to move forward and out of this Stalemate scenario.

    /Jesper Kiær

  1. 7  Ying Le Jia  | 2/21/2011 8:13:01 AM

    @4 Great thoughts, however, I have to say making the complete Designer 100% Eclipse based probably won't be easier than porting the current one (at least for the initial release). There are simply too many legacy Designer features (infobox as one example) to port to Eclipse. Of course, new Designer features, like XPages are Eclipse based and should be portable. Then the question becomes: is XPages Designer for Mac enough?

  1. 8  John Foldager http://www.izone.dk | 2/21/2011 8:26:26 AM

    @7 Agree.

    This was only my thoughts and hopes for a Linux based Designer. Instead of IBM using time for migrating the Windows source to yet another proprietary source they could use the time for rewriting the legacy code to Eclipse and then let others (the "us" part) help migrating the client to Mac OS X and Linux. This could potentially result in the Designer client becomming available on Mac OS X as well as diverse Linux distributions like Ubuntu, OpenSUSE, SUSE, RedHat, Fedora, CentOS, ... ?! All of which IBM would probably never give support to.

  1. 9  Stuart McIntyre http://blog.collaborationmatters.com | 2/21/2011 8:30:19 AM

    Appreciate this post a great deal Ed. Good to know the background to the decision and also your personal feelings on it.

    An additional thought on DDE for the Mac - is it time to make Rational Application Developer (RAD) Next available on the Mac, and focus on making Designer (whether just XPages or the whole shebang) just an extra layer on top of RAD? Or is that too ambitious?

  1. 10  Ying Le Jia  | 2/21/2011 8:42:55 AM

    @9 - rather than RAD, isn't it better (in terms of license, support, deployment, performance, etc) to just build an XPages Designer plugin for standalone Eclipse?

  1. 11  Charles Robinson http://www.cubert.net | 2/21/2011 9:00:08 AM

    I think there are a whole lot of things that are much, much more critical than getting Designer on a platform that would appease 2% of the developer base.

    @4 - The Designer client is already some kind of open source: Eclipse. The sticking point is getting the Notes API's ported.

  1. 12  Stuart McIntyre http://blog.collaborationmatters.com | 2/21/2011 9:26:08 AM

    @11 2%? Really. Try 10% and growing at a significant rate... { Link }

  1. 13  Phil Salm  | 2/21/2011 9:28:58 AM

    @3 I completely agree. Making Designer free hasn't let to tons of new Domino developers or apps flooding the marketplace. Neither will making it available on the Mac. Address core product issues first, as Fredrik suggests. Make client upgrades easier and fix IMAP. Then get an IBM app store going where people can make money on the Domino apps they develop.

  1. 14  Marie Scott http://crashtestchix.com | 2/21/2011 9:34:07 AM

    Ed -- While the DDE Mac may be nice, from a management point of view, we need servers that run without locks, without crashes, without the need for applying constant hotfixes. Perception is reality, and the perception by management is that Domino is unstable, so why should it be considered for a cloud environment? While this in fact may be not be the reality, as we know many CIOs make decisions based on eliminating pain points. So while, DDE on the Mac would be great in terms of application development flexibility, a CIO isn't really going to care, because his users are calling because they can't get to their resources. And by the time DDE on the Mac released, customers may have moved on to Google or MS in the cloud -- because "we have to get off Domino." It has been proposed numerous times that rather than roll out new features, that resources were put into stabilizing everything that is currently in the suite.

  1. 15  Thomas Duff http://www.duffbert.com | 2/21/2011 9:48:21 AM

    Personally, I'd side with Marie on this one (a developer siding with an admin? HERESY!) Granted, I don't have a Mac, so getting DDE on the Mac doesn't affect me one way or the other. But I have to think that stability on the server means far more to decision makers than does whether or not Joe Programmer can use his Mac or PC to write a Notes app.

    Ideally, I'd like both, but I know that can't happen.

  1. 16  Keith Brooks http://www.vanessabrooks.com | 2/21/2011 9:53:36 AM

    Not being a MAC person the whole discussion was not of interest to me on a personal level. However, I agree that an open sourced version of even some of it would go far given how people want flexibility in their tools set as well as their hardware and OS it runs on.

    But as Marie said, spend the resources on fixing things people use now, IMAP for one, making eclipse installs/uninstalls cleaner, moving sidebar apps like bookmarks in a self contained way, not breaking sametime and other widgets because one changes their location int he notes client, incremental policy updates for sidebar apps and probably hundreds of other feedback items obtained from Lotusphere.

  1. 17  Werner Motzet  | 2/21/2011 9:59:42 AM

    Is it also allowed to think about: "what is realy necessary".

    My question is: "Is it realy necessary, to have the designer in so many languages"?

    All Developer in Germany (I know) develop with the english Designer. As most Literature and wikis and Websites (for Developers) are in english it is easier to ues the english Designer. I think it will help your teams to reduce the number of languages for the Designer (not for the Client).

    - * - * - * - * - * - * - * - * - * - * - * - * - * - * - * - * - * -

    As I know Maureen is this days in Gelsenkirchen on a german DeveloperConference (more than 220 Attandees). Please let her ask the developers which Designerlanguage they use?

  1. 18  Craig Wiseman http://www.wiseman.La/cpw | 2/21/2011 10:07:55 AM

    I've said it before (

    { Link } ), and I'll say it here:

    In an idea world, DDE should run on Win, MacOS, and Linux.

    Sadly, we don't live in an ideal world. Given this, I'd rather have DDE run properly on, say one OS and get the other major client and server issues addressed. From what I can tell, we're not yet at the "run properly on say one OS stage" yet.

    If I had to pick a list of things to spend resources on, DDE for mac wouldn't make the 3rd page.

    This is especially true if Jobs is indeed the driving force of Apple. IF that's true, Apple may suffer the same fate it did the last time Jobs left.

  1. 19  Julian Woodward http://blog.woowar.com | 2/21/2011 10:08:28 AM

    @17 - good point. "Question your assumptions" is the first rule of innovation.

  1. 20  Darren Duke http://blog.darrenduke.net | 2/21/2011 10:11:19 AM

    I'm with Marie (@14). Stuart's (@12) link on the Mac surge is nice, but of that 10% how many would you say are going to:

    a) install DDE for Mac

    b) actually use DDE for Mac

    c) help IBM sell server licenses by creating cloud or prem Domino apps?

    Somewhat fewer than the 10% me thinks. I think Charles was being overly generous with 2%.

    @17, I often wondered about that...interesting that you use DDE in English.

  1. 21  Charles Robinson http://www.cubert.net | 2/21/2011 10:11:55 AM

    @12 - I'm not sure where you got 10% from that post, but it isn't relevant. Assuming 10% of all Notes users are on Macs, not all of them are developers. I will readily admit my guess regarding the number of Domino developers who use Macs is no better or worse than your guess. :-)

    Even assuming your 10% number is accurate it's still not a significant portion of the developer base. Let's see, fundamentally broken functionality that effects 100% of developers versus investing the resources in creating a new product that will give the other 10% even more reasons to bitch. I can't make these numbers make sense, but nobody asked me to.

  1. 22  Joe Baxter  | 2/21/2011 10:19:35 AM

    @13 & @3 Right on, right on. Cement and improve what we have today and then let's get an App store!!

  1. 23  Eric Mack http://www.eProductivity.com | 2/21/2011 10:34:54 AM

    Ed, I appreciate your posts - not only this one but he continuity of them. Thank you for sharing the thinking behind the decision making and for giving us a glimpse at the background to the decisions you must consider as PM. While I have done my share of picking on IBM/Lotus my own change in role around our software solution, combined with your frequent blog posts, have helped me better understand the other side of why decisions are made (or not) around specific product features. Keep up the good work.

  1. 24  Mark Barton http://markbarton.com | 2/21/2011 10:48:12 AM

    As a Mac convert I would love a Mac DDE but I wouldn't want a port of the Windows one for me I find it way too buggy and slow.

    The problem is the windows DDE has too much baggage with old design elements which I haven't used in years, I would love a lightweight IDE which is fair more concentrated on X Pages development.

    I understand the reasons why the old design elements are there - a direct result of the amazing backwards compatibility but the ironic thing is, if I wanted to do some historical development work for a client who still had R6, I would fire up an R6 designer client. I think its fine going forward that by default the old Notes design elements are no longer available by default.

    If you could spend the millions then do it on a new cross platform IDE that pushes the latest technology in Notes & make it X Pages and any required supporting design elements. Speed stability and performance are critical, if it would speed it up I would be fine if there are less graphical ui elements in the designer and more text based coding - think XML source of an X Page rather than the visual designer. Start small with limited functionality and only 1 language so its a companion IDE and see how it grows.

    Maybe future APIs will make it more feasible for someone to build there own IDE / framework.

  1. 25  Tim Tripcony http://xmage.gbs.com | 2/21/2011 10:49:11 AM

    I'm confused... I wholeheartedly agree that server stability issues should take a higher priority than porting Designer to Mac, but wouldn't that be parallel development? Most of the people I know on the engineering team have a specific focus. So would porting Designer to Mac really prevent IBM from doing something else like improving IMAP stability because the people that were going to fix IMAP are instead working on the Designer client? I'm pretty sure that's not how the teams are organized.

  1. 26  Fredrik Malmborg http://www.replikera.se | 2/21/2011 10:57:13 AM

    @24 I fully agree. Next version of Designer could strip all backwards compability support. For me working as developer and administrator I see no big issue in having to launch old Designer for old applications. I do that already with R5, R6, R7 and R8. Then I can't use features that are not available on the server I am working on, I think it lowers the risk for mistakes.

  1. 27  Marie Scott http://crashtestchix.com | 2/21/2011 11:01:03 AM

    @25 I guess I'm not privy to the same "inside" information you are as to how IBM's internal organization works regarding prioritization of FUNDING for projects. But while you're at it, throw in some money to fix IMAP and all the other PMRs customers have open that ARE NOT related to DDE.

  1. 28  Norm Van Bergen  | 2/21/2011 11:03:22 AM

    I love the Mac. I have several in my home and am typing this comment on one now. I do understand, albeit not at the same level of Ed's, the challenges of doing many things with finite and competing resources.

    Ed: Save DDE on Mac for another day. Offensive as it might seem to some, running Windows/DDE inside a VM on a Mac is just fine.

    I agree on the prior comments regarding refining the user (and upgrade!) experience, client-side performance, features, and so forth. The app-store is a big one too. Continue putting effort/$ into growing awareness of Domino as a development platform (DDE for Mac notwithstanding).

    Just my $0.02.

    P.S. Re-brand Notes/Domino without the "Lotus" - it hurts to say that, but the name Lotus has become an anchor to the past & impacting the product's re-invigoration.

  1. 29  Rob Novak http://www.LotusRockStar.com | 2/21/2011 11:19:38 AM

    Business cases are fun exercises, but they are just exercises. And rarely are they good predictors of success or failure. I'm sure there were sound and solid business cases for Workplace, eSuite, Microsoft's stupid Kin phone, Google Wave, and the Apple Newton.

    DDE on Mac? Some care, some don't, I would like it but my team can live without it. We run VMs. Every Mac user does. We don't like it, especially if it's just for DDE and Admin and some random client VPN. But we do it.

    That said, Ed, next time you meet a group of college students - at Lotusphere or as mentioned in your previous post - take a poll. I'm willing to bet the business case lies in the future, not with us 40-somethings.

  1. 30  Carlos Casas http://lotusrocks.tumblr.com | 2/21/2011 11:23:19 AM

    What Rob said.

  1. 31  Ed Brill http://www.edbrill.com | 2/21/2011 11:27:50 AM

    @29, as I said, "I am personally convinced" - for mainly this reason. But there are lots of trade-offs and things to look at in the journey from my personal conviction to doing something.

  1. 32  Erik Brooks  | 2/21/2011 11:38:25 AM

    Great post, Ed.

    Sometimes I forget that most of your readers aren't executives, so it's good to share the thought processes behind being one. As a fellow executive for a software development company (albeit way smaller than IBM/Lotus) I absolutely agree that the decision to not make DDE on Mac is 100% justifiable.

    I can hear it now: "Wait Erik, you were one of the ones asking for DDE on Mac... what gives?"

    I don't personally have a dog in this fight -- I could care less about Mac usage in my company for development. But what I do care about, and where I think the bulk of the passion behind DDE on Mac stems from, is the younger mindshare. The youngest N/D developer I know is turning 28 this year, and he's only an N/D developer because he's been working with me for 11 years. The second youngest I know is 34. And then there's myself at 35. I think Tim Tripcony is near my age, too, and we're the "young crowd."

    Regardless, 1/3 of the "GBS 500" being unable to participate in the Lotusphere XPages pre-bash is downright painful. I would take it personally too if I were in your shoes. DDE on Mac appears (for all intents and purposes) to be the only "hot" way to attempt to access that type of mindshare right now, and that's what the buzz is about. That's what this community needs desparately. It's all about the apps and in the very near future those will be the ones building said apps.

    However, to everybody else: porting classic Notes stuff to Mac is pointless and SO not worth the cash. Nobody in the "new age" wants outlines or navigators. There are some pieces that do make sense to push, however: XPages make sense, libraries make sense, agents make sense.

    And that's why we can't get there yet. XPages are pretty much still bound to views - a "classic" piece. If IBM can replace those with an alternative (e.g. a generic "indexes" concept) then it *could* be possible to install a "Designer Lite" that only includes the newest stuff, cutting off the expensive-to-port platform-specific C code from the development environment. At that point pushing a "Designer Lite" for Mac might be much more cost-justifiable since IBM can just not support the legacy stuff on that platform.

    There's obviously plenty of work needing to be done to Domino and the *existing* DDE, and that stuff cannot take a back seat.

    "...or convince people much more senior than me that there is an investment case to spend the money to do it."

    That's Ed's only option, guys. We have to hope that IBM's done their market research right.

  1. 33  Scott Skaife  | 2/21/2011 12:22:09 PM

    I would rather see the effort put into making the DDE for Linux. Not only that, I would like to see it preinstalled in an ISO that can be run in the popular VMs. NoteButnu and DomBuntu would be a boon. VMs are standard fare now, and putting every piece of the stack on Linux reduces the non-IBM licensing that you have to worry about.

    I would rather run the DDE in a VM on my Mac, and have the option of running on Linux than run the DDE native on Mac, and not have the option of running it on Linux.

  1. 34  Christian Dencker http://www.performance-peek.com/ | 2/21/2011 12:43:13 PM

    The term I hear "IBM just don't get it!" is not the voice of a few hundred people that like the MAC platform and would like to use any Lotus product on the MAC.

    It's the silent voice of millions of Lotus users that wants to be "Free" of Windows and all the problems that comes with that platform! To have a personal choice of platform. What vendor in the world can offer that ? Only one ! IBM.

    You should ask "What is it, that IBM don't get ?"

    The rest ... is in your mail ;-)

    Cya in 2012

  1. 35  Gary Devendorf http://www.garydev.com/gdev/garydevnew.nsf | 2/21/2011 1:02:24 PM

    I recall making these decisions. Glad to see executive interest in these issues. It’s all a function of resources. My gut says go for more functionality and not for making what we have nicer. But then that’s how designer go so unfriendly.

    My blog hosted by Advisory magazine went away. So I moved it to my server. Find it at { Link }

  1. 36  Nathan T. Freeman http://ntf.gbs.com | 2/21/2011 1:04:44 PM

    @27, how is knowing that the people that write DDE aren't the same as the people that write the IMAP protocol "insider" information? That would seem pretty obvious on the face of it, at least if you look at the Lotusphere speaker agenda for more than one year.

    I suppose in the abstract, the Dance & Choreography program at the VCU School of the Arts competes against the Human and Molecular Genetics program at the VCU School of Medicine, insofar as the total university only has so many dollars, so many buildings and so many students. But I imagine that the competition is pretty minimal, as these are two different faculty groups in two different schools with two different missions. I'm sure they don't even begin to have the same measures of success.

    That doesn't seem particularly "insider" to figure out.

  1. 37  Marie Scott http://crashtestchix.com | 2/21/2011 1:49:59 PM

    @36 I am again in awe of your "knowledge." I suppose you've spoken with the various VPs and Budget directors here to determine our funding priorities and sources. Bravo.

  1. 38  Nathan T. Freeman http://ntf.gbs.com | 2/21/2011 1:53:55 PM

    @37 - Am I wrong? I'll accept any correction you'd care to offer. Most universities run schools with relatively independent budgets, except for common infrastructural services. Is VCU different? Does the Dance program have the same metric of success as the Genetics program?

  1. 39  Mike McP  | 2/21/2011 1:53:56 PM

    Excellent post. The most shocking piece for me being that you're personally convinced it needs to happen. I'm hard pressed to find a need for it within the portfolio, as VMs offer a completely do-able workaround for the minority of developers using UNIX or Mac. This is one of the rare times that I'm hoping you fail:)

    There are countless things I'd rate higher than this, with it being understood that resources at IBM are limited.

  1. 40  Tim Tripcony http://xmage.gbs.com | 2/21/2011 2:00:19 PM

    @32, I'm 33. So yeah, I'm one of the young whippersnappers. And I've been working w/ Notes/Domino for just over 13 years now.

  1. 41  Erik Brooks  | 2/21/2011 2:50:00 PM

    @All - I'm surprised nobody's mentioned the OBVIOUS way for this to all work itself out. Since Ed's personally convinced, all that really needs to happen is another promotion or two. :-D

  1. 42  Jerry Carter  | 2/21/2011 3:02:27 PM

    Thanks, Ed, for laying out the thought behind the decisions. Just adding another .02, I agree with Duffburt and Marie - clean up the PMR queue. Stability and dependability are much more marketable than "runs on Mac" at the moment though perhaps not as sexy.

    I'm not so convinced it "needs to" happen. I just don't see the overall business sense in it right now. If MS went belly up overnight, though, leaving Mac and Linux to duke it out... well then that would change the equation. Other wise, 2%, 10% - like Charles said - irrelevant when the tool sells for $0. You're getting negative direct ROI in that situation.

    Agree - opening the Notes API would be a goodness thing. It would be perhaps harder for IBM to manage an OSS foundation (and less attractive seeing how profitable it was for Sun) but could reduce the cost to provide a free tool set. There are some very talented people who are driven bonkers by specific faults within the code that I'm sure would love the opportunity to fix. If there were one big thing IBM did in the coming year with Domino, this would be tops on my list. It would let the market determine bug resolution priority via the number of contributors willing to work on a given issue. This would be more responsive than putting it in the queue and waiting for the funds to address it internally. I think you would make more people happy finding some solution like this to speeding up bug fixes than expanding your install base without having really cleaned house beforehand.

    Thanks again, Ed. The little peoples appreciate it. :-)

  1. 43  John Head http://www.johndavidhead.com | 2/21/2011 3:34:27 PM

    Manual Trackback: My humble suggestion to the IBM PM team: Please do XPages RDBMS before DDE for Mac ( { Link } )

  1. 44  Ed Brill http://www.edbrill.com | 2/21/2011 3:49:20 PM

    @42 the business case is not around the price of Designer, but the number of Domino Servers and/or CALs that such a decision would drive. But the point is generally valid.

  1. 45  Abraham V  | 2/21/2011 4:57:05 PM

    I consider that the Domino server itself is quite stable, however there are third party tools, like antivirus that make it crash very often!.

    In our case we use Mcafee Mail security for Domino, it's not very good, since we have contract on the client side, it's somehow difficult to change it.

    Anyway when a server crashes, it's Domino-Notes the one that fails from the user/management perspective.

  1. 46  Mark Davids  | 2/21/2011 5:11:45 PM

    @45 The server is stable - it's the client that needs attention.

    I love Macs, but I can't imagine a point at which I wouldn't have access to a Windows PC at work. It sounds like the people who really want it are already converted to Lotus, so where's the benefit?

  1. 47  Ethann Castell http://www.caliton.com | 2/21/2011 6:14:47 PM

    My gut feeling is that Mac DDE wouldn't be justified on cost-benefit alone. The only way I could imagine this getting across the line would be as part of a long-term strategy to target a younger audience of developers - students and other cools kids with Macs. In which case I would agree with the sentiments of re-branding away from Lotus.

    Here's a thought from left-field. Create a version of DDE, build on XPages, HTML5 etc that works in a web browser. Then it would work on all platforms.

  1. 48  Barry Rosen  | 2/21/2011 6:42:22 PM

    Bravo for having this discussion in a transparent fashion. Regardless what the decision is,as both sides have made good points, some will be disappointed. The important thing here is that IBM does listen, but due to various commitments can not always please everyone.

    In my time in Lotus support as the WW Mac Primary Area Expert, this was by far the most common question that I got, and that was before Apple was what is today. This tells me there is a vocal minority that, as seen here as well, would appreciate this effort.

    In my experience in the field with ISSL, most Domino shops that have Macs, those users are in creative roles, or VIPs. The Domino guys all have PC's unless they are using their own equipment.

    Good luck in your quest to follow your your gut Ed!

  1. 49  Giulio  | 2/21/2011 7:03:37 PM

    The gravity of the topic in the blogosphere has pulled Ed into this discussion, unnecessarily AFAIC.

    Porting DDE to Mac only increases the support and testing overhead to required to release fixes/new features. Domino client has lost alot of stability and speed in the architectural changes that have occurred just for Wintel. And it's still recovering in terms of quality with each release.

    Be careful for what you wish for. If the Mac Fanboi's so desperately want the DDE you could also be making your own coffin as well those for Wintel.

    If IBM continue to be "date driven" rather than quality focused in deliverables, we will end up with more DDE clients that will have more instability and feature gaps, as dev and testing resources get stretched further.

    Finally, although I think it's a shame, the fact is DDE is a "deadman walking". The lack of mention of apps in all the public advertising literature for Domino is any indication, IBM are loathed to invest in the DDE for Windows let alone Mac.

  1. 50  John D.  | 2/21/2011 8:49:26 PM

    To me it makes sense to have all the tools available for each platform you claim to support. Personally I would rather see you make Designer for Linux before Mac. Anyone can download a distro for free so making Designer available for Linux would make it easier, and cheaper, to get into Domino app development. I would LOVE to be able to dump Windows and do everything I need to do without it. Just my two cents. As far as how to make the business case - you'd be providing a complete environment for platforms that Microsoft is ignoring. Linux/Mac adoption is increasing....

    There's also the option to look at which languages are the ones most used and make them a priority during development and testing. You could also "start" support for Mac/Linux at a specific server release and make previous releases a "use at your own risk"

  1. 51  Rob Darwin  | 2/21/2011 11:51:57 PM

    What would the business case look like to make DDE a web tool? Multi-platform becomes almost a throw-in, because that move is a game-changer- the kind of grand challenge worthy of IBM's capabilities. Tie it to LotusLive and now you're not only deploying apps to the cloud, you're building them there too. On your iPad.

  1. 52  Patrick Kwinten http://quintessens.wordpress.com | 2/21/2011 11:59:49 PM

    why not make Domino Designer a 100% development tool in the browser like Orion for Eclipse? { Link }

  1. 53  Ed Brill http://www.edbrill.com | 2/22/2011 12:02:30 AM

    @49 doesn't it seem like the mere fact I am discussing the topic is at odds with your narrative? I know you've been sawing this a bunch on the blogs lately, but I'm not sure what advertising you are looking at that talks about other parts of ND and not apps. We just published a white paper on Domino apps in December. There's a book from IBM Press on XPages. Dozens of sessions at Lotusphere. A new XPages forum on IBM developerWorks. I take all of those as relevant to how the apps story fits into IBM collaboration solutions in market as a whole.

    Re the comments about a web-only designer, perhaps just for XPages, it's an interesting thought. Building a whole new thing would not be inexpensive, either, though it might have some good legs for the long run. It's a discussion in the background for sure right now.

  1. 54  Peter Meuser http://itlab.de | 2/22/2011 12:06:42 AM

    In my eyes the discussion about DDE on the Mac is really a academic one! As long as the normal Mac client is as slowly as today and lags behind the feature set of it's Windows cousin as app platform (Symphony automation for example), it won't attract a lot of Mac-only shops (add so add new customer). Just for offering IBM employees an alternate client option, it is a very expensive dev adventure.

  1. 55  Giulio  | 2/22/2011 1:28:02 AM

    I know I've been around like a bad smell. I am going to be direct here because I am incapable of Sycophantic BS, so please take this with a pinch of salt. But it just doesn't make sense to continue to ignore it. I am aware of all those contributions to. But its all "bits around the edges" in terms of making a statement to those who will use the applications and be a key driver in solving problems,(and keeping the platform). I know it sounds like a chronic complainer and I would admit to even being a "troll" but a lot CIO's have written off Domino. The app story has been neglected and unmanaged. I would have thought if you want to demonstrate value, being able to promote apps is a strength un-matched by the comp.

    I don't see any serious cash being invested in the idea to sell to notes as a RADD tool to customers. Granted that The licensing is (only now) starting to be ISV friendly. But one book, an obscure white paper that was unnoticed for 6 weeks after publishing and some sessions at LS11 that only 1000 ppl ever saw (rather than publishing on YouTube) makes for a token effort. As they say talk is cheap, if you're serious about the app story seeing evidence of a strategy would, I believe make a meaningful impact.

  1. 56  Henning Heinz  | 2/22/2011 3:21:34 AM

    If you develop for the web you compete with other tools.

    Almost any Notes and Domino company I am aware of is using other platforms (company website, ERP, Data Mining, Intranet, Social stuff). If a project involves SQL access Domino often is not even on the radar.

    This often is not a "projects are either done in Domino or not at all scenario" (although it often reads like this).

    Now I haven't asked for a Designer Mac recently because I don't need one (in many cases I just use TextMate).

    Every IT student I am aware of is well educated in Eclipse (and some in Visual Studio too). If you work for a small company then you are often free in the decision how you solve a business problem. If you work for a bigger company you will often find Java or .Net anyway. Yes there are companies that have a "we do everything on Domino" policy but those shops are not the majority.

    So if you don't do a Designer Mac then you are at first not losing customers but projects. Losing customers may be a future step although there is more than a missing Designer Mac that drives such decisions.

    If I read of a "PMR queue" and stability issues here (and this is without IBM developing a Designer Mac client) then there are indeed much bigger problems.

    IMHO Removing RDBMS access has just been a political decision by IBM. RDBMS access is a no brainer in the world of Open Standards.

  1. 57  Mat Newman http://www.matnewman.com | 2/22/2011 3:46:39 AM

    Ed,

    Thanks for the insight into the barriers required to overcome in order to implement Designer on Mac. Along with others in this thread I join in the call for a Linux variant, but not from the point of view that the task is insurmountable.

    I have 8.5.2 Designer running on Ubuntu (10.10 x64 no less). If I can get it working under Wine with very little aid or assistance, surely 1/2 a dozen of your engineers (some of whom I know personally and hold in the highest regard) should be able to put their heads together and finish the job without millions of $/'man hours' of investment.

    And this doesn't necessarily mean going with a pure XPages variant. It's not the 'classic' design elements that cause the problems with this configuration, it's the newer features that tend to cause faults and conflicts.

    Just $0.02 from someone who is *almost* there already.

    Thanks mate, we appreciate the fact that you put your thoughts and feelings out there for comment.

  1. 58  Felix Binsack http://timetoact.de | 2/22/2011 3:50:10 AM

    Hello Ed,

    would it not be possible to port the Domino Designer to Mac OS and then make it available as an english only unsupported "technical preview"? That would cost only a fraction and make maybe 80% of the people damanding a Domino Designer on Mac OS happy.

  1. 59  Ed Brill http://www.edbrill.com | 2/22/2011 4:19:22 AM

    Interesting how many times Linux has come up - I have to say that in terms of the developer demographic I had not thought about Linux at all.

    Even more interesting is Felix's idea @58. Something to take back to the labs.

  1. 60  datalore_tv http://www.twitter.com/datalore_tv | 2/22/2011 4:21:06 AM

    Like iNotes, why can't we have a web-based version of Domino Designer on 10.5.x+ that works say with 8.5.x onwards? Keep it simple. Let me put it this way - is v7 reaching EOL in the next couple of months anyway?

    Instead of making it OS specific, just have it running as a service instead. Access it via https. Beauty of making it a service then allows it to be brought to the cloud... possibilities are endless.

    In fact, get rid of the client apps altogether (Notes, Admin, even Server!). Run them over https. Solves a lot of heartache.

    Aside from the client, I reach off of the rest of these apps over RDP anyway! Start concentrating on the UI experience and not OS compatibility. In a few short years, we're not going to have OSes in the traditional sense.

    Please though, avoid Flash. XPages (well why not?) or HTML5 or CSS or AJAX or JavaScript or whatever. Just not Flash. Or Silverlight. Or Java. Just sayin'.

    Also, you ever think of making an iOS version Domino Designer? ;) Actually, as I smirk on that thought, it kind of makes sense not just to 'make' a 'mac' version, but a browser (service?) based one. OK, the iPad it not a developmental tool but a consumption device, but are we REALLY that far away from a roaming device that we CAN develop on?

  1. 61  GarryL  | 2/22/2011 4:47:44 AM

    The Web/XPages designer would certainly be good to see and makes a lot of sense.

    I'm not so convinced by the Linux variant. I can't recall seeing any businesses that could make use of that - all the ones I know use Windows (and yes, some Mac), certainly in the SME market in the UK. I know there is a lot of mentions here but is that not becuase it is a generally technical audience?

  1. 62  Reynoutvab  | 2/22/2011 4:53:48 AM

    Last week I wanted to create a view and an agent in my mail file.... on my MAC! So I could design there. Not in an official designer, but it looked like the tooling was there :-)

    And in that case if IBM is halfway there.... why not.

  1. 63  Ben Poole http://benpoole.com | 2/22/2011 5:08:33 AM

    @62 simple actions only, a throw-back to the code in R5. It's not a development environment, not by a long shot.

  1. 64  Stephen Hood  | 2/22/2011 5:52:44 AM

    Ed, what Mat said in @57.

    If nothing else it's something that can probably be tackled in the very very short term. And I assume you get all that language support :)

    I believe it would satisfy the *need* of that developer audience if not the long term "want" to have a single Eclipse environment/tooling etc on their Mac.

    I'm not jumping into Xpages development now because I'm not investing money and more importantly time in Windows again after switching to a Mac. However the recent combination of extension library, 8.5.2, and Dojo maturing now makes a pretty compelling "platform" for all sorts of ideas.

    The Windows Trial image was just a painful reminder of why we ditched Windows in the first place so...

    I went down a similar path as Mat - however with Wine running on the Mac instead of a separate Linux VM. While the Notes basic client loaded up - the Eclipse based stuff loads and then immediately shuts down.

    I don't think a Linux VM even needs official support at this point. Just make it a workable solution until the Mac story can evolve. And let me get on with our ideas :)

    P.S. To be clear a VM image with Ubuntu etc would be fine. I'm not suggesting a Wine version running directly on the Mac. Unless that is easier for you. Potentially the fix issues and/or documentation of said Wine configurations aren't that far apart. Potentially.

  1. 65  Bill Brown  | 2/22/2011 2:26:06 PM

    As @33 said, instead of making the designer client for Mac, why not make it for a freely re-distributable OS only. Make a prebuilt VM ready to run. That way anyone who needs it can simply download a VM image and run it on whatever host OS they chose. What the heck, make the only supported configuration the VM image.

    Do the same w/ the Admin client to for all of us (myself included) that have whined about having to run Windows to get the the Admin client.

    Then do away with the Windows Designer and Admin clients.

    I agree with the many comments about putting resources into maintaining and improving reliability and the user experience over additional platforms for Designer/Admin clients.

  1. 66  Collin Murray http://www-01.ibm.com/software/lotus/products/domino/ | 2/22/2011 2:46:52 PM

    Ed - Re: Express offerings - Yes, I'm reading... I have a couple of thoughts on this. Auf Deutsch oder Englisch?

  1. 67  Ed Brill http://www.edbrill.com | 2/22/2011 3:52:29 PM

    @66 lol keine Deutsch, ich nie sprechen

  1. 68  Tripp Black http://www.mindwatering.com | 2/23/2011 12:13:39 AM

    Wow! This might be better/longer thread than the iPhone one by the time it's done. :-)

    I agree with a bunch of posts, but I think @29 sums it up. We are converting to Mac. They are less maintenace for us than our PCs - they are stable and "simpler" (users tell me). However, myself and another still have a primary Windows machine for Designer. Yes, on my Mac is VMware Fusion and Windows XP running 8.5.2.

    Getting Designer on Mac would mean I wouldn't boot the VM everyday, but it's not critical. Please bring Designer eventually to the Mac. Also, don't throw away the old functionalty. I may not have done a navigator image map in 8 years, but I'm still occasionally replacing one w/Outlines. Very rarely do I get the chance to re-develop whole apps in XPages - it's usually a new reporting module or the like, the rest of the apps get what is minimally necessary.

    The Domino servers I maintain w/8.5.x have been just as solid as their previous releases. It's usually the add-ons (Norton AV, etc.) that cause it. CIOs need to wise-up and blame the add-on maker.

    As for or Notes Standard clients, they still aren't quite as stable as the Basic or 7.x ones. That is everyone's first spot for a pain point. Our issues very small ones, but we love our "sidebar apps" and they are only growing. Once again it's the apps that hooked us, it's the apps that keep us. Anything that enhances that paradigm is the right path in our book.

    As you indicated in your post, it's an exercise in ranking them.

  1. 69  Lars Berntrop-Bos  | 2/23/2011 6:55:06 PM

    Well spoken! Good to see the open discussion model continued by you1

  1. 70  Lars Berntrop-Bos  | 2/23/2011 6:56:56 PM

    Btw: RDBMS support in XPages would make a lot of developers very, very Happy!

  1. 71  Bob Balaban http://www.bobzblog.com | 2/24/2011 8:48:47 PM

    Why not wait until Designer on Windows works well before porting all the problems to Mac? Let alone before investing in other product stability fixes (a la @14)?

    Does a hypothetical Designer/Mac drive purchase of more server or client licenses? Personally, I don't see why that would be so. Does it add feature/functionality to the client or server? I think not.

  1. 72  LongLiveLotus  | 2/25/2011 6:22:16 PM

    whatever the %age is of mac dev's, its way less than windows devs (much as I dislike that unreliable ms piece of cr@p).

    Much much more important is the client UI - this affects millions of people and adversely colours their judgement over the technical and business merits of the products.

    Fix the 1980's UI and/or make the client a browser.

    Please.

  1. 73  Bill Buchan http://www.billbuchan.com | 2/26/2011 5:33:06 AM

    One point that might have not been considered:

    You can VM windows, linux, on a Mac. You can VM Linux on Windows. You can VM Windows on Linux. But you cant (with any degree of ease or reliablity VM the Mac O/S).

    Developers are developing for the iPhone. And buying Macs. So we've seen in the last couple of years a huge swing away from using Windows as a development platform on native metal, to developers running on Macs, and where required, VM'ing Windows to get Visual Studio, etc.

    In the same way that I VM Windows on the Mac to get to Designer 8.5.2.

    Now us designers have suffered in the feature death between 5 and 7 and to an extent, xPages is just picking up some of the debris left behind after Workplace was killed.

    Don't get me wrong - I love xPages, and look forward to it reliably running on the client, as reliably as it runs on the web - and easily hooking into other RDBMS's in order to let us write apps that deal with enterprise systems.

    Porting DDE to Mac has been an implicit promise ever since IBM stood there and said that the client was going to be embedded in Eclipse.

    So - existing Domino Devs on Mac - we all VM windows to get at DDE. its slow, its buggy, and doesn't help the DDE in terms of reliability.

    A native port of DDE on the Mac would appeal to all these new devs out there who only saw Notes as a dead platform on Windows and only of interest to Enterprise app devs.

    A Native port of DDE and xPages supporting RDMBS, as well as the Amazon hosted server package means a whole new ball game - one where Notes was actually considered a fantastic development environment again.

    I cant believe this hasn't been aired internally. Perhaps it hasn't got as far as the folks who make the decisions.

    You want to hit Microsoft hard ? Kick em in the Devs.

    ---* Bill

  1. 74  David (The Notes Guy in Seattle) http://Http:blog.thenotesguyinseattle.com | 2/28/2011 1:27:48 AM

    Wow, step away for a few days and look what I missed. I asked the question at "Ask the Developers" and "Ask the PMs". I should be part of the discussion. I have more thoughts on this topic.watch for my blog post tomorrow.