Phil Simon: Technology Today podcast with Ed Brill
February 3 2010
A few weeks ago, Phil Simon wrote a blog entry called "When it's time to abandon ship", where he discussed the new FewClix plug-in for Notes. His general point -- why would anyone use a plug-in to address "basic features, such as search and performance?"
I am not sure that is how FewClix is positioned -- I met with Synaptris at Lotusphere and thought FewClix was pretty cool. It's not for everyone, but it does have an executive dashboard-like feel about it, and some real clean navigation and categorization tools for Notes mail. It's worth checking out for certain types of "power users".
Anyway, back to Phil. His experience with Notes, and that of those around him, was still Notes 5/6 or earlier, and he had a lot of criticisms of the Notes UI -- to the point of suggesting that IBM "blow up" Notes.
I'm a sucker for a provocative blog, I guess, but in this case, I'm glad that I (and several of you) jumped in. Phil took the comments quite seriously, and the result was a podcast we did yesterday.
Ed sent me some information on the enhancements that Lotus Notes has incorporated into its newest version and, I must admit, I was pretty impressed. I started thinking broadly about some of the challenges that many--if not most--large organizations face in integrating new technologies (such as social media and other collaborative tools) into existing products. I would argue that introducing a new application is fundamentally easier than modifying existing ones.Well, yes, that's called the Innovator's Dilemma, and we think about it often in the context of a 20-year product history.
Anyway, the target audience for Phil's podcast is outside the Notes community, so our discussion took place under a more general IT banner. Worth a 20-minute-ish listen. Thanks to Phil for the opportunity to talk, and for accommodating a crazy schedule this week.
Link: Phil Simon: Technology Today podcast with Ed Brill >
Post a Comment
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David - the Notes guy in Seattle | 2/3/2010 11:19:17 AM
Easier? Compared to what? I fall within the yellow faithful, but one of the big reasons is because of the ease of upgrading. Would we compare this to upgrading Groupwise? I doubt many even looked into that process, and that's just email. Would we compare it to the MS equivalents? Theirs is and has always been a migration process, not an upgrade. What could be more complex than requiring new hardware and a new OS with every major upgrade of the application software? Then there is the process of moving users to the new server. And in the end, that is only one component of the collection of software required to be upgraded. You can't overlook the other necessary systems like SQL server and Sharepoint and whatever else is used lieu of Notes. Well, perhaps you can if you are faithful to another color. Love is blind in the software world too.
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Charles Robinson http://www.cubert.net | 2/3/2010 1:06:52 PM
@1 - I'm with David on this one. Notes and Domino have the easiest upgrade and migration path of anything I have ever used. It has gotten more complex as R8 has progressed, to the point I now need a decoder ring, but it's sill ridiculously simple in comparison.
@2 - The upgrade and migration path for Lotus products has gotten more complicated in R8. Certain features or companion products have specific version requirements that are often conflicting. Trying to distill down the lowest common denominator of Domino, Websphere and DB2 versions that line up with the Notes, Connections, Sametime and Quickr versions and editions you want can be a daunting task. In some cases it may require an OS *downgrade* because some products won't work with the latest OS releases.
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Mike Robinson http://www.invcs.com | 2/3/2010 4:10:57 PM
I listened to the podcast, not bad. Really not much more comments than that. Seems like Phil wasn't out for blood and actually I learned a wee bit more about Vulcan.
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Phil Simon http://www.philsimonsystems.com | 2/3/2010 5:57:52 PM
No, Mike, I wasn't out for blood. I may not be the sharpest tack in the box, but I'm smart enough not to tick off the millions of people who enjoy using LN.
I did learn quite a bit. As I encounter other technologists, I am able to expand my knowledge of different products and methodologies.
I sometimes wonder if the perception of Notes today (outside the yellow faithful) would be a lot different if both companies and individuals found it a lot easier to upgrade their Notes infrastructure to the "latest" version of Notes.