Tuesday news part 1: Notes/iNotes licenses and reinstatement promotional discount

May 12 2009

Today is a busy day in Notes/Domino land, with the DNUG (Deutsche Notes User Group) conference keynotes happening in Düsseldorf in just a few hours.  There are a number of news announcements in the keynotes and breakouts -- some are brand-new news, while others are updates and progress reports on announcements from Lotusphere 2009.  I'll be blogging these updates today and tomorrow, and highlighting any resulting news coverage.

The first announcement is live.  Today, IBM is announcing a promotional 25% discount off new Notes and iNotes licenses, as well as a 25% discount off "reinstatement" (restarting a lapsed maintenance agreement).  This limited-time promotion is available worldwide, except in Japan, until August 5, 2009.  

Through this promotion, organizations have the opportunity to install or expand Lotus Notes/Domino deployments at a reduced price.  This promotion is especially timely for Microsoft Exchange customers who, in Microsoft's fiscal Q4, are facing yet another large renewal bill for laggard products like Office and Exchange, and are looking for a better way than yet another rip-and-replace migration.  This promotion is also designed to encourage IT organizations who run earlier versions of Lotus Notes to check out all the operational cost savings available by implementing Notes/Domino 8.5 and Lotus Symphony, IBM's no-cost office productivity suite.  And of course, the promotional discount helps existing Notes customers consider expansion of their deployments at a lower upfront cost.

Since we obtained approval for this promotion a couple of weeks ago, it has been quite fun to watch how many different parts of IBM get involved in communicating about it.  We've run several internal calls, done a bunch of e-mail, published newsletters and enablement tools, and readied public content for ibm.com.  This morning, all of that gets a green light to go external, starting right now.  I'm looking forward to seeing the impact.

Link: ibm.com channel announcement: IBM Lotus Notes discount promotion >  (Link updated)

Ed Brill | Orlando, FL USA Category:  Notes and Domino 8.5  Add/View Comments [38]

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  1. 1  Volker Weber http://vowe.net | 5/12/2009 2:10:08 AM

    Do existing customers benefit as well, when they want to buy additional maintenance for seats that are already on maintenance?

  1. 2  Peter Simoons http://www.simoons.com | 5/12/2009 2:17:37 AM

    How about lowering the barrier to get to an evaluation license? { Link }

  1. 3  Adam Osborne http://www.preemptive.com.au | 5/12/2009 2:42:25 AM

    I think this is a fantastic initiative - well done IBM.

  1. 4  Ed Brill http://www.edbrill.com | 5/12/2009 2:47:01 AM

    @1 no, existing customer's maintenance is not part of the promotion. In the process of generating this promotion, I learned that IBM software doesn't do promotions on maintenance alone. The reinstatement discount is to encourage customers whose maintenance has lapsed to re-join the program, but reinstatement is priced at 2.5x the annual maintenance price.

    @2 I'm not sure I understand what the barrier is. { Link } and download for the Notes client trial.

    @3 thanks!

  1. 5  Ed Brill http://www.edbrill.com | 5/12/2009 2:55:46 AM

    @All, I'm aware that the channel announcement page that I linked to is busted at this hour...working on it.

  1. 6  Adam Osborne http://www.preemptive.com.au | 5/12/2009 3:17:50 AM

    An idea - offer a swap out program, ie. you can swap to Notes/Domino for the price you are paying for maintenance on Exchange/Outlook, all you have to do is give IBM a copy of your maintenance invoice.

  1. 7  Darren Duke http://blog.darrenduke.net | 5/12/2009 3:31:14 AM

    Kick 'em where it hurts. Now the (yellow) gloves are coming off!

    @6, that is an incredible idea!

  1. 8  John Lindsay http://www.zenocean.com | 5/12/2009 6:57:58 AM

    @6 Excellent idea. That was how I ended up with my original copy of Microsoft Office 2 at the expense of Wordperfect 5.1 for DOS. The name of your company / website is quite appropriate as well. :-)

  1. 9  Mike McP http://openntf.org/mPortal | 5/12/2009 7:12:19 AM

    @4/@2. I think he's referring to the server. Personally, I'm not sure a user-downloadable server version is all that useful, as I feel users would just get frustrated with the flexibility of a Notes server, and probably wouldn't get through a solid install.

    However, for partners, a trial copy of server would be incredibly useful to install on a prospective customer's site. For developers, a 3-concurrent user free version would make complete sense. That would provide just enough to demo/develop web and complex client apps.

  1. 10  Rick D  | 5/12/2009 7:35:14 AM

    Does this discount apply to the Designer client as well?

  1. 11  Ed Brill http://www.edbrill.com | 5/12/2009 7:39:27 AM

    @10 no, no discount on Designer. Just Notes and iNotes client licenses.

  1. 12  Mark Hughes  | 5/12/2009 7:46:45 AM

    " This limited-time promotion is available worldwide, except in Japan, until August 5, 2009."

    Those poor Japanese, they just cant catch a break!

  1. 13  Ed Brill http://www.edbrill.com | 5/12/2009 7:57:24 AM

    @12 they are running other promotions in the local market in Japan.

  1. 14  Kevin Mort http://www.theglobalmind.com | 5/12/2009 8:16:24 AM

    Excellent. Perfect timing. I've got a customer with around 300 seats which will be a new license purchase.

    Reading this...the promo is for Notes/iNotes and not the server, correct?

  1. 15  Kevin Mort http://www.theglobalmind.com | 5/12/2009 8:17:55 AM

    Excellent. Perfect timing. I've got a customer with around 300 seats which will be a new license purchase.

    Reading this...the promo is for Notes/iNotes and not the server, correct?

  1. 16  Ed Brill http://www.edbrill.com | 5/12/2009 8:20:42 AM

    @14 yes, the client licenses are what are in the promotion. Server is regular price.

  1. 17  Kevin Mort http://www.theglobalmind.com | 5/12/2009 9:33:49 AM

    @16 - Thought so. Thanks. Still a good deal. Oh and sorry for the stuttering reply earlier....#fail to slow connection.

  1. 18  Brett H  | 5/12/2009 10:07:37 AM

    This sounds like a great deal Ed! How will this discount be advertised? Where can I find the marketing material promoting it? I'd love to have something to show to folks instead of a partnerworld announcement.

    Cheers.

  1. 19  Mark Hughes  | 5/12/2009 11:00:44 AM

    @17 express licensing might be a good option, no clustering but other than that it offers quite a bit of value.

  1. 20  Ingo Erdmann  | 5/12/2009 11:01:07 AM

    Ed. you say:

    This limited-time promotion is available worldwide, except in Japan, until August 5, 2009.

    If you follow the link, the document says:

    This promotion is available only in:

    the United States and its territories

    Canada

    IBM - Caribbean North District

    Mexico

    Brazil

    Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Paraguay, Peru, Uruguay, Venezuela (SSA Region)

    Costa Rica, Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Guatemala, Haiti, Honduras, Nicaragua, Panama (LCR Region)

    Who is right? I am specifically asking for availability in Germany.

  1. 21  Ed Brill http://www.edbrill.com | 5/12/2009 11:23:33 AM

    @20 I linked to the US version. There should be an equivalent in every market, though it may take a few days to show in the system.

  1. 22  Steven Kennett  | 5/12/2009 11:50:47 AM

    Maybe you could take this to companies to stop them migrating away? I have discovered today that Oxford University (one of the most well known in the world) is to migrate away from Domino 8/8.5 to Exchange 2007.

    They will be standardising their mail systems and rolling out the system to 40,000 users ! (IBM Competed but lost apparently)

    Not only is this a massive loss for the amounts of users(seats) but Oxford University is one of the largest employers in Oxfordshire (which is one of the best employed areas in the UK), a possible number of companies will see this, aswell as the amount of high calibre students that will now use Exchange/Outlook and take that to others companies that they potentially will work for.

    This is the sort of account that IBM needs to be winning!

  1. 23  Jens Polster http://www.DomBlog.de | 5/12/2009 2:52:26 PM

    @20 Ingo, I don't know how "official" this is, but Stefan Krueger blogged about the discount at the Lotus Germany Blog yesterday.

    { Link }

    I also got a newsletter from our distributor today about the discounts.

    No press release on the German Lotus home page, though.

  1. 24  Ports http://www.mrports.com/ | 5/12/2009 6:44:23 PM

    @22 Steven, for obvious reasons as an IBMer I cannot go into too much detail about a confidential customers situation, but just to clarify a couple of points you assert as fact ... Oxford Uni were not using Domino for email - they had their own hand coded email solution. So they are not migrating from Domino to Exchange.

    They use Domino for applications in a specific area but they are not using Domino 8/8.5. So to suggest that they migrated from Domino 8/8.5 to Exchange 2007 is wrong in that they are using a far older version of Domino and is wrong because Exchange is an email system and not an application server.

    To see an example of how IBM Lotus has brought a Modern Working Environment to a University you should check out what is happening at Cardiff Uni. { Link } (They are also using Portal, Connections, iNotes, Sametime and Quickr as part of their MWE)

  1. 25  Ed Brill http://www.edbrill.com | 5/12/2009 10:31:05 PM

    @18 see

    { Link }

    and it's also on the front door page of ibm.com/lotus. And it's being communicated to business partners for them in turn to communicate to customers/opportunities.

  1. 26  Brett  | 5/13/2009 1:09:35 AM

    That's cool Ed, but isn't promoting it like this, a bit like Target having an awesome sale, but only advertising within the store? The only people that will know about it are the people already in the store, or the one's told by word of mouth (ie:the BPs).

  1. 27  Steven Kennett  | 5/13/2009 4:33:16 AM

    @24 Agreed about not wanting to go into a customer situation, however due to what you have said I have to disagree with you.

    This is an external link and shows they use Domino for more than just an Application: - { Link }

    Domino was selected a few years ago for a certain area for email and calendaring and an application (I remember the job advertisement for an Administrator)

    I also disagree that they are now not using Domino 8/8.5 from what I know. They will be decommissioning these when they move to Exchange 2007.

    I am fully aware of what Cardiff Uni has and if Oxford have evaluated Lotus Notes/Domino and Exchange 2007 they must see Exchange as the better email system?

    My point in all of this is they are rolling out Exchange to 40,000 users when Domino is there already(albeit only 800+ users) so they will have evaluated it as a long term solution.

  1. 28  Ed Brill http://www.edbrill.com | 5/13/2009 5:46:57 AM

    @27 are they moving to Exchange Online? Are they moving just a student system? There are a lot of factors, and if they are moving to Exchange Online from whatever system was used for students, that's a freebie from Microsoft. They might not see Exchange 2007 as the "better email system" but rather the free-r one.

  1. 29  Steven Kennett  | 5/13/2009 6:16:51 AM

    @28 Yeah I am sure there are, I just find it a bit frustrating recently that I keep hearing of company after company going to Exchange and none the other way, this isn't doing my future job prospects any good ;-)

  1. 30  Ed Brill http://www.edbrill.com | 5/13/2009 7:14:35 AM

    @26 if you look at the number of promotions IBM announces every week, we would go broke doing advertising for these. Other marketing like email, channel awareness, etc. is effective at getting the word out... While yes we could do more, it's not that different than the approach used by other software vendors.

    @29 Ports mentioned one "to Notes" migration at Cardiff. We recently announced a big migration win at Continental AG, and two large US-based banks have both recently migrated their larger Exchamge environments to Notes. It is not "never" the other way. .

  1. 31  Steven Kennett  | 5/13/2009 8:48:45 AM

    @30 Yes I know, I meant around me as opposed to the world. I'll be more specific next time ;-)

  1. 32  Damjan Perenic  | 5/13/2009 8:55:50 AM

    It seems they had several email systems in use { Link } and they are consolidating all of them to Exchange/Sharepoint { Link } .

  1. 33  Steven Kennett  | 5/13/2009 11:35:38 AM

    @32 Which is what I originally said, I don't want to dwell on this any more but given that what I have said is actually "fact" - @24, then I hope the reason they went with Exchange was due to the amount of exchange systems in place across the different areas of the University because looking at the second link isn't all of that stated in Lotus Notes/Domino + some!

  1. 34  Rishi  | 5/14/2009 2:00:30 AM

    "An invitation-only beta version of Lotus Notes and Domino 8.5.1 will be made available from Friday to a few hundred current customers and design partners, an IBM spokesperson told ZDNet Asia's sister site ZDNet UK on Wednesday. The beta version also includes version 1.3 of IBM's Lotus Symphony document, spreadsheet and presentation software."

    Good move...

  1. 35  Wiebe van Bruggen http://www.changetocomm.nl | 5/14/2009 2:57:53 AM

    Previously you stated that it is a worldwide offer and that we just had to wait for it to appear in the not-mentioned countries (e.g. all EU countries). So far our distributor doesn't know anything about it.

    Could you please confirm your announcement that it will apply to the EU countries too and could you please make the local IBM offices announce this to their distributors? PLEASE!!!

  1. 36  Wiebe van Bruggen http://www.changetocomm.nl | 5/14/2009 6:10:28 AM

    @30 (@29)

    Imho IBM is doing a very poor job (at least in the Netherlands) in letting the public in general and IBM software customers in particular, know there are also companies moving to Notes. The competitors take care of the opposite direction, so don't worry about that :-(

    Just not only the big firms please! A regularly updated list of smaller companies (<1000 seats) could be very helpfull in convincing current IBM customers to stay that way and that IBM is a sound choice even for them.

  1. 37  Ed Brill http://www.edbrill.com | 5/14/2009 6:45:09 AM

    @32 there is a public channel announcement for Europe as well:

    { Link }

    More importantly, the new prices have been loaded into the IBM Distributed Software Price List. Your distributor should take a look at the prices for these products as of Tuesday and see the discount has already been applied.

  1. 38  Wiebe van Bruggen http://www.changetocomm.nl | 5/15/2009 2:10:33 AM

    @37. Thank you for the info. I'll pass it on.