Duffbert's Random Musings

1 - Thomas,

Interesting promo by Google. Johnson Diversey's reasons they mention for going to google sounds like they couldn't deal with archiving or managing user accounts and "it was slow". Hmm.. Sounds a tad lazy in trying to address it by simply throwing it all out, and going somewhere else rather than working on it.

But if the effort to migrate to Google is as easy as flipping a switch, then it affords companies like Johnson Diversey to try something else for low cost/low risk.

I think, initially, the biggest threat is to Lotus Foundations. Why goto the trouble with setting up a business appliance, when I can just configure it all online through google.

Google Wave is perhaps the biggest long term threat against MS/IBM.

2 - When IBM only position Lotus Notes as an email platform and when that perception is reinforced by Microsoft and other competitors viewing Lotus Notes as only a legacy in-house email platform, then every existing Lotus Notes account is at risk.

When will IBM learn that the best way to strengthen the Lotus Market brand is to aggressively promote Lotus Notes as a market leading collaborative solution.

That means re-educating the IBM salesforce to promote the collaborative strengths of Lotus Notes with real-world examples. Forget email, that is something that you should get for free.

Begin to do more aggressive marketing, and "Yes" more press and television spots to educate generation Y that Lotus Notes actually exists.

Provide more up-to-date, out of the box, "free" collaborative templates (that are professionally developed & tightly integrated), so that end users can immediately benefit from these collaborative solutions. If Microsoft can do this with Sharepoint, why can't Lotus?

Provide a radically simpler way for customers to buy Lotus Notes, and reduce the price so that it can compete more aggressively with "cloud" alternatives. And if they are really serious, provide a free or extremely low cost version (under $20) software licence for the Lotus Notes Client, even if its just the R8 basic version.

Do something really aggressive in the education market to build-up a larger pool of Lotus Notes technical expertise. Most graduates have never heard of the Lotus brand never mind Lotus Notes.

Finally, seed the SME market with many thousands of low cost, entry level Domino systems. These need to be bundled with dozens of free SMB relevant collaborative solutions.

People buy solutions and are highly loyal to their current vendor when they perceive "real value from their investment in time and money".

3 - I tried to help a new client buy Notes from IBM. After reading the pages, he still had a question. So he clicked on the contact me button to have IBM answer his question. He received an email stating that someone from IBM would respond in 3 business days.

2 weeks later, he received a response directing him to the very page that he has submitted the question from.

I wonder if the IBM web/informatics/analytics teams know that?

4 - @3. Roll eyes. So much for a smarter planet. LOL. Once a company gets beyond a certain size, it just turns into a big dumb (blue) robot.

There are lots of smart people in IBM, but once you get too many people into the mix, it ends up being incoherent noise.

5 - There's an interesting thing in the video....

"We were using both lotus notes and outlook across the globe...".

Where did the outlook part disappear ? It seems Google prefers to hit Notes than Outlook. (even if maybe Notes was the main platform for them).

Also they talk about archiving but... what about compliance ? I'm sure google is doing it right but yet...

Good luck to JohnsonDiversey

6 - @Thomas
The title of this topic reads quite strange on PlanetLotus.
I don't think that IBM really wants to fight in the SMB area. Take the money you can get and concentrate on big corporate accounts. That is what will bring you short-term profits.
I wouldn't be suprised if we see another incarnation of IBM Lotus Workplace within the next 3 years.

7 - On a different note:

Look at the screenshot picture.

I'm guessing there's absolutely nothing so simple anywhere in the entire Lotus site.

A video, big "CLICK ME" button, and some info tabs. Clear, concise, easy.

8 - Google is apparently unstoppable. Their business model is aimed to destroy everyone who, up until now, has made money from computers.

9 - This doesn't make sense. I thought IBM WANTED to get further into the SMB market? I thought they created a separate set of sales folks just to address SMB's? Am I wrong about this, or have I just slipped into an alternate timeline?

Maybe I should go back to IBM for the third time. Looks like they need someone who actually WORKS in an SMB and understands how they operate.... NAH, that would make too much sense...

10 - Google is apparently stoppable. You just have to build better software (yes, I think it is that simple, see the iPhone). Unfortunately most vendors only care about revenues and cost reduction. Google had a business model that once was heavily dependant on usage (compare that to Microsoft where it is enough if every PC has MS pre-installed). If people did not use Google software they did not earn money. This is now changing (with Apps being dependant on fees) and it will be interesting if Google will be able to resist the "we charge for nothing" mentality.

11 - I liked their "Its Slow" Comment or their 200mb forced Archiving. And resisting the costs to Upgrade?

I think if they have R4 on a bunch of ten year old Servers and an IT budget of zero, and never had a notes developer or admin.

Then they answer is Yes, go convert to Google.

If the IT Person complains that it's so slow, Instead of trying to fix why it is slow, Then yes, convert to Google, and dump that Idiot from your payroll too.

12 - @11 - Upgrade costs and ten year old servers disappear in the Google cloud.

@1 - "Tad lazy instead of working on it" is just what Google is selling.

Does IBM offer a hosted option for Notes? That would at least get them on the same page.