Why I don't think XPages will make a difference in turning the tide...
Category IBM/Lotus
Disclaimer up front... There are generalizations in here, because actual seat counts and win/loss claims are hard to decipher from press and vendor spin. Your mileage may (and probably will) vary from what I'm about to write...
I know that many have looked at XPages as being a key factor in turning the Domino platform into a first-class application server. And I agree... it is a positive move in the right direction in terms of what Domino can do now both on the web and on the client via XPages.
But overall, I have no confidence that it will make any difference in stemming the tide of what appears by all accounts to be a continual slide in lost Lotus accounts. The latest loss is the GSA decision, and nearly all the pundits and accounts make it sound like Google and Microsoft were the only two competitors for the business. The loss of the account by Lotus is portrayed as a done deal, a foregone conclusion. The analysis is how Microsoft is going to counter Google's move into government accounts, with little being said about how Lotus might factor into any decision.
Mail and application migrations are two entirely different things, but it's been my observation that the same path seems to occur when a Lotus account is lost. Mail migration takes place at some pace. In some areas it's fast with a total cutover, and in other locations it's a long, drawn-out affair. But simultaneously, the decision is made to scale back or freeze additional Notes development while migration plans are figured out. There are obvious horror stories on application migrations, and few seem to get totally off of all Notes applications very easily, but there seems to be one constant factor... no one is committing resources to enhance and expand their Notes portfolio if they've migrated to another email platform.
Email and applications are intricately linked when it comes to using Domino, and if you lose the email battle, you lose the applications battle.
I don't see that many (any?) people are buying Domino as strictly an application platform, nor is IBM pushing it as such. Because of this, it seems that any new technologies like XPages are at the mercy of whether an account chooses to stay with Notes email. If that's tossed, XPages won't save Domino in an organization looking to cut back on their IT spending.
I think XPages is an important skill to learn if you're in a Domino environment that is committed to that platform. But I see more and more organizations that are questioning that commitment, and are making the move to either premise or cloud email from Google or Microsoft. And when that happens, Domino apps are in a precarious (and often deadly) position, regardless of whether XPages exist or not.
Disclaimer up front... There are generalizations in here, because actual seat counts and win/loss claims are hard to decipher from press and vendor spin. Your mileage may (and probably will) vary from what I'm about to write...
I know that many have looked at XPages as being a key factor in turning the Domino platform into a first-class application server. And I agree... it is a positive move in the right direction in terms of what Domino can do now both on the web and on the client via XPages.
But overall, I have no confidence that it will make any difference in stemming the tide of what appears by all accounts to be a continual slide in lost Lotus accounts. The latest loss is the GSA decision, and nearly all the pundits and accounts make it sound like Google and Microsoft were the only two competitors for the business. The loss of the account by Lotus is portrayed as a done deal, a foregone conclusion. The analysis is how Microsoft is going to counter Google's move into government accounts, with little being said about how Lotus might factor into any decision.
Mail and application migrations are two entirely different things, but it's been my observation that the same path seems to occur when a Lotus account is lost. Mail migration takes place at some pace. In some areas it's fast with a total cutover, and in other locations it's a long, drawn-out affair. But simultaneously, the decision is made to scale back or freeze additional Notes development while migration plans are figured out. There are obvious horror stories on application migrations, and few seem to get totally off of all Notes applications very easily, but there seems to be one constant factor... no one is committing resources to enhance and expand their Notes portfolio if they've migrated to another email platform.
Email and applications are intricately linked when it comes to using Domino, and if you lose the email battle, you lose the applications battle.
I don't see that many (any?) people are buying Domino as strictly an application platform, nor is IBM pushing it as such. Because of this, it seems that any new technologies like XPages are at the mercy of whether an account chooses to stay with Notes email. If that's tossed, XPages won't save Domino in an organization looking to cut back on their IT spending.
I think XPages is an important skill to learn if you're in a Domino environment that is committed to that platform. But I see more and more organizations that are questioning that commitment, and are making the move to either premise or cloud email from Google or Microsoft. And when that happens, Domino apps are in a precarious (and often deadly) position, regardless of whether XPages exist or not.
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Comments
Lotus would need to do something irrational (for them) to get people to stick with the Domino server for just applications. Maybe it should be free if there are no mail users? Would make sense, but I don't see that happening.
Posted by Michael Sobczak At 18:05:30 On 08/12/2010 | - Website - |
I continue to say that without core notes, there is virtually no market for the others within 18 months.
Posted by Andrew Pollack At 18:16:16 On 08/12/2010 | - Website - |
In addition, they need to price the server accordingly compare to the open source solutions out there. First a free community version should be available maybe one that has very limited authenticated user. This goes back to the discussions that we had on Ed Brill's blog about clustering was available for the Domino Express line of products.
Whenever a company needs a web server IBM pushes Websphere. The fact is that most companies do not want nor could afford Websphere. In most cases, the Domino server is the better solution, easy to install, easy to develop application, and easy to manage compare to Websphere.
The fact is most of the companies in the world are small business and if they get on the Domino Web server bandwagon it trickets up.
If this does not happen soon, I am not sure there will be any left to worry about.
Posted by Richard Moy At 18:41:29 On 08/12/2010 | - Website - |
Great discussion here. I think we need to have this discussion in public, and hopefully IBM engages directly. I also think those that are putting their heads in the sand on XPages and refuse to accept that the change is a good one ... I will just leave it at that.
Posted by John Head At 19:06:42 On 08/12/2010 | - Website - |
WebSphere (or "non-Domino platforms") seems to be where IBM is spending its time, make your plans accordingly.
Posted by Gregg Eldred At 19:19:16 On 08/12/2010 | - Website - |
I should say here as I have said in my public presentations recently that LotusLive Notes is doing well in creating and delivering competitive displacements of Microsoft. Two of our biggest LotusLive Notes customers so far have been full or partial Exchange migrations. Unfortunately, IBM customers tend to be more conservative about when they will become referenceable on these decisions, usually waiting until after full deployment. So we don't have a parade of names yet, but a significant percentage (not quite a majority) of our bids for LotusLive Notes are going into competitive accounts today.
I have some ideas on how to accelerate XPages adoption in new accounts and have executed some of those already,e.g. giving away Designer for free. I don't agree at all that customers that have thrown out Notes for mail give up on the apps space; a customer case study at Lotusphere is on how Deloitte has deployed a major XPages app, and they migrated off Notes mail a long time ago (seems like might have been 7-10 years ago).
{ Link }
But if we were to suppose your premise was true for just a moment, Tom, the question is, what would you do differently? Would you expect IBM to wave a white flag and say "oh, nevermind, don't bother considering our great and wonderful technology anyone, we're apparently not winning enough to matter" and take our toys and go home?
We have done 24 XPages workshops around the world in the last three months, and I am in Copenhagen this week where the View are running an XPages bootcamp and have scheduled more of that series. Stories like Brian Benz's and others demonstrate that XPages is good technology and can be successful. We keep throwing great code over the wall to OpenNTF.org.
I am the first to recognize that none of this is ever enough and would like to do more. The only two concrete suggestions I see in this thread so far amount to giving away the server, and I'm not sure how that business strategy helps anyone. Laying seed, sure, but what's the upsell? Where does IBM make money on it? Our own services? If that became our strategy, we'd be blowing up the partner community that has made the product so successful; if we gave it away so partners could be more successful, there'd be no revenue to continue to invest into future versions.
I think I've demonstrated a constant willingness to listen to good ideas from the community on how to do things differently, and I do the ones I can and have others of my own. Lotus Knows the next answer will be "more marketing", whatever that means, but what else would you (collectively) suggest we consider doing?
Posted by Ed Brill At 21:25:26 On 08/12/2010 | - Website - |
As far as I know IBM sales reps are not quoted on Notes subscriptions, so they have virtually no interest at all in keeping customers on Notes. Please correct me if I'm wrong.
The same goes for the general selling power of IBM regarding Notes. Here in Germany, Microsoft has hundreds employees doing nothing else than selling Exchange and Sharepoint - while an IBM sales rep has a big bouquet full of different products, and Notes ist just one (very small) part of it. So if he sells Notes or Websphere, it doesn't matter for him.
One more other point was already mentioned here: Domino is not sold as application server, mostly it is still sold as Mail system. And in that space, it looses against MS and Google.
A lost one comes to my mind this morning: recently I talked to marketing staff from IBM germany. They told me that they have TONS of ideas how to improve the awarness of Notes in the public. But they are simply STOPPED by their own superiors for whatever reasons. From what they told me, it was like IBM does not have any interest in marketing Notes. Or, at least, that there are many poeple in IBM who are not inrested in improving Notes marketing.
I told you personally about a potential loss in Norway in the near future. You gave the information to some IBMer in Norway, but then nothing happened - at least I didn't heared anything. No IBMer contacted me to ask for details. The customer didn't said anything about any call from IBM about this matter. Nothing.
Again, this communicates the message: IBM is not interested in selling Notes.
On the other hand, IBM invests much manpower and money in the development of Notes and Domino, which makes the message even more confusing: why does IBM invest manpower and money, when they are not interested in selling the product?
That means they SHOULD be interested in selling the product. But if they are, why don't they tell their own sales reps? Why do they stop their own marketing people from doing their work?
Why does not one care about a potential loss where it is still the time to turn the tide?
Personally I'm still hoping for the best, and I still see lot of potential for the product. But on the other hand, I'm afraid it will be like it is always with IBM: when a product succeeds, it is not because IBM made a good job selling it, it's even although IBM is trying to sell it.
Posted by Julian Buss At 23:17:18 On 08/12/2010 | - Website - |
Hi Ed. I believe you are well aware that the suggestion above is not to give the Domino server away for free, but to offer a "community version" for free.
By your logic, why would IBM offer DB2 Express for free? What is the upsell?
Posted by Selcuk Ayguney At 23:24:50 On 08/12/2010 | - Website - |
Now, I cannot verify the accuracy of these statements but I can tell you that I hear this argument from well placed decision makers across the country.
Posted by Eric Mack At 23:54:01 On 08/12/2010 | - Website - |
I have seen this a lot over the last five years, and it's now really accelerating to the point that some major IBM houses are considering the switch (at least here in the UK), XPages or not.
Sad times, but everything moves on I suppose.
Posted by Ben Poole At 00:03:18 On 09/12/2010 | - Website - |
Posted by Julian Buss At 01:17:38 On 09/12/2010 | - Website - |
While XPages and the Eclipse Rich Client solve many problems and open new doors it also is a perfect point to reevaluate your IT environment especially if you are a few years behind the release schedule.
I don't mean that Notes 8 is wrong or that IBM should now push classic Notes but just, that how IBM did it, opened opportunities for the competition. And as some write here they did it quite well (although I cannot confirm that there is an Armada of Google sales people running around selling Apps).
I can only believe that IBM is well aware of the consequences and that everything is working according to their (which may not be yours or a customers) strategy.
That is why I think for some time that it is not IBM that has to change but us that we use the product.
Lotus Notes and Domino are getting smaller. Adapt or leave could be the decision that one has to make.
There are ways to address this. Most would cost more money at the beginning and / or a strategy change.
Transformer should not be a Partner product (although I wish them all the best), Midas should not be a Partner product, Sametime should have a SMB strategy that goes beyond "use our cloud version". IBM would need an answer to Fileserver 2.0 that is better than QuickR.
In fact IBM moved products away from Domino (Sametime, .doc) but expects its customers to stay!?
IBM should have a vision for the challenges or the aging Notes Storage Facility (nsf) and they should share it with their customers (talking about stuff like 16 bit limitations and rich text limitations).
As long as Eclipse (or the browser) is not the answer for all customers IBM would need a better strategy for resource constrained environments.
IBM should address reporting and printing demand, offer out of the box Backup and Anti-Virus for a small additional charge to Passport Advantage.
There are thousand ways to make a product better (and Lotus Notes is no exception).
Ironically me to writes "IBM should" while the truth is it is me who should look at IBM's current offerings and decide if it fits my strategy.
Posted by Henning Heinz At 02:27:59 On 09/12/2010 | - Website - |
My view is that not alone is Notes/Domino a good choice in large enterprise but it is ideally suited for to Small and Medium Business where, with very modest purchase / development / administration cost, the business can have robust enterprise class applications and mail (including mobile integration, etc.).
However I think there are a number of factors working against any success in SMB (actual small and medium businesses, and not what IBM classifies as SMB).
Firstly, the IBM sales organisation doesn't seem to be set up and incentivised to sell Notes into the lower end of the market (or perhaps any end of the market!), and that's not likely to change. So any upside on the SMB front will depend on business partners.
Secondly there is the cost, and complexity, of Notes Express licensing. The Express licence cost per user can seem reasonable but when you multiply this by 100, or 500, it can start to look expensive for smaller businesses. Also, deciphering the entitlement is not easy.
The third factor hindering partners from selling Notes applications (and thus Notes seat licences) into non-Notes business of any size is lack of (easy) integration with Active Directory. It's a much harder sell when you have to explain that users of this great application will have to be set up in a Notes Directory in addition to AD, and that the password will be different or will have to be synchronised, etc., etc.
I'd put the following to Ed:
1) How much money would IBM lose if companies with under 100 employees (and academic institutions) could use Notes/Domino without restriction (including all features such as clustering/DA/etc.)?
2) If IBM did this what effect would you think it would have (in medium term) on the availability of Business Partners with Notes expertise, and on the availability of applications running on Notes/Domino?
3) In the medium/longer term, what effect would any success in vSMB have on the number of licenses sold/maintained in companies of over 100/1000 users?
I don't know the definitive answers to these, but I'd like to think that such an initiative could answer the question of “Where does IBM make money on it?”
Posted by Richard Hogan At 04:20:01 On 09/12/2010 | - Website - |
There should be some point where if the organization is small enough, and you don't use certain core features of the product, you can use it for free. My example was having no mail users, because that would mean that the server was basically an application server.
Obviously, for the Deloitte example Ed raises, you wouldn't want them to use the product for free. They are too big, are likely on the most recent version, etc.
Interestingly enough, Palmi Lord had a similarly themed post the other day:
{ Link }
He offered some very constructive advice on how he thought Lotus could attempt to turn the tide. Of particular interest is his comment about the product being free for educational organizations. What better way to get people hooked on the product. Get them hooked when they young. It works for cigarettes, right?
Posted by Michael Sobczak At 04:42:21 On 09/12/2010 | - Website - |
Apple had some very successful years without offering a lot for "free".
Free for less than x users would not have helped saving Notes within big companies like Daimler, Bayer, Exxon, Deutsche Bank, Novartis,...).
You would need a strategy that goes far beyond free for x users.
For Notes in the Education space. Maybe this is a bit of a chicken and egg problem. Educational institutes want to use what is common in the Enterprise (but free). I don't see students using University mail nowadays. And if we talk about apps and probably about browser apps (because the local Notes client would not work so well for students)then I am not sure if the current applications used e.g. at universities make a good case for innovative applications.
Posted by Henning Heinz At 05:23:11 On 09/12/2010 | - Website - |
Posted by Duffbert At 05:33:51 On 09/12/2010 | - Website - |
Google is making major progress into business and the enterprise with their free offerings.
I don't see Apple as being a valid comparison because they mainly sell retail products. They are practically nonexistent in the corporate world outside of iPhones and whatnot.
Smaller organizations are going with free products instead of purchasing anything, whether it be an RDBMS or a mail service, from a software vendor.
I see your point, though. Why is Lotus losing so many bigger clients? Why does Microsoft succeed where Lotus does not? Some of it can be written off to mergers, as would be the case with Daimler, but certainly not all.
Symphony and LotusLive make compelling arguments against moving to Microsoft. Time will tell if those arguments lead to action favorable to Lotus.
Posted by Michael Sobczak At 05:46:21 On 09/12/2010 | - Website - |
It corresponds to what we are seeing here in Switzerland.
I would argue, though, that the actual technology used is not important - and that the best way for IBM to get out of its predicament is to rethink completely the licensing model for Domino/Notes, and its perverse internal sales incentives (only new seats? Come on.) The existing model is geared towards big customers, and is uninteresting for the small-to-medium business area (and here I mean 10 to 200 people-small, not "small starts at 5000" - small).
The irony is that the sweet spot for Lotus Notes application are small "department size" applications. Even within the big companies, it's the small units (project, department) that are using Notes, the big company-wide applications (ERP, CRM, Planning) are mostly on other platforms.
My suggestion is therefore: Make it possible for small ISVs to *easily* rent out customized software to their small customers. I would love being able to design and sell applications which are externally hosted by IBM, with full authentication, and without high up-front costs for either myself or my customer.
I would be able to construct working applications for a fraction of the cost of other platforms, and deliver them very fast. The customer would not even need to know the underlying platform nor the technology. In fact, he does not care.
Posted by Andrew Magerman At 05:48:49 On 09/12/2010 | - Website - |
There has been much discourse in the Lotus Blogosphere about why companies like Microsoft are winning away clients. For example:
- Lotus being lost in the overall IBM marketing message
- Lack of IBM sales, or even Lotus sales, focusing on existing install base
- Microsoft's sales focus being more intense than IBM's (the 100 reps to 1 analogy)
- Lack of a retail presence for Lotus products
I could go on. What would be worthwhile is for there to be a definitive discussion on why all of these issues do or do not play into what we all see happening to the Lotus install base.
Posted by Michael Sobczak At 05:52:43 On 09/12/2010 | - Website - |
I know we all have a love for the Lotus software offering. We all raise our yellow flags high and wave them proudly that Lotus is one of the best product offerings out there for what it can do, but it keeps loosing out to the others because the word is STILL not getting to the right people. Trust me. I high level officer in my company asked the question why we are still on Lotus and not Microsoft. "Lotus Knows" is a great marketing idea, but, it's not getting out there they way it should.
Or, is it when they hear it from the Lotus faithful, it's taken with a grain of salt because they think we are afraid of loosing our jobs?
Great post indeed, Tom.
Oh, and our local IBM rep, I've NEVER had a problem with his responsiveness on ANYTHING. He's always there when I need him to be.
Posted by Andy Donaldson At 06:00:09 On 09/12/2010 | - Website - |
My comment was a reflection of the anecdotes of others based in Australia, Germany, etc. essentially outside of the US, that I've read over the past years. The local Lotus reps I deal with are great as well!
Posted by Michael Sobczak At 06:03:40 On 09/12/2010 | - Website - |
Posted by Mark Hughes At 06:15:18 On 09/12/2010 | - Website - |
When it comes to Notes & Domino, I can only conclude that IBM know what they're doing. It's just that this doesn't jibe with what we want them to do, alas.
Posted by Ben Poole At 06:17:51 On 09/12/2010 | - Website - |
I am with Henning about 'Free as a strategy often is not enough.'. Good point. 99% of companies looks for future. A company with 70 seats will not accept the possibility of paying that much for their 101st seat. On the other hand, I agree with the need of community edition. A non-commercial Domino licensing, supported with a comprehensive academic program or non-professional community building will help lotus software to evolve in long term. It is not simple as we told, of course.
But we should seperate this into different dimensions to avoid apples and oranges.
First of all, I am a Lotus business partner. Lotus Domino is one product in this family. It may be true to criticise Sametime is going away from Domino but let's face it. New Sametime could not be implemented on top of Domino. So yes! Domino will be smaller. Keeping Connections, Sametime apart from Domino is acceptable. However, if somebody decides to launch Lotus Workflow on websphere that makes no sense. Domino is a unique application development platform with non-SQL database, directory embeddedness, RAD and security features.
One issue is actually based on the endless discussion about 'Lotus is being marketed as a mail platform only' among partners. Tom looks from a different view here. That will never end. Xpages is a good opportunity here. Making it a RAD connected to different systems (from Lotus Workflow to SAP) will be priceless.
Another problem is between selling and marketing. From the east of Europe, I don't see marketing activity. Lotus Knows campaign has been translated (yes! translation) into Turkish very recently. We discussed marketing and branding activities lots of time. Some of our thoughts has been valued (like Turkish LUG), some has not. And selling is effective or aligned with 'keeping Lotus on the market' thing? Julian made a right point with selling subscriptions. I am also curious about it because as far as I know Julian is correct.
Pricing is tough from different aspects. I would like to add a solid suggestion, parallel with Henning. Lotus may use a seperate licensing model similar to Enterprise agreement of MS. At a certain fixed price for each seat, large companies may use all collaboration applications (domino, connections, sametime, etc.). That will ease and accelerate adaption and give partners new ways to make money with their services.
Smaller businesses are harder. 100 SMB has 100 different motives. They should be investigated one by one. Currently (in my country, at least), this is based on partners' intuition.
Posted by Serdar Basegmez At 07:05:39 On 09/12/2010 | - Website - |
I am working with a state agency to have their old Notes apps be converted to XPage so they can be accessed through a WebSphere Portal server. The benefit is it will let them integrate the different systems, Domino, db2, grails, and Lotus Forms.
Domino should be pushed as the beginning development platform.
Posted by Bruce Lill At 07:12:18 On 09/12/2010 | - Website - |
The only two concrete suggestions I see in this thread so far amount to giving away the server, and I'm not sure how that business strategy helps anyone. Laying seed, sure, but what's the upsell? Where does IBM make money on it?
How is IBM making money off Symphony? That product is free, right? I know it is mainly a repackaging of OpenOffice, but there is probably still some development time and effort involved there...
I happen to be working on a blog entry that ends up being related to this discussion. It has to do with Domino as a web app platform, and my thoughts on the server licensing.
But the short version is that I have been in discussions about building a web application (online product catalog, simple shopping cart, then a CRM system to handle the processing of orders between several separate geographic locations) which I could put together in Domino in a fairly short time.
A very good friend of mine was thinking about using MySQL, Joomla and Magento(?) to build the same thing, but that is a lot of downloads and installs. Why not use Domino? Maily because the customer would not pay thousands of dollars for the Domino server license. Because Domino Collaboration Express can not be used for web applications by unauthenticated users, if I understand the licensing correctly... So no public webserver.
Ed, if people did see how powerful Domino was at creating web applications, I think this would result in more sales.
When you buy a new car, I am sure you (like most of us) look at a few brand you know about and compare them. Unless someone points out a more "exotic" or unknown car, you would probably never think about buying it. If people don't know about Notes and Domino (and have a good experience with them), they will not suggest/recommend them if the discussion about a new mail/application platform comes up.
So I will say what I been saying for years: get Notes and Domino out in the schools, just like Microsoft and Google does today. Give not just the Designer but also the server away for free for hobbyists/students/"hackers". Show the power of the platform. When the students then start working, they will know Notes and what it can do, and will be selling it internally.
But this is nothing new... I have been saying it before, as have so many others...
Posted by Karl-Henry Martinsson At 07:34:06 On 09/12/2010 | - Website - |
Why Workflow doesn't make sense. Lotus Forms has great workflow capabilities. IBM has other great (though confusing) products such as File Net, Lombardi in this space.
Posted by Sagar At 07:47:33 On 09/12/2010 | - Website - |
Of course. You could also use FileNet instead of Lotus Quickr or SOA-based BPM instead of Lotus Workflow or Lotus Forms.
But there are differences in capabilities and scalabilities.
Suppose your customer needs a simple expense approval connected with a legacy accounting system. Do you prefer a SOA based BPM, Lotus Forms or Lotus Workflow?
From the other side, your banking customer needs a credit approval process with 30K documents per day. What do you prefer?
Lotus Workflow does not make sense under WAS and/or Portal. Because its power is simplicity and openness. If you fill it up with portlets, beans, complex RDBMS things, it will be useless.
Sorry if I could not express myself right.
Posted by Serdar Basegmez At 07:59:16 On 09/12/2010 | - Website - |
Lotus Forms is the best product ever created that small and medium-sized businesses could never afford.
Posted by Michael Sobczak At 08:02:18 On 09/12/2010 | - Website - |
So although I want to use Domino, Domino can do the job, does it well, the pricing rules it out. It is cheaper for me to have the application rewritten on a different platform than to buy the Domino licenses.
Posted by Carl Tyler At 08:02:42 On 09/12/2010 | - Website - |
Where on IBM's site can I find something like this? { Link }
Certainly not here? { Link } Sure, I could fill out this form to request a quote that will be responded to within 2 business days...{ Link }
If you want people to use (buy) your product, make it simple to do so.
Posted by David Jones At 08:15:42 On 09/12/2010 | - Website - |
While I hear that licensing can be a pain, from customers perspective it should work much better when you get in touch with a competent Business Partner (or IBM).
And Compared to this mess cloud licensing often is simplified (for LotusLive but also for other platforms).
Posted by Henning Heinz At 09:00:14 On 09/12/2010 | - Website - |
So instead I would urge everyone to just READ COMMENT @7 by Julian Buss if you read nothing else.
<sigh>
Posted by Kevin Pettitt At 11:10:57 On 09/12/2010 | - Website - |
We have over 50 developers in Copenhagen at the moment learning how to build applications. These people will return to many different countries to drive the renewal of Lotus Notes in their organisations. Demand is strong to repeat this XPages Bootcamp in other countries.
In Australia, we have many Notes sites planning their upgrades to 8.5.x because of the significant improvements in the mail clients and the potential for J2EE applications that can be built at lower cost with this great RAD tool. IBM is putting unprecedented resources into the Lotus brand products.
New opportunities are there for our taking.
Posted by Peter May At 11:51:55 On 09/12/2010 | - Website - |
I've said this before on LinkedIn but I'll say it again here. While I've read almost everyone of the posts here and I specifically agree with Tom. I will have to say as of late the bleeding has slowed at least as a consultant always looking for the next gig I am seeing fewer Notes to Exchange migrations but the bigger issue is what is IBM doing to get the young IT'ers interested in Notes. You can give away all the software you want but if nobody down loads it what good is the offer?
My kids only know that Notes is something that Dad does for a living and he really doesn't like Microsoft. Now I will sound like I am talking out of both sides of my mouth when I say this but if IBM is going to give away software then why not go into
the High School and Colleges and provide it for them there? You can host it for FREE (there goes that word again) for say two years then have them start paying after that.
Isn't that what all this buzz is about called the cloud and in particular LotusLive. The CIO's that I have encountered who have made the decision to move off of Notes to Exchange all have one thing in common. OUTLOOK! They have either used it in college which followed right into Work or used Outlook to read mail for free when they got their first computers.
Point is it is all they know and want and it is what they are going to get and they will sabotage Notes at every turn to make it happen. WHY? Simple for no other reason than familiarity. So if you start my kids and your kids and millions more kids off using Notes then
when they come to Corporate America maybe, just maybe their choice of an e-mail package might be Notes. Until you do this while the Microsoft / Outlook drones still exist we are
just going to see more people/companies move to Outlook/Exchange.
Posted by Tom Dobrucky At 13:02:06 On 09/12/2010 | - Website - |
A company which does not have competing products in the same space and which can focus 100% on the product, and which understands the product and its possibilities.
IBM has lost interest in Notes/Domino a long time ago and the only drivers are some enthusiasts, but not the company a such.
IBM, sell and save Notes/Domino NOW!
Posted by Jesper Kiaer At 14:21:27 On 09/12/2010 | - Website - |
Posted by Yuval At 15:08:58 On 09/12/2010 | - Website - |
There is also some mis-perception. Google isn't getting major traction in business with GAPE (their paid offering), they have like 1% market share vs. my 35%. There is more heat than light around "gone google" so I am not sure their free offering is really helping (and of course it isn't really free, since it is supported thru advertising).
For all those advocating giving things away free to educational institutions...you realize that even if we could get adoption, it would take 3-5 years for those students to be somewhere where that exposure might pay off in a corporate environment, right? It doesn't do what you want it to do.
The one thought in here that I really would like to go after more in 2011 is an ISV or solution server license. We actually have a model for this today called an Application Specific License, but it is not well-known or frequently used. The mechanics are hard because the ISV can't resell that one. There is also the ability to OEM Domino and I am sure my channel sales team would be happy to explore that with ISVs.
Posted by Ed Brill At 15:26:13 On 09/12/2010 | - Website - |
From my perspective (and yes this is conjecture in my part) IBM has 5 software groups and their long term strategy is, and has been for quite a while, to reduce this to 4.
Consider the last 10 years. Two Highways. Workplace. NSFDB2. The direction has been clear and I see XPages as just another step in that process albeit one that should last a little longer than some of the others. All that Java code will move nicely to Websphere, but that pesky NSF is still around. I wonder what state Notes/Domino would be in now if it's data-store had been SQL all along? How much easier would this have made the transition to Websphere?
I think that XPages will certainly be an incentive for some companies and individuals to finally move away from Notes/Domino. There's a not-insignificant investment to learn XPages and many (myself included) will question whether it is worth making that investment in a technology which does not seem to have as strong a future as say .NET or Java.
There is no doubt that Lotus Notes and Domino are in decline and that it is second class citizen with IBM's sales ranks. We can't really expect Ed Brill or anyone from IBM to confirm this.
In Australia, Notes/Domino companies are generally moving to other platforms or in support mode with no new major applications being developed. The tide does seem to have stemmed somewhat lately but then again there are less companies left to move away from Notes.
So what should IBM do? I think that they could release a new app server and development environment based on the current Note/Domino but which only supports newer technologies: XPages, Java and JavaScript. Remove all support for LotusScript, @Formula and most Notes design elements. The product would not be called Notes or Domino. Maybe call it something like XServer. The advantages I see to this are:
- This would give IBM to chance to gain mindshare in the app dev space without having to suffer from the Notes/Domino legacy.
- The cost to IBM to remove the functionality should be minimal. Just remove the design elements from the designer and tweak the server a little :)
- It would be an opportunity to introduce a relevant technology into educational environments.
- It provides a new opportunity to provide free software (trial, limited number of users or whatever).
- It provides a clear message to those who want to stay with XPages etc, and for those who don't.
My $0.04 worth.
Posted by Ethann Castell At 15:40:44 On 09/12/2010 | - Website - |
Posted by Marie Scott At 15:56:08 On 09/12/2010 | - Website - |
The "what's in it for IBM?" and "blowing apart the partner market" I find interesting. I hear examples of where IBM speakers mention that business partners aren't interested in $50K opportunities. Or that IBM services get very upset with partners that come in with a much lower cost solution in Domino when they are pitching a Websphere solution in the six figure range. The comments have existed for a long time that there is no incentive to sell/renew Domino as the commission/goals aren't based on it. Not being part of IBM, I don't know the reality, but that never seems to be refuted too strenously.
Likewise in the "how do we make money from it" comment. Free versions of DB2 have existed. How do you make money on that? You upsell to a more complete solution from the smaller version. You spend a lot on Symphony apparently. The payback on that is what? Offering a community server solution seems to fall in the same category. Either get your feet wet or run a very small public application on it. No cost. As people learn about the additional capabilities in the upgrades, they can consider it. If there are more Domino servers out there (community or otherwise), there are more opportunities to have partners sell support and other solutions. I don't see that anything is being "blown up" by that approach.
Back to the academic offerings at no cost... yes, it's seeding. Nobody would expect that to pay off immediately. Most of the arguments for that approach have been made with the "today's students are tomorrow's CEOs" comment. We know it's an investment. And it's worth making, as your competitors are doing the same.
Another "off my chest" statement, too... Whenever MS or Google wins a large account that everyone has heard of, it's media fodder and trumpted loudly. If/when Lotus wins something, it's "conservative and not ready to be a reference." While that may be the case, it doesn't help change the perception (that turns into reality) that losses continue to pile up. Those media articles are read, decision makers see another move from Lotus to something else, and they question their own environment. Trying to get excited about three or four companies that few have heard of is hard when you know that organizations with high visibility like GSA and others are moving. If you can't get your bigger wins to talk, you're losing a significant advantage from the win.
And for the comments about XPages training and such... Important, yes. But it's primarily directed towards those who already do Lotus development. When I get a copy of SD Times, I'm not seeing any visibility to things like XPages. How come I'm seeing all this excitement over NoSQL platforms like CouchDB, when Notes was the first NoSQL solution out there? Is Notes/Domino brought up when those types of articles are written? No, because no one outside our tech bubble knows about them.
There are no easy or quick solutions here. But what I fear is that there's a huge gulf between how IBM and Lotus sees the landscape, and how those of us on the front lines see it. Rather than see and make movement on both sides, with both being open to potentially radical new ways of doing business (as the old ways aren't working), we're all just content to sit back and claim that our view is correct and do nothing to stop what's happening.
Posted by Duffbert At 16:14:36 On 09/12/2010 | - Website - |
So IBM isn't in this for the long game then? Happy to trump that Lotus Notes hit 21 this week, but not actually in it to win it?
Posted by Ben Poole At 17:09:40 On 09/12/2010 | - Website - |
Posted by Ed Brill At 18:04:48 On 09/12/2010 | - Website - |
Posted by Ed Brill At 18:06:11 On 09/12/2010 | - Website - |
If it takes 5 years to pay off, then you'd better get cracking on it TOMORROW. Just get a parallel effort in place for what you're going to do until 2015 to cope with the day after tomorrow.
Posted by Nathan T. Freeman At 19:51:28 On 09/12/2010 | - Website - |
Great post and comments. As an Authorized Training Partner since R3, I would agree that XPages isn't dramatically changing the app dev landscape but it is exciting existing Lotus accounts and creating some opportunity for us partners.
50% of the Fortune 50 (or something like that I've heard) are Lotus accounts. Doesn't this say where IBM is spending most of their time? Is it really wrong? Client teams like SWAT are found in these large enterprise accounts dedicated to grow cross-portfolio, horizontally within the organization. It's the strategy that seems to be the somewhat standard for big blue.
I've asked a few decision-makers in Lotus about their 1 to 10 rating of their knowledge of the SMB market... any guesses as to what those might be? Remember what I said about the Fortune 50?
There's so much talk of IT silos and business user empowerment of software that has revolutionized our world compared to 10 years ago when Notes/Domino was the big elephant in the room. Something had to change, right? It seems relatively obvious at least from where I sit as a Partner.
XPages is refreshing and has created opportunity within existing accounts. It has increased the value prop for the app dev platform, absolutely. Thinking anything more than that, at least in my opinion, is quite a stretch. So enjoy the ride, learn lots, create apps, and get your users excited about Notes Domino. It’s fun to get our community excited about Lotus software however that is an easy conversation. The more challenging conversation is to spread the message outside the community for those who don’t believe or who are not interested. That is our challenge, I think. Just my 2 cents.
Posted by Carlos Casas At 20:07:22 On 09/12/2010 | - Website - |
So you do at least agree that it *should* be done?
@39 - "but that pesky NSF is still around. I wonder what state Notes/Domino would be in now if it's data-store had been SQL all along? How much easier would this have made the transition to Websphere?"
And therein is the magic, why N/D spread like wildfire and the crux of why Workplace AND db2nsf both failed: NSF.
NSF is awesome. Flexible, reliable, replicatable, great security model. What database can I buy from ANY vendor that has the capabilities and track record it has?
With SSDs it's coming into its prime, also. Most Domino setups are I/O limited, and with modern SSD setups it SMOKES, no matter what's going on. All of a sudden the stuff that NSF did slow is like lightning.
Keep pushing XPages. Keep separating out the thick client. Focus on NSF, the server, and the browser.
Hell, get it to where Websphere can run XPages, I don't care. Just make sure you've got a datastore that can actually DO what NSF does, because an SQL db won't.
Posted by Erik Brooks At 20:21:52 On 09/12/2010 | - Website - |
I'll offer one simple solution. Put apps back into the marketing for LL and LotusKnows. I am always staggered that it was obviously left out and is one of the core strengths of the product.
I and others have sensed its omission as a betrayal to the developer who eagerly offered their time and energy back in 2008 when you ran an ideajam for this campaign. With some therapy and voodoo dolls I getting over it.
But can you please explain why xpages and the marketing material are mutually exclusive in terms of presenting the value propositions to prospects. Microsoft are pulverising the install base by spruiking sharepoint as a LN replacement. Even the competition has acknowledged the need to migrate apps, but IBM has totally ignored xpages in the marketing to combat the perception of LN as an antiquated development environment.
Posted by Giulio At 20:45:47 On 09/12/2010 | - Website - |
<i>@38 "The one thought in here that I really would like to go after more in 2011 is an ISV or solution server license. We actually have a model for this today called an Application Specific License, but it is not well-known or frequently used. The mechanics are hard because the ISV can't resell that one. There is also the ability to OEM Domino and I am sure my channel sales team would be happy to explore that with ISVs."</i>
The other big issue is applications and licenses. In a SAAS world we are entering now, the biggest effort should be made from IBM in order to make as public as possible the different licencing models we as BP can use to deliver cloud-enabled solutions.
The final customer in a SAAS solution doesn't care if it's Domino, PHP, Ruby based. The price is the determining factor to take the decission. So, the key point is the possibility to provide solutions with Lotus Domino as the backend at affordable prices.
Posted by Miguel Calvo At 23:58:23 On 09/12/2010 | - Website - |
You know what they say about "doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results"? I think that the ones making suggestions in this thread, and all who made similar suggestion in the past, are sincerely looking for some 'different' things to try!!
And if IBM does try a new initiative I strongly urge you to please keep it Simple to understand for both BPs and customers.
Posted by Richard Hogan At 02:31:16 On 10/12/2010 | - Website - |
DOMINO'S COMPETITIVE EDGE IS APPS & RAD !!!
(sorry about the yelling)
... and the licensing costs for Domino Utility server are too huge a barrier for SMBs.
I especially like @39 Ethann's idea of packaging it separately as an XServer. Market it as a RAD IDE & server for HTML5 apps that can be used on multiple devices.
You've already got the product:
- just change the product name/branding,
- and massively advertise/promote it to young developers
- then the apps they create will become the platform's advertising
- at that point, figure out how to charge/make more profit
Or IBM can choose to watch existing market share atrophy (capturing every last penny until the well runs dry) and lose the opportunity to create the next generation of yellow bleeders. Hmmm, I like that phrase: "THE NEXT GENERATION OF YELLOW BLEEDERS."
Posted by Don Mottolo At 06:44:08 On 10/12/2010 | - Website - |
@Ed,
Providing free academic license is a long term play. As Nathan pointed out IBM better start now. If IBM started 5 years ago when they were pushing Workplace instead, then many of the college graduates would have been exposed and using Domino. Therefore, unless IBM does not view Notes/Domino as a long term play then get started! Offer it through LotusLive if you need to.
As I have said over and over, the small business market is critical to the success of any solution that we are talking about here. Have a community edition and good apps is critical to gaining mind share and long term wise revenue for not only IBM but business partners. I do not know how many of the business partners focus on the very small and small business, but I see having a community edition of Domino as a revenue generator not only for me as a business partner, ISV, but also IBM. Having Domino already in company and showing what it can do allows us to upsell other IBM solutions.
I see nothing wrong with the NSF format with the exception of the stupid 16K limitation and I would keep Lotusscript.
The Notes/Domino brand is totally tainted and I agree with Ethann that it needs to be re-branded with a new name. The re-branded name could be used as the name of the community-edition server. Maybe xDomino? The opportunity to make this happen is getting smaller and smaller. Many of the features that makes Domino like replication, off-line access, and NON-SQL database are beginning to be eclipse by solutions like CouchDB switch are free.
I love Domino and I hope it does turn around, but I need to make money and if I do not see IBM invest not only in the technology but having a clear focus with a coherent marketing and strategy for Domino especially to win NEW accounts then I question the future and will move on.
Posted by Richard Moy At 07:39:21 On 10/12/2010 | - Website - |
So working it in parallel with other activities is always an option, but if it takes energy away from things that could maximize impact today, then it's not necessarily worth the parallel processing.
Posted by Ed Brill At 08:46:22 On 10/12/2010 | - Website - |
"This is why Google and MS can afford to give away their cloud offerings in this space . . . ."
Would this same reason not also enable IBM to give away their cloud offerings in this space?
Also, I'd respectfully make the point that Notes/Domino does more than just email (this in the context of the academic institutions!).
Posted by Richard Hogan At 09:14:09 On 10/12/2010 | - Website - |
I'm still hearing "if we don't win (make money) today, then it's not worth considering." And if you wonder why we have no "new ideas", perhaps it's because all the "old ideas" have been ignored and we're tired of trying to beat our heads against the wall.
Posted by Duffbert At 09:27:47 On 10/12/2010 | - Website - |
We changed the licensing for Notes/Domino to give away Designer and simplify what you buy for everyone else.
We introduced LotusLive Notes and made our cloud offering technically superior to the competition.
We launched LotusKnows in mid-2009 and have rolled out advertising in multiple countries worldwide.
We committed to OpenNTF and have contributed hundreds of projects.
We partnered with Amazon and IBM Cloud to offer free developer/test images of Domino in the cloud (and you can even get the Amazon version completely free for a year).
We rebuilt catalog.lotus.com and are continuing efforts to expose Notes customers directly to ISV applications.
And this is just a few off the top of my head. Is it working? Well, we maintained our market share vs. a year ago in IDC's report in July 2010. You post new Notes jobs every single week in your Twitter stream. We're winning deals all over the world.
So just because the same five ideas that have been suggested before didn't actually become reality -- usually for very good reasons -- doesn't mean nothing is being done and nothing is working.
And for the education market specifically, again, Google and MS both have advertiser-supported products (even if you can turn the ads off in Gmail, driving traffic to google.com or live.com/bing.com is making money for those players) and IBM does not. There is a reason that this model works for them and not for us.
Posted by Ed Brill At 10:07:37 On 10/12/2010 | - Website - |
Ed, why was the Total Campus Option discontinued? Think about the impact it has now since we all have mentioned that it is a long term investment. The face of consumers whether is retail or business is changing. IBM talks about social computing always in the content of enterprise, but with the much more technology savvy individuals that are growing up you need to provide continuous mind share of your products and services throughout an individuals education lifecycle which start from when they are born until they die.
Posted by Richard Moy At 10:16:55 On 10/12/2010 | - Website - |
I second that. If I am a large or medium organization with 100+ developer working on various technologies in various departments/divisions then why should I make investment on xpages. I would rather train my developers in Java or .Net so that they can be shared across multiple technologies and divisions.
Posted by Sagar At 10:48:22 On 10/12/2010 | - Website - |
Posted by Rob McDonagh At 11:03:40 On 10/12/2010 | - Website - |
Making LL technically superior will never sell it. Nor will Lotus Knows.
@48 said it best, and I did at LoLA, without apps in Lotuslive it has no benefit to entice existing shops. The UPS app is never going to do that.
Posted by Keith Brooks At 11:28:49 On 10/12/2010 | - Website - |
@56 Ed, about the only reason a CIO would make that decision would be if they saw impressive apps that are possible to create using this technology. Unfortunately, the corporate developers are not very likely to create eye-popping apps/sites - certainly, not next to the young entrepreneur types.
That's why I like Ethann's idea of rebranding the Domino web server as an Xserver, then give it away free to developers and SMBs.
It's a bottom-up approach, which as you know is the way most of the new Web 2.0 stuff has been generated. Give the young innovators a powerful IDE and server platform to build their apps on, with one string attached: request that they submit the URLs of any publicly available apps/sites that they create. Then you use that list of XServer apps/sites for publicity, buzz, success stories, etc.
College age/young adult developers that recognize the power of XPages, and have free or cheap access to the server to be able to present their apps to the world, could have success stories out in matter of months.
(The 3 to 5 year assumption is based on the premise that the student gets exposed to the tool in college, graduates from college, gets a job in a corporation, and rises high enough to influence corporate buying decisions)
Start holding seminars at MIT, and all the leading edge universities that are incubators of new businesses.
Posted by Don Mottolo At 11:36:48 On 10/12/2010 | - Website - |
{ Link }
Man, it makes me weep to read that post. If IBM had moved on it then, our whole world would be a different place by now.
By the way, the student I was referring in that post from almost 11 years ago? Erik Brooks.
Education. It works, bitches.
Posted by Nathan T. Freeman At 11:36:51 On 10/12/2010 | - Website - |
@59 you are right, TCO had a per-user cost, it wasn't completely free. Academic Initiative is free, but not usable in production. So we haven't ever had a completely free academic offering. And with Google and MS already there and able to subsidize, and more importantly the unlikely notion that students would use Notes for email when today they are barely interested in their campus email systems, the hill to climb is high.
Posted by Ed Brill At 11:38:20 On 10/12/2010 | - Website - |
Posted by Duffbert At 11:46:34 On 10/12/2010 | - Website - |
Agreed 100%. IBM views them as future employees. Google and MS view them as future customers.
Posted by Nathan T. Freeman At 11:47:48 On 10/12/2010 | - Website - |
Well said Nathan. IBM mind share with the young folks which I hate to said it is minimal. This is from experience of having a room of teenagers and twenty something at my house and asking them. They are constantly connected by Google, Facebook and Twitter. Microsoft is always there with Office, Windows, Hotmail, and Windows Live. They are all grabbing mind share and future IBM customers.
Posted by Richard Moy At 12:29:05 On 10/12/2010 | - Website - |
Posted by Ed Brill At 13:11:20 On 10/12/2010 | - Website - |
That seems to say to me that you think that the audience of cloud email for use by students isn't important as they're barely interested, so why bother with trying to keep/capture the academic model. Therefore, Lotus won't attempt to compete with Google/IBM, and the move of universities from Lotus to either Google or MS hosted environments will not be challenged.
Posted by Duffbert At 15:41:42 On 10/12/2010 | - Website - |
Otherwise IBM would be in need to buy a company like Yahoo to offer the same range as Microsoft and Google with Live/GMail and implement an ad supported revenue model and becoming big in consumer. Anyone expect Steve Mills to ever support this?
If I remember correct they just recently agreed to stop hosting OVI mail for Nokia with 80M. mailboxes (which they got through the Outpost acquisition).
And before buying an overrated company like Yahoo I would much have preferred IBM buying Sun. That would have had massive influence in the academic sector as Java still is a big player there and MySQL would have been a big bonus too.
Companies that punish its users with super old Notes mail templates and GUI design from the 90ies maybe do much more damage to Notes and Domino than the lack of free academic cloud mail does. This produces thousands if not millions of people who dislike Notes.
Posted by Henning Heinz At 04:06:25 On 11/12/2010 | - Website - |
IBM views them as future employees. Google and MS view them as future customers.
God bless Lotus Notes
Posted by Palmi At 06:03:31 On 11/12/2010 | - Website - |
IBM Lotus had a real opportunity to capitalize on the Learning market with LearningSpace by bringing an academic-ready, compliance-ready, learning system based in Domino and exposing younger folks to the Domino platform. They left that segment when they moved the application to Portal and now have since sent it off to Saba for our Learning clients to now struggle through. Just another example that IBM is not in the applications business.
Look around at the user groups or Lotusphere's, etc. How many people do you see under 30? Hell, under 40? Very little. Maybe it's the same for M$ and Google? I don't know.
We have a few clients that have double, even tripled their licensing due to acquisitions. It counts as net new licenses but it's growth within the same account and usually a large account (at least for us).
I don't mean to generalize here, just sharing my own experience from a long-time Lotus BP.
Posted by Carlos Casas At 06:07:28 On 11/12/2010 | - Website - |
A couple of years ago I brought in a new person who was in their 20's to be involved in Notes/Domino. He was amazed what Notes/Domino could do. When he started his own company doing applications and web sites, he tried over and over to get Domino into the organization that he worked with which were non-for-profits.
Each time he tried to get an answers about a non-for-profit licensing he ran into a brick wall. Though all the organizations were impressed with what Domino could do, the cost compared with what Microsoft was offering for non-for-profit and open source technologies was so great that Domino was out of the picture.
Eventually, this person who was a great advocate of Domino became so frustrated, that he abandoned Domino and now pushes Drupal and Wordpress. And now he is an anti-Domino person.
I also just heard from another former employee that they have a new client that has over 2000 Notes users running many application is planning to move all of it to LAMP and Joomla. It pains me to hear this. He is also now a anti-Domino person.
Something has to change and I think a Community Edition is only just a start. So if IBM thinks the current model is working, then I better start looking at doing other things.
IBM constantly states the number of seats that currently using Notes. The question that I would like to know is which they will not provide is how many new companies are using Domino in each of the markets: small businesses, mid-size, and enterprise.
Posted by Richard Moy At 07:11:27 On 11/12/2010 | - Website - |
Posted by Henning Heinz At 13:30:19 On 11/12/2010 | - Website - |
Have you every heard of the phrase, "Don't judge a book by its cover" Well people do and if IBM is successful in getting new customers and growing you need to advertise that and show it. If not, Microsoft and Google will take advantage and attack and attack. That is exactly what they have been doing for many years now. Eventually, people believe regardless of whether it is a true reflection or not.
Posted by Richard Moy At 19:46:44 On 11/12/2010 | - Website - |
I think we should see it as it is. We are working with a niche product. Lotus Notes isn't a big player anymore. Many people out there ,and I have spoken to quite a few at enterpreneur meetings in the last few month, have never seen Notes. Some don't even know that it exists. Some have seen it years ago, but NOBODY is using it.
I think Ed's comment about what we think what IBM should do almost cynical.
Haven't we told you that for the last 5 years? (need my dried green frog pills now).
Posted by Christian Tillmanns At 01:15:02 On 12/12/2010 | - Website - |
I am either not impressed of people who now hate Lotus Notes. It is quite easy to fail and then starting to hate a product as described in @71.
Drupal and Joomla are Open Source. They neither generate 80% margins nor can they pay xxx full time software developers. It is a business model that is completely different from Notes and Domino. IBM Websphere probably makes more money than the whole Red Hat company (who owns JBoss).
In theory IBM could take XPages, bundle it with Websphere Community Edition and Apache Hadoop (the prefered NoSQL datastore outside of Notes and Domino) and/or DB2 Express C and there you have a free web application server. And still I would think some would cry foul.
Posted by Henning Heinz At 03:27:29 On 12/12/2010 | - Website - |
I don't think giving free mail accounts will work as Ed told. They all have e-mail accounts before becoming university student...
Let me clarify what supporting academics means:
In my country, Microsoft is funding some activities. For example, I recently listened to some MS partner who told me 'MS requested to recruit a newly graduated guy. They have paid his 3-months wage. They told me that if I am not happy with him, I could fire after three months. I just gave a shot and the guy did it.'
Another guy with an important knowledge about specific MS product, got paid for giving courses (I am ready to do it for free
Let's categorize activities that can be useful for long-term or short-term Lotus acknowledgement among graduate students... Some of them are in progress, some not.
1. Learning Lotus Software technologies.
- Fund academic institutions to include these tech's in curriculum.
- Reach academic staff to align Lotus in students' thesis projects (financial support, mentoring, real business cases, etc.)
- Project competitions with grand award
- Fund academic institutions to establish micro-labs for post-grad studies (for topics like Social networks, advanced collaborations, etc.)
2. Expose Lotus products with future prospect customers
- Fund using Lotus products inside universities (without buying). e.g. Lotus Connections to build a university community, Lotus Sametime for multi-campus universities, Lotus Forms for student affairs, etc. (Implementation may be funded)
3.Transforming graduates to technical specialists
- Low-priced technical trainings and certification for senior students,
- Fund first job in partner organizations or customer projects
- Free tickets to local IBM technical events (workshops, bootcamps, etc.)
These are just samples and more may be generated. Many of them are not so long-term issues. It's december and if you start funding senior student activities just tomorrow, results will be appeared after Q2 in countries like Turkey where Lotus professionals are over-waged.
Lotus User Groups may be involved into these projects. We as Turkish LUG established a team to support academic initiative of local IBM and ready to involve...
Posted by Serdar Basegmez At 07:15:34 On 12/12/2010 | - Website - |
We have a number of prospects ready to jump on the collaboration bandwagon from IBM. However, they are smaller clients struggling with making investments in this economy. It's my job as a Partner to help them see the value of collaborative software.
Posted by Carlos Casas At 08:00:59 On 12/12/2010 | - Website - |
After reading them, I'm thinking wouldn't it be great if we could harness this kind of attention, time and energy for decent XPages documentation :).
Posted by Brian Benz At 20:11:22 On 12/12/2010 | - Website - |
Not to mention the quality of development environment. One can question IBM testing process. I am more or less used to unstable software - its a part of our job to deal with it, but after few month of work with it I wonder why it is not named Lotus Domino 8.5 (Release 8.5.2) BETA.
I wonder if somebody knows how many developers actually work in Lotus Development Team? Becasue I am afraid that history reapeats itself and IBM tries to pull off what they did with formula engine in version 6 but this time the one man army is overhelmed by complexity of the environment.
Posted by Verne At 01:34:06 On 13/12/2010 | - Website - |
Bby the way there is a book coming about XPages early next year.
Posted by Henning Heinz At 02:10:02 On 13/12/2010 | - Website - |
Fortunately in real live developers aren't those who can make any decisions so managers choose for them basing their decision on pure marketing (which for them is sufficient reason because they don't have to use the development environment).
One can argue that this is not important because most of the users are working only on client which is far more stable. I can only say that without good and stable development environment there will be no good developers doing applications and thus Xpages will end just like most applications made in classic notes - quick RAD-type development but virtually no quality which creates simple association in clients minds - Lotus = low quality.
Of course my arguments are a bit one sided - You must remember that I am only a developer. But if I eventually will become decision maker there is a low chance that I will choose this environment (at least in state as it is now). I hope I didn't take this far off the main topic. But I feel that this is somehow connected with the general problem that we all are facing: Will Lotus survive?
Posted by Verne At 04:35:16 On 13/12/2010 | - Website - |
There are a lot of companies out there who may have overslept the development outside their own Notes only world. They realize that there is no progress in the UI experience of their home cooked applications since years. Other companies are working on real intranet solutions since years. Lego-like brick systems as SharePoint 2010 are grown-up out of childhood and now show an impressive industry wide support. What to do with all those Notes apps still alive? Start to integrate them with the help of XPages inside SharePoint! Time will tell if they will survive with this new coating or will completly migrate to a native SharePoint app after some time. XPages may be Notes migrator's best friend?
Posted by Peter Meuser At 08:44:03 On 13/12/2010 | - Website - |
Keith about #60 and apps: There's an SDK. LotusLive PM and DM are willing to help with any ideas you or anyone has about apps. Yeah there's UPS but others like Silanis are building serious apps for LotusLive. Check out the developer program, and the Project Vulcan program in the near future.
@Tom, I tend to agree and while I know XPages pretty well, don't see it as a silver bullet. I think that - and a perception of lack of interest in going further - are what you were trying to get across. Right? If someone were to say "Project Vulcan will change your mind about Lotus" would you believe it, or say you'll believe it when you see it?
Fascinating conversation. Parting thought. I think TCO is going the way of the dinosaur in the IT-comparison-matrix world. IBM needs to stop referring to it and invent your own measure and feed it to Gartner so they can do a new fancy magic quadrant thingy. My gift: TVO: Total Value to an Organization. Think on that a bit...
-Rob
Posted by Rob Novak At 15:19:27 On 13/12/2010 | - Website - |
Posted by Duffbert At 15:25:17 On 13/12/2010 | - Website - |
As always I agree that IBM should do more efforts in positioning and selling Notes in comparison to websphere.
Posted by Patrick Kwinten At 03:15:15 On 14/12/2010 | - Website - |
Years ago, we watched it and thought, no big deal. Now, we are concerned with the frequency that it happens. As other have said, it starts with Mail but the applications are soon to follow.
And I don't see any end in sight.
Posted by Denny Russell At 06:29:43 On 14/12/2010 | - Website - |
{ Link }
HTH.
Posted by Gregg Eldred At 09:49:28 On 14/12/2010 | - Website - |
There are still technical areas to improve. Documentation has been mentioned and let me put it in terms a programmer can understand: javadoc != documentation; javadoc == API basics. It is the examples for Lotusscript and @Formulas that allow developers to use Domino, and this is what we need. XPiNC performance also needs improving, as well as integration with the rest of the Eclipse platform that Notes is contained in when using XPiNC. Without those using XPages offline is an inconvenience and a poor relation of the browser experience.
LotusLive Notes seems to offer additional opportunities. Yes a customer will need to buy additional servers and need admin knowledge, but presumably they don't need additional licences, so the TCO of developing applications on Domino is lowered. But it's too early in the life of LotusLive to see what impact that's having on application development.
Free open source app dev alternatives were mentioned in the comments. Ed Brill mentioned IBM's efforts on the platform that are subsidised by server sales. But that's not just on XPages or Domino itself. How many people in our community - not to mention in the wider community - know IBM have been involved in developing Dojo? How many people are aware of the amount of effort involved? I found by accident that the Legend for the charts widgets was developed by an IBMer. And I'm sure they're also feeding back into development of the CKEditor too. How many are aware of thise part of the IBM website { Link } Can IBM and the community do more to promote that beyond the IBM website?
Posted by Paul Withers At 03:57:05 On 15/12/2010 | - Website - |
I think as a conclusion IBM MUST do more marketing ... it didn´t help if you build nice products, you NEED to bring them into the brain. University are a great place to show what Quickr, Sametime, Domino and other products can do. There are young people who didn´t have seen "e.g. the old Lotus Notes". So they are open for new stuff... and I´m sure they will remember the products if they can do some discussions what to buy... BUT at the moment ... they often know every M$ Product.
Posted by Bernd Webster At 00:40:27 On 18/12/2010 | - Website - |
I am beginning to see Apps written in Java on OpenNTF, a wonderful community by the way, might be good to pay them a visit. The more Apps are written in Java as opposed to SSJS, the better.
The best lesson I have learned from a consultant, a genius I might add, is that one must separate code from UIs, that to steer away from built-in 'dragging and dropping' options to build Apps is a better developement regimen, easier to comprehend what is going on under the hood, makes us better developers. I am an Educator, not for profit, I think I am going to play it safe and do as geniuses have done, build it from scratch!
Let me end as I started, Xpages rules... plug in your JavaBeans and Backing Beans, talk to it and see it fly, learn to like it, sure it has some bugs (but all software contains bugs here and there)...
Would have been nice if the Domino Designer environement itself were J2EE-enabled, be able to connect a WebSphere Server or others, but that's my wishful thinking, it is what it is
Posted by Köll S Cherizard At 01:05:46 On 03/03/2012 | - Website - |
but look it, here they all are... Can someone delete the first two please?
Posted by Köll Cherizard At 14:08:05 On 03/03/2012 | - Website - |