Duffbert's Random Musings

1 - I'm glad Ed explained it first, because he said it better than I could.

2 - There are two flaws in your posting, Paul.
1) You are talking about Workplace Collaboration Services, a product. IBM Workplace is a brand family, including Notes/Domino. And Notes/Domino customers are explicitly NOT being migrated to Workplace Collaboration Services. They can choose to deploy it for its capabilities, but NO migration is required. So there's no intent for customers to "move to Workplace" other than staying on the Notes/Domino products they use today.

In the Notes "Hannover" release and Domino Next, more of the Workplace-based capabilities will be integrated into those Notes/Domino releases. But it is not a migration -- it is an upgrade with more capabilities, like any other upgrade.

2) I have no idea what "downright ugly with Exchange 12" means in this context.

3 - My colleague Roberto Boccadoro has picked up the gauntlet on the Workplace brand family and blogged at http://www.rhs.com/web/blog/thenewblack.nsf/d6plinks/SMOK-6MHCHS

Paul - Yes, admin of Domino is easier than both Exchange and Workplace Collaboration Services. No question about it. But WCS is essentially a 1.x release right now -- Notes 1.x wasn't exactly a piece of cake, either (ok, ok, I can't say that with authority, I started with version 2.1).

Still no comment from anyone on the other side of this debate about the Radicati "study" being cited. Glad that y'all are willing to be associated with marketing that takes this approach.

4 - Bob: It was muddled. It hasn't been for more than a year. IBM could take out full page ads in every paper in the country, and some of you folks will keep on repeating that canard. And yep... some people will keep believing you, too, but anyone who has paid any attention to IBM at all during this past year has heard the message properly by now. There's no problem with the current message. There's a problem with clearing the muddle of the old message out of the air.

If you want to talk about muddled, however, let's talk about the Microsoft collaboration platform or Microsoft collaboration strategy. Fair is fair, after all. Let's talk about the forks in the Microsoft road, the everything-but-the-kitchen-sink assortment of products, the feature overlap, etc. And let's also talk about the conspicuous absence of some of Microsoft's most cutting-edge technologies (e.g., tablet and OneNote).

5 - Which brings us back to the original point... The vast majority of Notes/Domino sites would have no reason to "move" to WCS. The Notes/Domino platform and WCS are entirely different platforms targeted at different needs. Therefore, saying that Notes/Domino customers are at a "fork in the road" is wrong. There is no fork, as Notes/Domino does not turn into WCS.

So... compare Exchange to WCS all you want. It's gotta be easier than getting trounced in the Notes/Domino "collaborative platform" comparisons... :)

6 - Workplace is absolutely a migration from Lotus Notes/Domino. If you've spent even a few minutes with the Workplace server products, you know that installing and administering them is about 10**6 times more complicated than administering a Domino server. Don't discount the degree of admin difficulty as a factor in whether organizations choose to move to Workplace or not. Compared to Notes, GroupWise, or Exchange 2003, Workplace install & admin isn't a pretty story, and it's going to get downright ugly with Exchange 12.

7 - OK, then let me revise & extend my remarks:

1. "s/Workplace/WCS/g".

2. Notes/Domino customers who choose to move to WCS are in for an ugly experience. Although you're too polite to say it in public, we both know that the Domino admin experience is much smoother than it is for WCS.

3. Exchange 12's admin tools are a major improvement over Exchange 2003's-- particularly in the scripting / CLI department. Given that E2K3 is already much, much easier to set up and run than WCS, E12 is going to make the gap much bigger.

8 - Paul: If WCS is "absolutely a migration", where are the migration tools? Please point me to a tool for Notes to WCS migration, or even a single web page, anywhere... IBM or 3rd party... that covers migrating Notes and Domino collaborative applications to WCS. There are tools for migrating from Notes mail to HotMailLite... errr, I mean IBM Workplace Messaging... but nothing that I know of for migrating to WCS.

9 - As Carl Tyler points out in the comments on Ed Brill's blog, the notion that IBM Workplace is a brand and product family that includes Notes/Domino is a muddled message. If Domino is a collaboration product and is part of the IBM Workplace "family" then why isn't it part of a product called Workplace Collaboration Services that's part of that family? If Domino is not part of WCS then IBM has two products that do similar things and are both part of "IBM Workplace". If you have to keep explaining this to customers it's a problem with the message. Quoting Ed Brill: "certainly it is in Microsoft's interest to continue to create or amplify that confusion."

10 - Richard: I've been on both sides of this particular street. I think IBM has provided some clarity recently on the client story with Hannover but I still think the server story is muddled. That's my personal opinion.