InfoWorld: Microsoft aims to poach IBM Lotus partners

July 9 2005

Isn't this the same tired pitch that Microsoft has been using since their last partner conference?

Microsoft executive said the vendor sees an opportunity to lure partners away from IBM to Microsoft's collaboration software because of the technology migration from the Lotus/Domino platform to Workplace, IBM's next-generation collaboration suite. "It's a great time to talk to [Lotus partners], given the transition," said Chris Capossela, corporate vice president of Microsoft's Information Worker Product Management Group.
or as quoted in The Register:
"We are hearing that with Workplace technology there has been a decent amount of concern from Lotus Notes customers about what the future holds for them," Microsoft corporate vice president for the information worker product management group Chris Capossela told The Register on Friday.
This seems to be the classic Microsoft play of "say it enough times and it must be true".  The announcements this year of double-digit consecutive growth for Notes/Domino, the public unveiling of the next version of Notes, and the imminent ship of Notes/Domino 7 seem to be the facts to get in the way of Microsoft's FUD play.  

Thankfully, from what I hear out of Minneapolis, and what we see in the InfoWorld article, there are partners that are smarter than the FUD:
"Why would I go to Microsoft if the transition to Workplace is difficult?" said Jim Murphy, an IBM certified solution advisor for Principle Software, an IBM business partner in Waltham, Massachusetts. "IBM has done more to invest and enhance [partner] relationships [than Microsoft]. As far as making a move strictly because of technology, we've seen a tremendous embracing of Workplace among our customers." ...

Furthermore, another partner said that Microsoft is creating a misconception by claiming there is a significant hurdle to cross when migrating from Notes/Domino to Workplace.

"There is no transition required," said Andrew Pollack, founder and president of Northern Collaborative Technologies
Yet I hear that the presentations in Minneapolis featured an even stronger dose of FUD, saying that Lotus customers will be required to buy DB2 and WebSphere and and and, just to keep going.  This is simply not true.

There are still Lotus customers looking for more detail on the roadmap for Lotus Notes and how it comes together as part of the IBM Workplace family.  I continue to do meetings, press interviews, and event speeches on this topic.  Yet I would assume that most of these customers are smart enough to get their information about the future of Lotus from IBM itself, not from the FUD...right?

Link: InfoWorld: Microsoft aims to poach IBM Lotus partners >
Link: The Register: Look out IBM, here comes Microsoft's OzFest >

Ed Brill Highland Park, IL USA Category:  Microsoft  Add/View Comments [16]

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  1. 1  Randall Shimizu  | 7/10/2005 4:21:09 AM

    Microsoft's FUD tactics is nothing new...........

    Microsoft's attempt to raise uncertainity about Notes is not new. But there is still a lack of clarity about Lotus Workplace and it's product lines. Until the message becomes easy to understand Microsoft will have a opportunity to exploit this.

    A few weeks ago I recieved a email telling me the Workplace Live presentations were available. I went to the US IBM Workplace site and the presentations were not there. A Lotus BP rep told me that IBM legal prevented the posting of the presentations. Today I tried doing a search and the presentations showed up on IBM's UK site ({ Link } )

  1. 2  Ed Brill www.edbrill.com | 7/10/2005 8:04:44 AM

    @1 - First, there no longer is a product line called "Lotus Workplace". { Link }

    Second, what exactly is still unclear? Workplace server 2.5 products are shipping. Workpace Designer is in public beta. Notes/Domino 7 are nearly in final beta and "Hannover" has been announced.

  1. 3  Ray Davies http://www.rayd.co.uk | 7/10/2005 12:29:52 PM

    Hi Ed,

    I have been speaking to Microsoft about product co-existence for about three months now and the guys, Paul McAdam and Mike Pryke-Smith, in Reading has been phenomenal. We are actively working on the Exchange connector, DAMO and Sharepoint surfacing of some of the Domino data. I have had many conversations with them about HIS and what they are doing with zSeries and iSeries and I am very excited about the possibility when using Domino 7 to save directly to DB2 and then surfacing some of that data using Visual Studio controls and Web Services.

    My gut feeling is that they are completely unaware of what Workplace is about and I am not. I am on the beta program with Paul Hay and the SWIT team and I am extremely excited with what I see and the possibilities out there. I have just left the main auditorium listening to Alison Watson and Steve Balmer and there was a lot of energy but VERY little substance. Office 12 and product A - 2006 and Product B - 2006 and the next version of this and that and blah blah blah. Vapourware hyped up to the max.

    The most interesting speakers were Orlando Ayala and Martin Taylor. I have a lot of respect for Martin as he is very focused and determined but in my humble opinion misguided. I have sent him a note to discuss heterogeneous networks at martinta@microsoft.com but I am still waiting for the answer!

    While it is true that Microsoft is ubiquitous on the desktop they are not pervasive and in my opinion do not innovate but strangle, just take a look at current movies to see what technologies should look like and see if you would ever see Outlook on the desktop or Mobile windows 5 in a Tom Cruise movie! The point is that there is opportunity to surface rich Domino, Websphere, DB2, Oracle data on the Microsoft desktop and it is not a bad environment to work in. However, it is not the only environment and the best solution for all is in fact using the best product for the job at hand and that certainly is not always Microsoft.

    I asked the following question in the QA section of Martin and Orlando's presentation and they were really annoyed. See if you can figure why that is? :-)

    "In this Microsoft world you are describing there seems no place for other technologies such as SAP, Siebel, Domino, Websphere, DB2 apart from accessing what you term legacy data. It almost seems that you are evangelising an all or nothing approach to partners. Is that necessarily a good thing in a heterogeneous world?"

    Hmm, the answer was more of a rebuke than clarification.

    You know, if only you can convince your masters to do the small changes we ask for such as the ability to swap F5 and F9 Microsoft will have very little ammo. Steve said that the conference name is Velocity, I.E. make everything go faster, get products to market quicker, innovate quicker etc etc. Lotus Notes and all the other IBM products are already great. However, if you were to go through the partner forum and implement the top ten wishes Microsoft will be in real trouble finding sufficient FUD on Lotus Notes.

    I have done a lot of work offline and online on my Lotus Notes desktop in this conference and there is NOTHING my IBM technology can not match or better looking at the Microsoft offerings. My experience is a far richer and more satisfying experience even with the unique and quirky characteristics associated with Lotus Notes.

    In closing I would like to unfairly tell you off though. When Daniel *&(*^% Lyons published his utter rubbish we in the community immediately responded. So much so that Bruce went offline for a bit. We TOLD you this would have ramifications and I have seen this at the Velocity conference and it has severely impacted Lotus Notes, albeit in the eyes of the gullible MS partners, but that Monty Python quote has been on EVERY damn presentation in this conference. Can we publish our own derogative personal opinion as well or is it just too difficult to go down that many levels?

    Lotus Notes is dead, long live Lotus Notes. :-)

  1. 4  Declan Lynch www.qtzar.com | 7/10/2005 3:21:42 PM

    Some more MS FUD. { Link }

  1. 5  Ed Brill www.edbrill.com | 7/10/2005 3:43:05 PM

    @4: Balmer: "Microsoft's high-octane chief executive continued: "We have Lotus Notes opportunities coming out the yin-yang. I've never seen [such] a customer base waiting to be plucked.""

    How do y'all feel about being pluckable???? I truly wonder how they get away with this kind of raw smack talk, as if a customer was a piece of meat in the refrigerated section of the supermarket.

    @3 Ray - thank you very much for this perspective. Very insightful. So you are saying that MS is quoting that Forbes article in their presentations? Fine. I still would prefer to keep to the "if you don't have anything nice to say" approach about that article, for reasons best left offline.

  1. 6  Randall Shimizu  | 7/10/2005 11:33:56 PM

    I think the message for Notes is fairly clear. But the Workplace message still needs work.

    For example the name Workplace Services Express is not descriptive enough. Why not name the product "Workplace Portal Express".

    There has also been quite a bit of confusion over the rich client. IBM shoud have published a roadmap for the rich client..

  1. 7  Nathan T. Freeman  | 7/11/2005 3:18:01 AM

    @4) The nice thing is that Balmer keeps lumping IBM/Notes in with Linux. With comparisons like that, he's just lining up forces against MS from the start.

  1. 8  Ben Rose http://www.jaffacake.net | 7/11/2005 4:18:22 AM

    I wrote my own take { Link } on the Register article before I read this thread.

    As I closed my article....

    As far as I'm concerned, this is another one of those MS press releases that if summarised means..."please buy our new product because Ray Ozzie works for us now". What they don't realise is that Notes/Domino R6 was the most successful Lotus release ever (in terms of sales numbers and speed of migration) yet Ray planned his departure during the final development of R5. Thanks for a great product Ray but we're getting on just fine without you.

  1. 9  Randall Shimizu  | 7/11/2005 5:10:59 PM

    Ray's speech at Lotusphere was to gain mindshare. Now Microsoft is trying to make the most of it.

  1. 10  Ed Brill www.edbrill.com | 7/11/2005 5:40:26 PM

    Ray's speech at Lotusphere was at IBM's invitation. I was personally involved. It was nothing more than a celebration of Notes's 15th anniversary. Those looking for more to the message won't find it.

  1. 11  Randall Shimizu  | 7/11/2005 8:23:10 PM

    That's true that IBM invited Ray, but when you take into account the sum total of the actions the result is clear...mindshare. Also remember that Ray accepted the invitation. Ray Ozzie probably did not win any converts, but he probably enticed people to look at Microsoft's collaboration proposition.

  1. 12  Samuel Allen  | 7/12/2005 10:17:58 AM

    I think the real issue here has been touched upon by #6 is why Microsoft is able to keep hammering away, though I belive Notes is just as guilty. What does it do?

    Now anyone here could ramble on for hours about all the cool things you can do with Lotus Notes. But that's not the point. You visit the Lotus Notes webpage, or just generally survey public opinion/perception, and Notes is an ugly email client. I actually had an Exchange admin ask me if they still even made it! He thought it was a discontinued product! Now, WHY did he think this? Probably because he reads the rags and the webpages which assist him as an Exchange Admin. He would really have to actively penetrate the ND universe to find out that it isn't the digital equivilent of Latin.

    But why shouldn't he think that? Yes there's been a bit of press fanfare, but it exists in a fairly insular tech universe. And if people think it does still exist, why would you use it?

    The Lotus website doesn't help here AT ALL It says you can do things like focus "on the human side of business with flexible, highly secure and reliable solutions that empower people to collaborate, learn and take full advantage of their collective knowledge, wherever they work, within and across organizational boundaries."

    ...which makes perfect sense if you've already used Notes for a couple of years. But if you're walking into it cold, you're left wondering (a la the Paris Hilton Southpark episode) "But what does she DO?"

    At which point IBM/Lotus's public face for these products fall apart.

    It's not enough to say, "It'll improve your productivity," or, "allow you to collaborate with your peers globally," or whatever. You need to be able to say, "do you hate quicken? Build your own and make it the way you want, and usable by your entire office! Do you love quicken? Extend it's usefulness and move it's data around across multiple apps. Then face it securely to the web with an hour's extra work."

    "Do you want a centralized email system, but still be able to use Thunderbird? Outlook? Evolution? How about Pine?" "How about store, cross-reference, version, encrypt, and password protect all your important documents in a replicatable database. You can view it at home, you can view it on your phone, you can view it on the stairs, you can view it in the air!"

    I mean, obviously, these won't make good posters, but there has to be some tangible concrete "you can do THIS!" The Middleware ads really don't drive anything but some ethereal idea about how seemingly non-technical shops can use expensive software. Which is a cruel illusion for those who are trying to sell tech packages to the local bike shop, as most small bike shops would never dream of using Workplace OR Notes. Partly because they've never heard of it, but mostly because they have no idea why it would help them.

    A lack of a strong public face for these products allows Microsoft to frame the debate.

    If you guys were able to concretely convey the notion of an application development platform (and the activity-centricity presentation of Hannover does a decent job of this) then when Microsoft courts these companies saying, "you don't need Lotus Notes, you can use Exchange" then, armed with the knowledge of what Notes can do, said customer will ask, "what about all these Notes apps that our company relies on," or, "can I do this all from a web browser, or in one client framework?" and Microsoft will have to tip-toe back into the night.

    They don't have a stable, unified platform to compete with. It's your (not you, specifically, Ed, but it's IBM/Lotus's) job to demonstrate this in billboards, and magazines, on the web page, and in the virtual communities.

    I love Notes because I am able to build the tools to run my business from the ground up! Imagine showing people in ads and demonstrations the way they could run their entire business, CUSTOMIZED TO THEIR LIKING, from one unified, client-consistant platform.

    Microsoft's FUD only works because people outside the industry channels haven't been told any different.

    My $0.04

  1. 13  Gary Devendorf www.msdomino.net | 7/12/2005 5:14:18 PM

    Microsoft plans on spending time and money to enable Lotus partners to work with Microsoft products and technologies. How it this a bad thing? Notes developers are smart folks can can choose how to invest their time and money. More options are a good thing.

  1. 14  Ed Brill www.edbrill.com | 7/12/2005 10:33:43 PM

    The public acknowledgement of the per-uesr "bounty" sort of makes your assertion ring hollow, Gary.

    { Link }

    This is not just a peace love and integration message, and it never has been.

  1. 15  Subhan http://slate.blogspirit.com | 7/12/2005 10:59:02 PM

    @13 "More options are a great thing" --- dats true, and IBM Workplace does provide excatly that to the Notes developers/Partners. And more over, its with long-term commitments and a very clear Roadmap.

  1. 16  Randall Shimizu  | 7/13/2005 11:48:32 PM

    I guess the question is how the term 'good' defined and for whom is it good for......??

    From a customer perspective since migrating to Exchange will raise the TCO and lower scalability then it should be defined as bad for the customer....