Ed Brill

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1. 1  Andy Steven www.ajspook.com | 7/13/2004 7:05:15 PM

   I am doing contract work for a few companies in Adelaide who are selling Notes, Adelaide is in South Australia and has 1 million people. Since I have been doing this, about 12 months, there hasn't been one new sale of Notes to the best of my knowledge (except one, see note below). Everyone says 'isn't Notes dying?'. It's hard to argue with such sparce sales. All work is from upgrades, support etc. Until I actually see some movement I'll be keeping my options open. P.S. I installed a collaboration express last week, perhaps this is the first of a lot to come.

1. 2  Philip Storry  | 7/14/2004 4:21:18 AM

   "There are more customers I've met in the last six months interested in Notes to Exchange migration than in the last five years."

   .

   Translation: "I met a customer last month."

   .

   *grins*

   .

   But more seriously. of coourse he'd say that. Ballmer's a General - he only walks onto ground that his shock troops have already cleared.

   .

   Whereas Ed Brill is more of a trooper.

   .

   Generals can easily get disconnected from the reality of the front line. Any history book can tell you that. ;-)

1. 3  Nathan T. Freeman  | 7/14/2004 4:57:07 AM

   There's no doubt that the Notes install base is ripe for the picking. If there were a product from MS that provided most of the functionality from Lotus, companies would switch in droves -- precisly because they'd be able to leverage they're existing MS deployment (at the desktop) better than Lotus ever will.

   Problem is: as ripe as that audience may be, MS can't deliver. And there's no reason to THINK they'll deliver either. They can simply keep turning out 3rd rate versions of Outlook and crossing their fingers that the Exchange team will resolve their cranial/rectal inversion crisis soon. There's no reason to think they will.

   In short, Ballmer's right, but it won't do him any good. Tough luck, bubba.

1. 4  Axel Janssen  | 7/14/2004 7:03:56 AM

   ... here are my reasons:

   - Lotus is too old stuff.

   - Java is much too complicated. I find .Net programming much easier. Would be great to get opportunity to code next generation groupware/messaging apps with vb.net on MS-Studio, which is very smart IDE, I find.

1. 5  Ben Poole http://www.benpoole.com | 7/14/2004 7:26:41 AM

   ... according to Axel, being "old" is a downer -- where does that leave most of us I wonder ;o)

   As for Java being "complicated"? Aw, c'mon, jeez.

1. 6  Christopher Byrne http://www.controlscaddy.com/ | 7/14/2004 7:55:35 AM

   sadly, this article is worth reading:

   http://www.varbusiness.com/sections/news/breakingnews.jhtml;jsessionid=PQVUXDZYBVTZCQSNDBCCKHY?articleId=22104047

1. 7  Alan Lepofsky  | 7/14/2004 8:24:06 AM

   Axel, have you looked at Workplace? I don't think you could call that old. Take a look at

   http://www.lotus.com/products/product5.nsf/wdocs/workplacehome, especially the Workplace Client Technology

   http://www.lotus.com/products/product5.nsf/wdocs/workplaceclienttech

1. 8  Sagar  | 7/14/2004 8:38:51 AM

   Old ... Yes Notes is old ... it is 90's technology.. and don't compare Notes with Workplace..they are very diffrent .. Notes is legacy and workplace is based on J2ee. Still Workplace has a long way to go.

   Java Development in Notes environment is not very complicated but it sucks as compared to other J2ee environment like tomcat,WAS etc.

   Our's is a very big notes shop but we stopped any new development on Notes and migrating apps slowly to websphere.

   I advice my customers to migrate to either Websphere Portal or .Net platform ... or to some very robust content management platform like DB2 Content manager, Documentum etc

1. 9  Axel Janssen  | 7/14/2004 9:11:29 AM

   1. it uses cloudscape database (which is relational)

   2. its 100% Java (swt, Jface, IBM Workplace Client + some Lotus stuff)

   3. it uses 2 cpus. So I can't use it.

   I believe that its interesting technology. I have started to occupy my spare freetime with SWT, JFace, IBM-RTC.

   I am SCJP2, experience with commercial Java projects with Swing, Tomcat and Webservices and they gave me IBM-ICED certi (486, 488, 287).

   I have lots of experience with wsad, though no commercial.

   Until now I haven't found any usefull info on Domino sites. I am only seeing their managers talking hilarious stuff about Microsoft, which is great company btw.

   There are usefull sites about IBM-RTC, SWT, JFace on the Internet and some IBM pages.

   Lotus is only bragging that its cool technology and they are the first and stuff.

   Lotus has a - in my opinion - very dark history regarding Java. They were allways great at touting "We do Java". Until now there is no JAXP compatible XML-parser in their product.

   They gave their parsers code to Apache software foundation. Apache Software Foundation build Xerces parser, Xalan engine based on this code.

   Lotus did not implemented the new stuff provided by Apache Software foundation.

   Lotus simply does not get what is Java about.

   Or its difficult to implement in their aged product.

   So why bother and shop 2-CPU to test their little product.

   There are lots of other examples like those funny Applets and the even more funny training material.

   I am doing Java 60 hours or more a week.

   I hear Lotus managers bragging around how difficult

   I see lot of german Domino guys talking about workplace, too.

   I tell you: They are a lot of month away from coding, designing, architecting, etc. away from building eclipse/workplace plug-in. One of them reads in Amazon site, that there is book says that its easy to create eclipse-plugin. Book is by Gamma, Kent.

   I am laughing and crying same time.

   kind regards

   Axel

1. 10  Axel Janssen  | 7/14/2004 9:20:17 AM

   ... but it will stay one of my top internet fun sites :-)

1. 11  Alan Lepofsky  | 7/14/2004 9:54:38 AM

   Axel, what do you mean by "Until now I haven't found any usefull info on Domino sites."? Is there something specific I can help you find? Are you looking for development sites, like http://www-136.ibm.com/developerworks/lotus? Are you looking for case studies/references?

1. 12  Alan Lepofsky  | 7/14/2004 9:58:50 AM

   Sagar, while I am happy that you see the value in the WebSphere product line, I don't think the general approach of telling your customers to migrate is the best route to go. Doesn't it depend on what they need to be doing? If Domino accomplishes what they are looking for, there is no need to spend time&money just to move to another platform. Domino 7 is going to allow even more fantastic Domino applications to be created, adding native web service support, as well as relational support with DB2. Is there a driving factor behind your recommendations to migrate? Are customers expressing a business need that they currently are unable to accomplish with their existing environment?

1. 13    | 7/14/2004 11:14:12 AM

   you guys have for every question a simple answer:

   q: Domino as is isn't yet very compatible with modern development (full object orientation, design patterns, layered architecture)

   a: we have product which needs 2 cpu for email and some little other stuff.

   q: I am loosing interest in Domino, cause its quite difficult to integrate with modern development stuff (see above)

   a: But we have tech website.

   q: We don't invest yet in Domino development, cause other tools provide better support for modern development stuff.

   a: For every task the right tool.

   Sorry guys. Maybe I am little stupid, but I can't provide my customers with such easy answers when DWF is acting very crazy.

   I will not be able to provide my customers with easy answers when your seamless DB2 integration will give catastrophic performance.

   I will not be able to provide easy answers, if your IDEs won't give me the fantastic webservices support which I am used to from WSAD 5.12 and MS Visual Studio.NET.

   kind regards

   Axel

   last post, I promised.

1. 14  Sagar  | 7/14/2004 11:30:41 AM

   Yes Alen, there are business needs. I don't recommend customers to just migrate everything from domino. For example some cutomers' content has grown so much that its veri difficult for domino to handle it... in that case we recommend content management solutions like DB2 content manager.

   Another example is customers already have some j2ee environment like websphere/websphere portal with domino. In that case its better to develop new applications on j2ee instead of domino because j2ee is more scalable, more open. We use various open source framework like struts,spring etc. Can you use MVC pattern with domino applications? Yes you can use but not always and its not cleaner. And any app that you can develop on domino, u can develop it on j2ee but not the opposite of it.

   You can not develop all types of applications in domino. Only certain types of applications are suited to Domino. So a ognization needs another development platform along with domino. The two obious choices are j2ee or .Net.

   Websphere and websphere portal is the best combination with domino but sometimes customers don't want was/portal combination because of cost then they choose .net. And its very easy to build application on .net as compared to websphere.

   Domino 7 is still future. DB2 is very nice option. But can I plugin my own JVM with domino ...

1. 15  Heini  | 7/14/2004 12:44:12 PM

   Well,

   At my former company at least once a year MS came in, brought all that Exchange stuff. Ok, just some questions and they finally left without a deal. To be honest, I am not often visiting Exchange shops for showcasing Domino but maybe I should do so. I should do the same as the MS guys do and come back every year (then at less people would think that this thing is dead).

   For the other topics.

   I do not want that Designer works like WAD (I would then take the original) but some points taken. The Java integration really xxxxx does not work.

   Some people call it "great backwards compatibility", some just say "old".

   The message is still mixed. Maybe we need something that would even surprise the Domino crowd, something that has not been mentioned at Lotussphere 2000 yet and that not only shows investment in marketing (which is fine) but in technology (there was that Gar..., no I'll stop here but a good example).

   I cannot tell my customers that Domino is going strong but when they want to install Sametime on their Linux server I have to tell them that there is none and that there probably never will be one (not even the chat thing).

   And I totally agree with Nathan but I do not feel well if I have to hope that the boys and girls in Redmond just do not get it.

   To say something nice at the end. The Messaging Express version is great (as the whole Express campaign), the pricing very competitive. IBM Lotus has done a lot in the last 12 months and they even do a much better job spreading the news in the press.

   I still remain sceptical if that Workplace is the future but you should invest in Domino and we will bring you there thing wotks (sounds a lot like legacy stuff).

   And by the way Oklahoma State University could need a new messaging infrastructure.

1. 16  johncd  | 7/14/2004 12:47:57 PM

   Here's my take on Lotus Notes/Domino...

   I was a ND developer for several years, before the economy decided that I needed to lose my job. I spent eight months looking for another position before I found something far away from home. I started in this position doing Notes/Domino development, but management decided that Websphere was a better environment, so now I do J2EE development. (They made a good decision, in my opinion...)

   Anyway, I live in an area that has many, many different companies, most of which are under 1,000 employees. How many are using Notes/Domino? Very, very few. Until that number starts to grow, I believe that N/D will continue to decline. I've even talked with business partners that say that N/D as a development platform is being quietly pushed aside by IBM.

1. 17  Nathan T. Freeman  | 7/14/2004 1:52:37 PM

   "you guys have for every question a simple answer"

   Why are you COMPLAINING about that? You ask questions, people try to answer them, then you whine about the answer. I don't get it. If you're just going to be stubborn about pouting, then yeah... stop posting.

1. 18  ajp  | 7/14/2004 2:02:47 PM

   Johndc… “Anyway, I live in an area that has many, many different companies, most of which are under 1,000 employees. How many are using Notes/Domino? Very, very few.”

   -- > Sound like an opportunity not a problem :)

1. 19  Alan Lepofsky  | 7/14/2004 5:31:01 PM

   Sagar, thank you for your follow up post, it explains your approach much better than "I advice my customers to migrate to either Websphere Portal or .Net platform" which led me to beleive you were trying to migrate all your customers.

1. 20  Alan Lepofsky  | 7/14/2004 5:41:22 PM

   johncd: I'm not sure which BP told you "N/D as a development platform is being quietly pushed aside by IBM." but it's simply not true. Is IBM adding other options? ABSOLUTELY! As we should be. WAS/WSAD and all the Rational toolsets are dramatically expanding IBM's development environments. At the same time IBM is also juicing up ND7 to do things developers have been asking about for years. Domino views using dynamic (meaning you can prompt users at run time!) SQL queries to determine which content to display, cool! Joining data from multiple Domino databases into a single view... very cool! Exposing Domino data via Web Service written in LotusScript or Java, cool yet again! When we launched IBM Workplace last month, Steve Mills outlined the four product families, Lotus Notes/Domino, WebSphere Portal, Lotus Workplace, and WebSphere Everyplace. How did he describe Domino? "time tested, market leading collaborative application environment for developing people-driven applications." If that sounds like phasing out, than so be it. :-)

1. 21  Ed Maloney  | 7/14/2004 6:04:35 PM

   Unfortunately MS has the ability to come into an organization at a fairly senior level and do their Notes is dead pitch. I've been involved in far too many of these lately, being called in to explain why we should not move to Exchange after some mucky-muck has taken the MS bait. Ultimately, MS will lose on the technical merits when you look at what they have today vs what they're trying to sell. The bad news is that IBM does not stress the benefits of Notes as much as they want to talk about Workplace. MS is now seizing on this and reformulating their message. I like to imagine that I'm a full time Notes developer, but I seem to spend half my time fighting off Exchange. I do not take the latest call to arms from Steve Balmer lightly.

1. 22  Deb Rill  | 7/14/2004 9:15:11 PM

   Guys, forget Domino vs Exchange, its .Net v J2EE that matters, and .Net rocks!

   Microsoft are as maniacal as ever about delivering to developers. IBM knows it can't compete and is co-opting everyone else with Eclipse, but it ain't working.

   Check out Whidbey, check out Smart Client support and mobile. Check out Live Server.

   Domino died - just look at all the Loti who left in the last 18 months - IBM has no interest in Domino. And worstplace (as VW puts it) ... it will be use to pad out deals but nothing more.

   Someone moved the cheese guys, that's all.

   You guys should check out what Ray Ozzie is saying about .Net and collaboration.

   IBM killed Lotus, but its spirit lives on through all of the people who build Lotus and who now work for Microsoft or Groove or the myriad other MS partners building .Net collaboration solutions.

   As Enimem would say "move on its over".

1. 23  Ed Brill www.edbrill.com | 7/14/2004 9:57:27 PM

   "De bRill" - from SUTOL corporation - nice attempt at anonymity.

   Lotus employees at Microsoft -- I can only count three who actually left Lotus to go work at Microsoft. Others ended up there after some other step. Oh, and I hear that one of the supposedly big fish that MS landed has been goal kicked away -- falling into the same bad habits he had at Lotus.

   As for the app dev bit, you've hit all the MS marketing buzzwords and vaporware, but it doesn't show me that there's some mass slide away from the Java and Eclipse camp. Eclipse seems with 3.0 to be gaining more momentum than ever -- there are even publications about it now. Show us some evidence and then the discussion becomes meaningful.

1. 24  Ed Brill www.edbrill.com | 7/14/2004 10:01:00 PM

   then why did Lotus revenue grow 12% Y2Y in the first quarter of this year? Why is ND7 in beta? Why is Workplace 2.0 thisclose to shipping? I don't seem to be dead, or am I?

1. 25  Axel  | 7/15/2004 6:17:59 AM

   I find you are retorically really good.

   A lot of people feel the business driven need to work on different platforms today. And they actually like it.

   So I just wanted to mention (my first intention) that I feel a bit annoyed about all those negative stuff about Microsoft from an Lotus manager.

   Can't find link, but the eclipse team used MS-Visual Studio as an important source of inspiration. Java5 copies a lot of cool innovations from C#.

   now you got rid of me

   Axel :-)

1. 26  Duffbert http://www.twduff.com | 7/15/2004 7:23:59 AM

   ... coming from Ballmer and company? If you check out my blog, you'll see a host of recent articles where MS execs have done the FUD dance about no IBM plans past ND7 (false), IBM pushing everyone to WebSphere (false), and IBM earning all their revenue from Global Services (false).

   It's a two-way street, Axel. If Microsoft played nice with others, then there wouldn't be the need to mount a vigorous defense. But Microsoft doesn't want co-existence. They want total domination and platform control. So if we roll over, shut up, and play dead, we will be.

1. 27  Axel  | 7/15/2004 8:55:31 AM

   I find that annoying, too.

   But I do not care much.

   I am not emotionally attached to neither of those IBM, Microsoft, Oracle or openSource. And I think that a big part of at least the java programmers think this way.

   I mean Mr. Brill can do what he likes, but for me (specific example) it would be much more convincing if Lotus would put some effort in providing some good information about Eclipse Rich Client Platform (without 2cpu Lotus Workplace Client), as they are very early adopters in that technology.

   I really love eclipse and all the money and effort IBM has put into this very good piece of software. I also find WSAD a very good tool, which has made a lot of progress in its last .x releases. Haven't checked out Portal yet, but its next issue (besides my ongoing Dot.NET studies).

   After all those Entity EJB problems nobody can make me believe that it is possible to provide completly seamless integration with RDBMS without a huge performance cost or other problems. Maybe this is simply me lack of trust.

   Where's deep techonological information about how this integration actually will work? I am not talking about propaganda of the "we don't need RDBMS knowledge"-type.

   This stuff would convince me. Not this microsoft-is-bad-we-are-good thing.

   good night

   Axel

1. 28  Greg  | 7/17/2004 12:11:46 PM

   Ballmer is right when he says, "developers, developers, developers!". The creators of C# learned from many of the Java's mistakes. C# and the .Net development environment is well done. All that Microsoft cool-aid is very good. It's just too bad that technology will only work on the Windows server platform.

   I work for a SMB, 1500 employees. We use Lotus Notes for messaging and many apps, have Domino clustered on Windows and Linux servers, use Apache Tomcat and Domino for external web applications, and .Net for some of our internal web applications. Our corporate database is MSSQL. We believe in using the best tool for the job, given our small budget and IT staff.

   We looked at WebSphere, but honestly, why pay all that money when Apache Tomcat gives us everything we need? Maybe if we were a large company it would make more sense.

   I think Ballmer is playing to the press when he mentions Lotus Notes vs. Exchange. That war is over. Today it's J2EE vs. .Net, and building great tools for developers. I would argue that most programmers work for smaller companies, or are college students. That's the real battlefield, not large companies with big servers, thousands of simultaneous users, and budgets.