Radicati Group follow-up

July 27 2004

I was contacted at my ibm.com e-mail address by the Radicati Group as a follow-up to Friday's weblog entry.
The e-mail was apparently an attempt to clarify some of the points of discussion.  I noted in my reply that I personally had actually not made any comments about the content of the report on edbrill.com (my perspective will be reflected in the official IBM response) -- it was the readers of this blog that they were attempting to respond to.  Thus, I was surprised that my offer to post the contents of the Radicati Group's e-mail to edbrill.com in their entirety was declined.  I think you all would have appreciated the additional insight.  
In turning down my offer, Radicati Group indicated that they were uninterested in being "mixed in" with my weblog or similar discussion, which seemed to be in contrast to their apparent glee at the amount of visibility given to the paper by the initial blog entry.  Either way, it is an opportunity missed -- most surprising given that the question that permeated the e-mail was about how the blog entry affected the credibility of the two parties involved.  (It also raises a question about how the weblog community is viewed by this analyst -- as opposed to so many other analysts who actually blog, including analysts at Gartner, Burton, Jupiter, Nucleus, and many other analyst firms).
My view is that I'll risk my own credibility to shine a spotlight where needed -- in this case, I believe the exposure of this document to a wide audience actually serves me much more than it does my competition.  For those of you reading it directly, you can form your own opinion of the report.  For those you will need to influence, including management that might never read the full report, you are now prepared to discuss and easily rebut the report thoughtfully (even moreso when IBM's response is published).  How does that hurt my credibility?

Ed Brill Highland Park, IL USA Category:  Lotus  Add/View Comments [10]

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  1. 1  Carl http://www.iminstant.com | 7/27/2004 8:30:20 AM

    What credibility ;-)

  1. 2  Sean Burgess http://phigsaidwhat.com/ | 7/27/2004 9:06:43 AM

    One of the points that was made in a business etiquette class I recently attended is that you never write anything in an email that you don't want put up on a bulletin board. I think you are being overly nice to Raddy Catty by not posting excerpts from the email, let alone the whole thing. I think it smacks of the worst kind of business practices to call into question comments on your personal blog and then ask you not to post their request for clarification. The only credibility that is being hurt is the one that was being called into question in the first place.

  1. 3  Mike Brown  | 7/27/2004 9:53:49 AM

    How the paper came to exist in the first place - who initiated it and who paid for it - should prove very interesting indeed, if Radicati ever choose to reveal that information. But surely the paper would not have been substantially different if Microsoft's Marketing dept HAD dictated it word for word!!

  1. 4  Chris LeRoy http://www.brainbent.com | 7/27/2004 10:20:16 AM

    Personally, I would be open to and willing to hear and try to understand Radicati's point of view.

    It's been said, word of mouth is the best possible advertising. Hopefully, Radicati does come to realize the power from this and other community blogs.

  1. 5  Joe Silverstone  | 7/27/2004 11:41:05 AM

    Perhaps the issue at hand here is not the power of the blog, but the power driving force behind it - aka IBM Lotus' decreasing revenues?

  1. 6  Ed Brill http://www.edbrill.com | 7/27/2004 12:01:29 PM

    IBM reported that Lotus declined 2% Y2Y in Q2 2004, but that Lotus gained 12% Y2Y in Q1 2004. The most recent quarter does not make a trend.

    Thanks for trolling by.

  1. 7  keiot d | 7/27/2004 12:20:30 PM

    "...revenues for Lotus software, which enables customers to communicate, collaborate and learn effectively, decreased 2 percent." IBM 8K, July 15, 2004

    "...Microsoft ® Exchange enjoyed revenue growth rates of over 20%" MSFT 8K, July 22, 2004

    The most recent quarter does not make a trend - but it does suggest that IBM execs should spend less time blogging and criticizing analysts, and more time managing their bottom line.

  1. 8  Chris LeRoy http://www.brainbent.com | 7/27/2004 12:53:32 PM

    @Joe,

    I guess it should be known that, at least in my case... I am a consumer, not an IBM'er. And in house, we have both Exchange AND Domino, with a vision of Workplace possibly in place of Domino in the future. Even some sendmail, too. =)

    This analysis, through skillfully omitting/glazing over information or just sloppy work, lends it to not be credible. And I think that is what is at issue. Like you said, who is the driving force behind this report? Who paid for it? That, in itself, could clear up alot of the question of information that was or wasn't provided.

    Both are decent products for their purposes, but when the strengths/weaknesses of each are not provided and compared on a level playing field, it is clear to those of us that tasked with evaluating and recommending products to our decison makers, to disregard it as 'hogwash' and put faith in other sources that appear non-bias. If anything, such a biased report only serves to discredit Microsoft in my evaluations, truth be told.

    Chris

  1. 9  Darren http://www.dadams.co.uk | 7/28/2004 8:10:45 AM

    "IBM execs should spend less time ... criticizing analysts".

    Oh sure... the IBM exec with a responsibility for competition in the messaging market should sit on his hands while an analyst report misrepresents the Lotus offering. Get real. Do you think Microsoft wouldn't fight their corner if IBM sponsored a report that predicted their downfall?

  1. 10    | 7/28/2004 5:55:25 PM

    don't miss the discussion which essentially moved to the next thread at

    { Link }