Ed Brill

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1. 1  Tim Rand  | 4/10/2006 11:10:31 PM

   I can't wait until his Legal Department explains to him the personal privacy issues involved in legal discovery processes ({ Link } ) when he co-mingles his personal e-mail with work. Now, all of a sudden, his personal e-mail could be subject to subpoena and become part of public disclosure. While Google stands up to many legal inquiries more than most, I'm sure they would comply if served.

   Consider this from Texas: { Link }

   Personal E-mail exchanges (the personal exchange of communication) are not covered by the State of Texas records retention schedule. However, personal e-mails stored on state equipment are subject to discovery under the Public Information Act and by legal subpoena. Examples of personal e-mails include:

   Jokes

   Family messages

   Commercial mailings

   Caution - Generally, employees should not consider email to be private. E-mail, including personal and other temporary or transitory e-mail stored on state equipment/systems are subject to legal discovery under the Public Information Act. Retention of unnecessary e-mail can be used in future litigation.

1. 2  Nick  | 4/10/2006 11:25:38 PM

   off-topic, but I discovered this the other day and I'm sure others will be wondering about it since you brought it up: View Unread button - Try "Search Mail" using "is:unread" as the search term. Bingo.

1. 3  Ed Brill www.edbrill.com | 4/10/2006 11:36:44 PM

   @2 sure enough, that works to find unread mail in gmail... but how hard would it be to have a button or some other option to do that?

1. 4  Lee  | 4/10/2006 11:55:14 PM

   Re #1) Ben could just get a free google account used just for work

   A keep a local copy of my 1.5GB mail.nsf. Thus, it is indexable by google desktop on my windows machines.

   I have GREAT sympathy for his position, especially as regards to the most famous initial thing about gmail: disk space. I am horrified at admins who want to put a sub-gigabyte limit on mail files. Amazon has provided a nice metric for disk space with S3. Retail price is $.15/GB/month for reliable, online authenticated access. So reducing my mailfile from 600MB to 100MB would save about a quarter of a penny per day. As Joel (of Joel On Software) told his admin, Microsoft spends more money on toilet paper for me than for my mail disk space.

   Notes is wonderful. But a PHB looking at a distance might really wonder why the non-trivially priced Notes Enterprise people and product can't support the capacity of the free consumer product. IMHO, it really hurts the credibility of Notes and IT.

1. 5  Philip Storry http://www.not-so-rapid.com | 4/11/2006 2:33:52 AM

   Grrr.

   This is idiotic. At best.

   At worst - and real life is more often closer to the worst case than the best - this is flagrant gross misconduct.

   Granted, not everyone works in the Healthcare, Finance, Regulation or other sectors where security and customer privacy are mandatory rather than optional. But the main problem with this is that it's irresponsible reporting which quite evidently hasn't got a grasp of the issues.

   This kind of thing seems to be on the upsurge these days. He's certainly right to be highlighting the disconnect between IT departments and users, but he's rather missing the real issue. I suppose I'll have to write about that later today...

1. 6  Wild Bill http://www.billbuchan.com | 4/11/2006 2:38:36 AM

   @4 - absolutely. Was involved with a customer who wanted to give every user a gigabyte of mail instead of 150mb.

   It was costed at in excess of 200k dollars.

   The difficulty is that setting up petabyte disk arrays is very expensive for the corporate player. A "good" SAN solution (such as "Shark" for instance) costs a *lot*.

   Also bear in mind that disks to go in high-performance redundant SAN arrays tend to be very expensive - say a few hundred bucks for a SCSI 10k 72gb drive. And of course a "home use" 500gb IDE drive is about the same (for 7 times more capacity).

   So hence corporate eMail systems - and Notes is not the only one in this category - tend just to be updated once every few years, and its always a struggle getting enough disk space in them...

   I have seen a change in the last couple of years however, from "hard limits" to good mail archiving and retention tools, which does at least attempt to manage the problem..

   Oh. Last week, I heard of a single mailfile hitting 249GB on a live production Domino server. Previous record holder (in my experience at least) was a mere 12gb...

   ---* Bill

1. 7  Axel  | 4/11/2006 2:59:33 AM

   There are so many different businesses out there, that I firmly believe that for some businesses gmail might be the best solution. Only question is: How many?

   As I expect marketing attacks from gmail & friens, it might be good idea to prepare some material where to expose the advantages of lotus domino diferentiated by distinct types of user organizations.

   Better act early than cry late.

1. 8  Volker Weber http://vowe.net | 4/11/2006 3:23:50 AM

   Ed, you are falling into the Microsoft features features features trap. Complexity kills. It is safe to assume that most workers never get past the Create/Reply/Delete features of Notes.

   Full text search is turned off at most of your biggest customers. Storage capacity.

1. 9  Nathan T. Freeman  | 4/11/2006 4:30:25 AM

   How is it that the *CIO* of the company hasn't vetted his list of requirements against his internal Domino administrator to find out what's possible in his own email system? If he's listing stuff like "Gmail is searchable and has more storage capacity" then he hasn't done so much as hit F1 in his Notes mail!

   Is he trying to convey that this is what users do -- not inquire with IT about their needs at all? That's feasible, I suppose. But that's not a VENDOR failure. Nor does it make GMail in any way better than ANY other mail client.

1. 10  Axel  | 4/11/2006 4:37:19 AM

   In the end features, features, features are just offers to use a system in different ways & contexts. Its not bad as such.

   Or only if you believe that users will be inevitably overwhelmed by features.

   With increased care & knowledge about usability from vendor side, the users might be able to use more features.

   In the end lots of those "stupid" users love MS-Word, because it has all those features, no matter if IT-consultant is telling them that they don't need them.

1. 11  Mike Brown  | 4/11/2006 5:41:39 AM

   Tail wags dog. Same old, same old.

   Cheers,

   - Mike

1. 12  Ed Brill www.edbrill.com | 4/11/2006 6:29:45 AM

   @8 "Complexity kills. It is safe to assume that most workers never get past the Create/Reply/Delete features of Notes."

   but is that because of Notes, or because most workers never need more than these features?

1. 13  Bruce Elgort http://www.bruceelgort.com | 4/11/2006 7:32:14 AM

   @All,

   Remember that Gmail now offers email to corporations:

   https://www.google.com/hosted

   I am testing the beta now. Like vowe says "complexity kills". :-)

   Bruce

1. 14  Volker Weber http://vowe.net | 4/11/2006 7:32:46 AM

   Good question, Ed. I am not sure.

   I like to look at the iPod. You cannot "outfeature" the iPod. Microsoft has tried in vain. The iPod wins on elegance and simplicity.

   In the case of GMail, you have a simple user interface which packs some punch. It has a better type-ahead lookup than Notes, although it is "only" a web application. The search works very well, and it collects the conversation in one thread. Maybe that is what users need all the time. I just don't know. Mary-Beth may have a better idea.

   In any case, GMail does not lose, because it misses features. Currently it loses on the admin side. But for how long? And it will gain features (calendar is next) as well as admin (gmail hosted domains).

   So, yes, it will make life very hard in the SMB space. For MS and IBM alike.

1. 15  Charles Robinson  | 4/11/2006 8:59:41 AM

   @Ed - Just a couple of comments. You said "I tend to use gmail search on the flat view, just as I do in Notes." I truly hope you don't mean you keep all your mail in your Inbox. Your admins are probably going to have a cow over your eleventy billion messages in your Inbox if you do. :-P { Link }

   Secondly, I do think Notes' complexity is a problem for the general office worker. Most of my users never found the View Unread button because at 800x600 resolution, which is what most of them use, it's off the right side of the screen. There are so many buttons and so many submenus in the Inbox action bar that many of my users have a difficult time using it. I hear that complaint almost daily.

1. 16  Nathan T. Freeman  | 4/11/2006 9:53:16 AM

   So lemme see if I got this straight... complexity kills... but the author of the article is praising Gmail because it has features that he thinks Notes doesn't have (search & threading), even though it does.

   Hmmmm...

   Now, I'll agree about comparisons to the iPod, which is in a real sense the modern benchmark for interface design. You'll only get that out of Notes by straight up removing the C&S features though, and just getting it back to pure mail.

1. 17  Nathan T. Freeman  | 4/11/2006 9:56:17 AM

   I should add, though, that the iPod interface is an example of something that's simple because it's fiercely modal. It probably sends Togzanini into fits.

1. 18  Bruce Elgort http://www.bruceelgort.com | 4/11/2006 10:34:31 AM

   @15,

   It also looks like Hannover will keep the Action Bar where it is:

   { Link }

   I know this is an early screenshot and it may change.

1. 19  jon johnston http://bingo.cbsol.com | 4/11/2006 11:08:18 AM

   Volker's comments: Most users don't use 90% of the rest of the application, plus the older comments that the vast majority use the workspace interface leads me to believe that most of the people Volker's in contact with ever do training. Not that uncommon, I suppose, but it sounds like an excuse to keep everything simple, and dumb down complexity of any application because only the few will use it. If that's the case, why ever build a better mousetrap?

   Google destroyed the idea in most corporate environments that users should only have 100 MB or 150 MB mail files. Users now have the idea that massive amounts of email can be easily had. Good for Google. I find administrators who try to keep such low quotas to be rather dictactorial.

   However, this doesn't mean Ben Worthen's actions are justified. If company policy dictates, he should be reprimanded or fired. Then, of course, he can be a martyr and increase his blog hits, eh?

   The fight between IT and users is new? Or just fashionable? I thought it'd been going on since the mainframe. Every day.

1. 20  David Bailey  | 4/11/2006 11:44:46 AM

   Sounds like Notes is being discredited for his organization's policies: Full Text Indexing, Mail Quota, and Mail Retention.

1. 21  Axel  | 4/11/2006 12:52:57 PM

   The google thing is just one stone in our new way towards what I'ld call a less vertical IT. Why less vertical? Because its more horizontal.

   There is more diversification on the customer demand and the producer side of the market. Today we have a much broader offers for a lot of stuff (for ex. in collaborative workflow, too). Client will choose what fits their needs and some platforms will survive. In 10 years we will hear from the ones who weren't too succesfull in that battle, that their solution was best and mankind stupid.

   I wish Lotus@IBM all the best in that competition.

1. 22  Axel Nastansky http://www.pavone.com | 4/11/2006 12:53:44 PM

   While I question the wisdom of storing corporate data on Google's servers I see the opportunity to learn from Gmail:

   - Full-text search: Gmail's search engine is simply better at finding stuff. The Notes full-text search engine desperately needs to have better flexibility about spelling and drop the need for "&" when you want to do an AND search for multiple keywords.

   - Spell-checking: The poor usability of the Notes client's spell checker is beyond words.

   - Email addresses: When will the Notes client learn to suggest addresses based on the ones contained in messages received?

   - Performance of web client: E.g. time to open inbox, compose message, ...

   - Simplicity: As has been mentioned above, 90% of the time I use only 10% of the functionality available.

1. 23  Gavin Bollard http://dominogavin.blogspot.com/ | 4/11/2006 5:53:56 PM

   Two things to consider...

   1. What to do with/to the employee?

   There are serious legal/privacy and non-disclosure issues with what he is doing and he has already admitted to knowing about them. Plus, being in a CIO position, he should know better. I have no sympathy for him (and he should have no job).

   2. What can WE learn from this?

   - Well there's an obvious need for training, both in the use of the system and in legal/compliance issues.

   - The system admins should be more *aware* of what is going on, particularly at CIO level, he must have complained before, so WHY didn't they listen? Open the quotas for a start.

   - Development, IBM could learn a lot from GMAIL, but that's no reason for the rest of us to stand still while waiting for them to develop something. How about some openNTF style modifications?

1. 24  George A. Papayiannis   | 4/12/2006 12:08:08 AM

   In 1991 Janet Perna was asked by Steve Mills to build a UNIX database that would go up against industry leader (at the time) Oracle. As you know, at the time IBM was heavily leveraged in main frame computers, and needed to make the change to the new age movement of servers, etc.

   First off, my knowledge and background in Notes is limited, but I have had around 4 months worth of exposure. That said, Ben makes a good point:

   "I can't help with an answer unfortunately, but I think that whoever comes up with an answer will make a lot of money."

   I did a search to see what extent a user can access Notes online. Seems like generally the same thing as Outlook - check your email and probably a bit more (sorry if I'm wrong). Google is doing a lot of things right -- that's been said so many times it almost a cliche. I remember when Gmail Hosted was first announced a couple months ago, the buzz was huge. I can't help but feel IBM needs to take advantage of an opportunity like this rather than debating the need to be different.

   Let's take the iSeries as an example, up in Toronto companies lease out space on servers that are housed on IBM property. Why can't the same ideas be adapted to notes? Keep all the nsf files in a central IBM location, create a strong web-based access point, and give each user a large amount of space. Hard drive space is a commodity; I could buy a terabyte for less than $700. At this point IBM becomes the notes administrators and could be better positioned to argue upgrades like more space per user, etc.

   To go back to original point about Janet, web-based computing today is at an inflection point, as servers were back in the early 80s. Larry Ellison (founder/CEO Oracle) saw the move from main frames to servers in 1977, we caught up, but in this case we could be more prepared.

   Forgive me if I'm way off, just giving my opinion from the outside looking. I tried to do some quick research before typing this, but I didn't find anything mentioned above.

1. 25  Ian Randall http://www.emsoft.com.au | 4/12/2006 1:33:23 AM

   There are multiple issues being discussed here:

   1) How to simplify Lotus Notes email for end users who don't need all of the bells and whistles while keeping all the good stuff for more advanced users.

   2) How to meet the compliance issues that many organisations are legally bound by in different States and Industries.

   3) How to overcome the file size limitations that many end users face in many corporate networks.

   For the first point, perhaps Lotus or the OpenSource Community could consider developing different skins for the Notes Mail interface (plain and simple, Outlook like, GMail like etc.). In that way, we could match the user interface preferences of different types of users.

   The second point of legal compliance is a question for each organisation to develop a strategy that matches their compliance requirements in the different locations and industries that they operate in.

   The last point could be addressed by better educating Administrators about alternatives to draconian measures to limit the file sizes of end users mail boxes. There are many organisations that provide "outsourced" Domino Hosting services which ouganisations could use rather than to host their email in-house. These outsourced services can meet all of the same compliance issues that in-house hosted systems provide. These external services provide a cheap way of providing almost unlimited file sizes. They also have dedicated experts available to maintain updates and patches, provide virus and spam protection and data backup and disaster recovery services. There are almost too many options available.

   I am a long time Lotus Notes email user and love the product deeply, however we need to address the real needs of all end users, not just the technically proficient end of the market.

1. 26  Pete Wilson  | 4/12/2006 6:44:57 AM

   > different skins for the Notes Mail interface (plain and simple, Outlook like, GMail like etc.)

   Oooooo. I love it. Probably not possible, but I love the idea. If Hannover has the "promised land" GUI, then maybe it won't matter. As said before, test early, test often...

   Pete

1. 27  Alan Lepofsky http://www.alanlepofsky.net | 4/12/2006 8:42:28 AM

   To play Devil's Advocate for the moment regarding "different looks for different users"... over the years some people have expressed concerns that Notes is actually "too flexible"! For example the "Customize this view" feature can allow users to make Notes applications look different than the original design. So picture the HelpDesk call... User: "I am having a problem with my mail"... Support: "Which level of Notes UI are you using, and which skin do you have applied".. User:"Which what?..." As you can see, this could add an extra layer of issues for support! I'm not saying I am against the idea, just letting you know that making different versions may not be the answer.

1. 28  Hynek Kobelka www.pylonware.com | 4/12/2006 10:00:19 AM

   @26/27

   Skins would be nice, however the ability to "hide" specific functions in a Notes Client would be really great. Ideally it could even be policy based so the admin could decide which user needs what.

   It is a fact that many users only use very few features (read,write mail) and they are distracted (and sometimes lost) with features they don't use and understand.

   If someone has a client installed on his desktop on the office. Why does he need local replication features ? -- Hide them

   The right-click-menu is too bloathed - let us simplyfie it on a database basis

   If someone only uses notes for mail then he need not to know anything about "databases","locations","replica" etc. -let us disable/hide all these Menu-Items which he never needs.

1. 29  Ed Brill www.edbrill.com | 4/12/2006 10:26:43 AM

   Not to go too far off topic, but "If someone has a client installed on his desktop on the office. Why does he need local replication features " -- a lot of Notes shops run all users from local replicas, regardless of desktop/laptop/mobile etc.

1. 30  Samuel deHuszar Allen  | 4/12/2006 12:14:52 PM

   @22 Why LEARN from Google when you can just cross-license. I think it's silly to try and make Lotus reinvent the wheel when in its modus is modular services, why not just allow the option to drop in Google search algorithyms not just from Google Desktop, but as a programmable Lotus/JavaScript object that can be included in your average Domino apps?

   Certainly Lotus could learn a lot from Google in terms of paring down bloat, and Google could probably learn a lot from replication / sync methods and security infrastructures. And it would give IBM more ammunition to talk tall about embracing Open Standards.

   Because Google's primary income is generated from Ads, and not sales or services, they are a hard company to compete with because they transcend the traditional rules of the software market. They just announce a new beta and say, "Come & get it!" And everyone comes & why wouldn't they?

   So why fight them? It's not like Google is going try and take on Lotus in the collaborative market anytime soon. Cross-license and integrate before they get that far. It would certainly piss off Microsoft, whose chief executives are wont to throw chairs at Google's every success, and resort to brainwashing their children in an vain and silly attempt to prevent the use of their code. And let us not forget that it always makes great copy. :)

   Our biggest complaints about Notes & Domino, barring UI, tend to boil down to ancient services that would either become even more horrendously bloated if updated, to preserve legacy support, or functions which have been superceded by open-source or freely available products which are near impossible to compete against directly.

   So instead of updating the HTTP engine to the point where it can properly render CSS and standards compliant xhtml strict 1.0, just drop in an Apache plug-in and give people the option to choose one or the other based on legacy support needs. Or choose to use Google's search algorithyms instead of the stock search engine based on Legacy support needs.

   I'm sure it's a lot more complicated than all that, but if Lotus is going to be able to compete against the Open-Source revolution which is unfolding, it's going to have to bend like a reed and utilize it instead of try and withstand it like Microsoft seems intent on doing. Something they seem to be dabbling in here and there... but not as much as they could be.

   My $.02

1. 31  Alan Dalziel  | 4/12/2006 12:33:11 PM

   I'm intrigued to see the discussion about "draconian measures to limit the file sizes . . " and such. One of the issues I see over and over is that users maintain their mail databases as file storage systems and this, in my view, is the wrong way to use email. I've used and administered Notes for 13 years ot so and as far as I can remember my mail database has rarely if ever been larger than 75MB. I have adopted a practice of using email for conversation and "putting it on the record" but I frequently extract attachments and store them on my local machine or file server.

   I think administrators need to look for a way to push a shift in the culture of email usage to stop using it as a file store. I've seen problems created thanks to people storing what they think is the latest version of documentation in their mail database when the 'real' version resides on a file server for many other users to see. I know there are a few practitioners out there who are trying to start a movement towards using email in a more structured and efficient manner but there are very few "champions" of such visions in the business world, more is the pity.

   As for the gmail vs Notes discussion in features etc, it's a comparison of apples and an a la carte dinner. One is simple, satisfying and there's only so much you can do with it. The other is open to personal preference, interpretation and appetite so it can bring out myriad variations with (most) diners enjoying the experience, however complex the options may be.

   Does anyone know what the backend architecture is for gmail? And how do you customize features for corporate requirements?

   I guess that was more like $0.03 :-p

1. 32  Samuel deHuszar Allen  | 4/12/2006 12:40:44 PM

   ...oh and for simplification... why not just keep only the configuration tools a typical email or calendar client has available and leave the rest to be done in the Admin client.

   For those who have Notes for personal use, it allows them to get set up quickly, and keeps all the deployment stuff that an Admin would have to do anyway away from the user, simplifying the user experience in Notes (i.e. only having to deal with the apps), and simplifying the Admin experience because they have total control over the client experience.

   And where there are folks like us who do both Client and Admin work, the only difference would be that we don't have to worry about setting up configuration settings in multiple places, just make everything policy-based from the start and everyone will be happy.

   Unless there are people who LIKE to do both server-side and desk-by-desk client configurations. In which case I'm speechless.

1. 33  ParadiseFound http://www.paradisefoundbermuda.com | 4/12/2006 2:25:13 PM

   Ed, somewhat related, but 456 Berea Street has an interesting article about CSS support in email clients, and Notes doesn't come off too well.

   { Link }

   They reference this study:

   { Link }

   But I am not sure what version of Notes was actually being tested (I have asked the question myself, but have not had an answer).

1. 34  Ed Brill www.edbrill.com | 4/12/2006 2:43:55 PM

   I left a comment and sent an e-mail to determine what version of Notes was examined there. I doubt it was current.

   Please use a valid name and e-mail address in the future or your comments will be removed. Thanks.

1. 35  George A. Papayiannis http://www.sematopia.com | 4/12/2006 4:09:49 PM

   @30

   "Why LEARN from Google when you can just cross-license."

   I don't think it's that simple. Google is not the altruistic company people think it is. A little while ago GDrive speculation began. Its known that Google is going around to various Universities and having them scrap their in-house implantations and move to GMail (Hosted).

   "It's not like Google is going try and take on Lotus in the collaborative market anytime soon."

   Why wouldn't they? Their solidifying a strong position in the email market. Within 6 months after they launched GMail they had 15% of all online email users. I'm sure that number is much higher by now. With GDrive in the works (unlimited online storage) and the rumoured online Office-type suite coming... taking on IBM and collaboration is around the corner.

   Google is going from individual users to SMBs, which is a lot easier than IBMs move from large corporations down to SMBs. The reason, its seems IBM gets stuck in rigid views as to what our customers want, while Google works from an individual perspective and scales up from there.

   I don't think this is a question of making modular services, but designing a new web-based alternative to desktop notes.

1. 36  Samuel deHuszar Allen  | 4/12/2006 4:44:58 PM

   @31 I think Gmail is just an AJAX app. I would imagine it runs off of Apache of some other light-weight webserver with asynchronous javascript support. If anyone knows better please correct me.

   @34 I dunno, Notes has only been able to correctly render a small fraction of CSS rules. Even in 7, unless you're using WebAccess, or building a web-only Domino app, CSS is not really usable for page formatting.

1. 37  Samuel deHuszar Allen  | 4/12/2006 5:00:43 PM

   @35 Google has a LOT of infrastructure building before they're ready for a head on fight with Notes. Personally, I'd love to see them do it, because that will certainly push innovation from IBM and other vendors. My point was, while there's still time before Google's got an implementation, why not just work out a licensing agreement with them?

   It's not like all their API's aren't publicly available with a quick registration. I'm just recommending that IBM take some initiative and get permission to distribute LotusScript and JavaScript classes which are prebuilt around the API, so that developers wouldn't have to repeat the effort over and over again. Google doesn't sell software or services, they accumulate revenue though context associative advertising. Their products aren't open-source, but they are free as in beer. So IBM would only have to get permission (i.e. pay for the privilege with cash or tech transfer) to distribute that API, but encapsulated in a way that would be useful only to the Notes/Domino world.

   As for Apache, that is open source, though admittedly I don't know how the Apache license differs from the standard GPL license. But so long as the source code of the plug-in were at least available upon request, or from a public webpage, IBM could use the engine if it were so inclined to do so. There are sure to be technical hurdles in getting it to work render Notes objects, but I have faith that it could be done, & would be easier than dragging the aging Domino http service into the 21st century.

1. 38  Ian Randall http://www.emsoft.com.au | 4/12/2006 6:37:18 PM

   I have reconsidered my suggestion about using skins or adding the ability to hide functionality in the current Notes Mail template.

   Perhaps a better suggestion is for Lotus or the Open Source community to develop another much simpler Notes mail template, one that only incorporates the bare bones of features and functions commonly used by end users. In that way Administrators support effort would be simpler. After all they control what databases get supported on the server. By providing more than one Mail template, Lotus would cater for moth extremes of the market, simple end users and power users.

1. 39  George A. Papayiannis http://www.sematopia.com | 4/13/2006 12:40:28 AM

   @14

   "And it will gain features (calendar is next)"

   It just did tonight :) check it out: www.google.com/calendar

1. 40  Charles Robinson  | 4/13/2006 10:50:16 AM

   @39 - Wow. IBM should be very, very afraid. Google now has mail, calendaring/scheduling, and IM. Add in resource reservations, private discussion forums and document libraries and that's the core of what SMB's use Notes for. Not that I'm a huge fan of a web browser as a GUI generally speaking, but it is getting interesting.

1. 41  Ed Brill www.edbrill.com | 4/13/2006 11:11:51 AM

   @40 i think that's what vowe said too at { Link } ...vowe is a good mother. Interesting to watch.

1. 42  Stuart Hunter  | 4/17/2006 12:42:26 PM

   >>It is a fact that many users only use very few features (read,write mail) and they are distracted (and sometimes lost) with features they don't use and understand.>>

   Funny, never hear the same thing said about Microsoft Word despite it being true. Wonder if Ben uses WordPad to do his simple word processing.