Ed Brill

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1. 1  Mathias Persson  | 3/8/2006 5:35:52 AM

   Well... "Computer Sweden" to me is "Microsoft Sweden". But maybe just because MS is so good at "feeding" them "news"... As I may have mentioned before, I think IBM/Lotus in Sweden need to step up and be more proactive! We haven't been spoiled with that for many years...

   //Mathias

1. 2  Ed Brill www.edbrill.com | 3/8/2006 5:38:26 AM

   I'm looking at a list right now of the Lotus-related coverage in CS...five articles in the last six months. I don't think that's too bad for one IBM product over that time... and hopefully there will be more.

1. 3  Ronny Hogland http://www.i-seven.com | 3/8/2006 9:39:53 AM

   Hi Ed,

   First of all, thanks for a good presentation in Stockholm today.

   I think you are doing a great job.

   As we know, at the moment there is a big pressure from Microsoft at the market right now. They do everything to gain market share. Lying about "magical migraters" and other things. We need more guys from IBM like you telling the truth to the media and market. I think facing Microsoft is the best strategy. Show how wrong they are.

   The truth will always win.

   "Notes is alive and kicking more than ever!"

1. 4  Patrik  | 3/8/2006 10:00:01 AM

   I am a swedish Notes professional that have worked with this awesome product for 7 years. Through the years I have often felt that Notes/Domino has been misunderstood, unappreciated and invisible within the IT-community. IBMs roadmap and positioning of the product has also been weak.

   I work at a large company and we have hundreds of Notes systems, and there have been serious discussions about replacing these. I have opposed it loudly because I honestly beleive it would have been a sad waste of time and money.

   But the tides are turning. The message is now clear from IBM and the already good product have also improved significantly.

   The Notes 7 release was very good and I really anticipate Hannover - A Notes client for Linux with browsing capabilities and other good stuff. How about that! We did the right thing to stick with Notes.

   I agree with the former speaker about Computer Sweden. It is very Microsoft biased. As for it's Notes/Domnio coverage the only article I can recall is one a few weeks ago about how "easy" it now is to migrate Notes applications thanks to the new migration tools avaviable from Microsoft. The where released but still not in reality. I've about this mess on your blog. And I can really not say that CS has done anything to dispute the FUD they let Microsoft spread in their paper.

   CS is the paper EVERYONE working with IT read in sweden, so to keep them "well informed" should be a high priority for you IMHO.

   Finally I would like to thank you and congratulate you! Keep up this good work, and don't deal with lies even if being lied about!

   /Patrik

1. 5  Christer Eklundh  | 3/8/2006 10:13:37 AM

   I have a good idea, redirect www.idg.se (Computer Sweden) to www.edbrill.com...

   :-)

1. 6  Ed Brill www.edbrill.com | 3/8/2006 11:05:42 AM

   @3 / @4 / @5 -- these are great comments and I assure you, there are many eyes reading them. Other observations?

   I met with Computer Sweden this afternoon, hopefully we will see more Lotus coverage in the coming days.

1. 7  Christer Eklundh  | 3/8/2006 11:16:29 AM

   Great news Ed, I am looking forward to read about it in Computer Sweden. Thanks for the good event today in Stockholm and good look in Oslo.

1. 8  Erik Rydberg  | 3/8/2006 1:25:24 PM

   To be honest, Computer Sweden can be critical of Microsoft as well. Mostly from an open source-angle. If I remember correctly Computer Sweden is using Notes themselves and not only for mail. I think @1 is right, Microsoft is very good at planting news (as are a few others) and IBM in Sweden are not that good.

1. 9  Karl Martinsson  | 3/8/2006 5:17:11 PM

   Ed: I am glad you like the article. I was mostly making a little joke about the title, but you have to agree that the title does not say much about your actual job. ;-)

   I actually wrote three articles from Lotusphere, two covering actual annoucements and one about a Swedish company winning the "Best Industry Solution" award.

   The important thing for IBM/Lotus (and everybody else) to remember is that you can not sit and wait for journalists to "find" the news. Contact them, show them products, talk to them. But do not overload them with junk. Know which journalist at a particular publication that write about development tools and who write about storage. I am getting 3-4 e-mail each week from IBM PR, very few of them cover items I am interested in. A good PR agent know the journalists and their beats, and make "surgically strikes", not "shock-and-awe", to use military terms. :-)

   @1 /@4: I don't agree that Computer Sweden is "Microsoft biased" or "Microsoft Sweden". I have been hearing that since I started working there in 1993. The reason you see more about Microsoft in CS are several. First, Microsoft have more products, and thus will get more coverage. Second, if they lie or present FUD, it can be hard for the journalists to figure that out. Most journalists do not have a technical background. When I started at CS in 1993, I was the first one being a programmer/developer (or "hacker" as they called me), everybody else had exams from journalist schools. And third, Lotus (later IBM) have not a history of using the best PR agencies, at least not in Sweden. For a couple of years (circa 1994-98?), they used a very good PR Agency, where the PR consultants were very technically knowledgable and knew what journalist to approach for what subject. In a yearly vote among Swedish IT journalists, Lotus went from 25th to second and then to first place among best PR. After the IBM integration in the late 90's, Lotus started using the same PR agency as IBM.

   @8: That is correct, Computer Sweden have been using a Notes-based editorial system since the fall of 1997, and it is still in use with just minor modifications. It have also been used for web publishing, but I believe it is now replaced by another, parallel system. The editorial system was actually written in just 3 weeks by one developer/journalist (which happened to be me, right before I moved to the US to work as a full-time Notes developer for IDG in Boston).

1. 10  Patrik  | 3/9/2006 10:34:23 AM

   About Karls answer to @1, @4: One thing I have learned is that Microsoft twists and angles stuff more than other companies. And I am not the only one to notice. In recent years it has even received it's very own term - FUD. So what I would do if I where a journalist is to, frankly, do my job! And that is not to copy paste press releases into my articles, but to critically evaluate the information and seek other sources and opinions. And I would be extra thorough with it if i was an MS press release because of the above. That is what we pay you for when buying the paper. The reasons you mention are not valid exuses. You are only letting us know that you think journalists should not do their job.

   And no, I do not beleive Microsoft have more products than IBM. IBM is a much bigger company with a yearly revenue of $91.1 billion USD compared to $39.79 billion USD for Microsoft.

   ({ Link } and { Link }

1. 11  Karl Martinsson  | 3/9/2006 3:56:36 PM

   Patrik,

   You are right when it comes to the revenue/size of IBM vs. Microsoft. I was mainly thinking about software products that are (more or less) relevant to the general public. I am sure that your revenue numbers include AS/400 and other hardware, as well as consulting.

   I think that if you look in say Computer Sweden, you will find more articles about IBM products in general (if you include hardware and services).

   When it comes to "doing your job", when you have a publication like Computer Sweden that is published 3 times/week, you don't have the luxury to investigate everything you hear from different vendors. You will see quite a bit of articles based mainly on press releases, press meetings and interviews. If the journalist is not an expert on the subject, he/she will most probably just report what information the vendor is presenting.

   I know for sure that at least at Computer Sweden, there is no copy-paste of press releases into articles. But for obvious reasosn, the information presented in the press release has to go into the article, and sometimes there are only a few ways to put it down in writing.

   In many instances, when it is just a new product/tool/service being released, the only thing that the journalist should do it to write a small notice about it. Or would you like to read a product notice like this:

   --------

   Microsoft is releasing a new version of it's development tool Visual Studio. The new version, VS2005, will be available in June, and will cost $599.99. But the interface is ugly and J2EE is much cooler, so download Eclipse instead, for free.

   ---------

   That does not seem like a serious article, does it? Sometimes you just report the facts.

   In a case like the Domino-to-Exchange Migration Tool, how do you think a journalist would be able to actually test it? Even if the journalist had access to a Domino server with templates, you can't test every product you write a small notice about. But when other testers are starting to report that the tool is not working, then you have a great article.

   By the way, did you know that FUD was originally created to describe the strategies of... guess who... IBM? ;-)

   { Link }

1. 12  Patrik  | 3/10/2006 3:24:13 AM

   I hear what you say. I am a Notes fan. You have to remember that.

   >By the way, did you know that FUD was originally created

   >to describe the strategies of... guess who... IBM? ;-)

   No, I did not! How ironic :-)

   >But when other testers are starting to report that the

   >tool is not working, then you have a great article.

   Indeed. I'm looking forward to reading it, if it gets written.

   Regards /Patrik

1. 13  Mats Jansson  | 3/17/2006 9:48:23 AM

   Hi Ed

   today You are in CS again talking about activity centric idea of Hannover.

   Ed Brill, globalt säljansvarig för Lotusprodukter på IBM.

   english: "Global salesmanager for Lotus-products in IBM"

   not so ambiguous ?

   br

   Mats