Ed Brill

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1. 1  Volker Weber http://vowe.net | 3/17/2009 4:14:27 AM

   Is it April Fool's already?

   "We expect the majority of the students will take advantage of it and download the Lotus Symphony software"

   You mean, they can actually DOWNLOAD it for FREE, while the rest of the world can only DOWNLOAD it for FREE?

1. 2  Ed Brill http://www.edbrill.com | 3/17/2009 4:30:35 AM

   Marketing is a funny thing sometimes, isn't it. You get attention by doing what you are normally doing. This is called a win.

1. 3  Klaus Terman  | 3/17/2009 5:07:07 AM

   Maybe IBM should consider giving away free Lotus Notes/Domino packages to uni students instead.

1. 4  Volker Weber http://vowe.net | 3/17/2009 7:15:11 AM

   The interesting thing is, that IBM does just that, and nobody knows about it. { Link }

1. 5  Karsten Vendler  | 3/17/2009 7:27:50 AM

   Exactly we need more off that marketing, the Lotus Domino/Notes community is getting older and older, and the students all no all about M.....oft or Linux when they graduate, but nothing about Lotus Domino/Notes.

   IBM could give away older versions for free, or better yet IBM could host a "student site" where all the students could get a free login and from there get a Notes client, sametime, Symphony, quickr, and stuff they need to study, so when they graduate they already no Lotus products, this really would give a boost

1. 6  Klaus Terman  | 3/17/2009 9:25:08 AM

   @Volker - thats funny! At Dannotes we had a meeting with an IBM education representative and we asked why IBM didn't give away their software to students. She must have not known because she didn't tell about the academic initiative, maybe they don't even know themselves ?

1. 7  Klaus Terman  | 3/17/2009 9:30:20 AM

   Seems the academic initiative is restricted though. Its not for students but "Faculty members and researcher professionals". Guess that doesn't include students ?

1. 8  Volker Weber http://vowe.net | 3/17/2009 11:01:18 AM

   Ed was asked the question at LCTY in Munich. It was actually more a demand than a question, with the reasons <ou brought forward. Here is a press release from last August { Link } talking about Quickr and Connections. Ten years ago there was a free version of Notes for non-commercial use in Germany, which became quite popular. I am not sure that could be repeated today though.

1. 9  Ed Brill http://www.edbrill.com | 3/17/2009 5:38:37 PM

   I am not an expert on the Academic Initiative and when it grants licenses and when it does not. Will see if I can get some clarity, but regardless, the point is well-taken.

1. 10  Volker Weber http://vowe.net/about | 3/17/2009 6:58:34 PM

   It may be of interest to look at what Msft is doing with Dreamspark: https://www.dreamspark.com/

1. 11  Michael de Haas  | 3/18/2009 2:33:32 AM

   A big reason for dreamspark is to get students a windows live login. Or do "all students already have one" anyway?

1. 12  Ken Lin http://kenlin.com | 3/18/2009 8:37:49 AM

   My kids have gone through our local public elementary, middle, and high school using MS Word and Powerpoint. They start such assignments in school and can then continue working on them in class or at home (which most seemingly do). When I asked teachers if the school arranged Office discounts for students, they said they had never heard of it. For a while I had my kids using OpenOffice (this was several years ago) but they weren't comfortable with it so we reverted to MS Office. I had to give up that thread.

   Aside - When my son was in about 4th grade he had to create Powerpoint slides, which reminded of this great skit - { Link }

1. 13  Michael Kobrowski  | 3/18/2009 9:53:15 AM

   @9 and @10

   I don't know www.dreamspark.com, but I have been telling everybody at IBM who listens to me, or pretends to at least ;), that Microsoft is doing a HUGE deal with www.techsoup.org.

   Thats for non-for-profit organizations (libraries, museums, community organizations, etc.)

   Would be perfect for Lotus Foundations AT LEAST, esp with the new announcement of the optional productivity tools.

   Imagine a non-for-profit organization could run their main system without the help of a Microsoft server admin/contract! (or without a Linux guru...)

1. 14  Steven Kennett  | 3/18/2009 2:35:15 PM

   As most have said a thousand+ times before, there needs to be a 'Lotus Notes Express', which basically only does simple sending and receiving of email. (but looks like the normal client (Basic) as far as design goes)

   This can be downloaded for free like Symphony, that would be a great boost for Lotus I am sure.

1. 15  Ed Brill http://www.edbrill.com | 3/18/2009 3:08:49 PM

   @14 and as I've said when the topic has come up, I remain unconvinced that, in an era where most consumers are moving their e-mail to web-based mail services, there is limited demand for a net-new personal e-mail client.

   I do support the notion of needing a free offering to make us visible with consumers, and Symphony (with tools like LotusScript support) is a great entry point for this.

1. 16  Klaus Terman  | 3/19/2009 5:17:06 AM

   I agree that the symphony freebies are a good thing but being a yellow bleeding notes developer I would love to see young people demand some Lotus products instead of .net, sharepoint, Visual Studio, Outlook etc. ....

   I still think that IBM without loosing $$$ could give Lotus products to students.

1. 17  Steven Kennett  | 3/19/2009 6:07:35 AM

   @15 I agree that most people now have web based mail, however I do still think that a large number of people download their email to a local client such as Outlook Express. Especially when you sign up with an ISP such as BT and install a bthome hub it sets up the account in Outlook for you.

1. 18  Karsten Vendler  | 3/20/2009 4:04:50 AM

   @12 and @16 my point exatcly the young poeple off today grow up knowing MS sofware, why not let them have the same benefits with Lotus products.

   Ed you now being closer to the top, mayby you can influence them. :-)