Ed Brill

Eric Mack: GeekTD: Why don’t people get Notes?

August 27 2006

Eric Mack has an excellent question, and it's the basis for so many of the Lotus community discussions in the last few weeks:

David asked me what percentage of Lotus Notes I thought people who use Notes really "get." I proposed 20%. David said that in his experience it was less than 10%. I hope we are both wrong. Either number, if true, represents a missed opportunity. We had some interesting discussions on the topic of Lotus Notes as a powerful tool for organizational productivity and why David and I think it's cool. I have to admit that as we discussed other general geek productivity topics, such as "how do you sync your projects and actions between multiple computers?" or "do you use unified messaging?" I couldn't resist the temptation to hold up one of Merlin's 3x5 cards, upon which I'd quickly written ... "USE NOTES!"

Clearly this isn't a problem unique to Notes -- it's a problem with the 80/20 rule in software in general. Some Notes shops leverage the heck out of it and run tons of mission-critical apps....others use it as e-mail and calendaring, and an occasional discussion or document library. The Lotus Domino Solutions Catalog and Lotus success stories are designed to increase the visibility of how companies do more with Notes, but I suspect these resources are underutilized. Aside from the ongoing applications-in-the-box, and the ever-popular "more advertising", I'm open to suggestion for other ways to help more people "get" Notes.

Link: Eric Mack: GeekTD: Why don't people get Notes? >

Ed Brill Highland Park, IL USA Category: Lotus Add/View Comments [72]

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1 Keith Brooks http://www.keithbrooks.com | 8/27/2006 8:25:18 PM
Speaking as someone who has been in and out of Lotus and Fortune 100 companies running Lotus since 1993 I must agree with you. The gamut runs from just email to heavy app usage leveraged by an excellent directory and security presence (ACLs). Most users are just undereducated. Learning on the fly doesn't help the over35/40 group these days.

Now do I use 90% of it, not at home, in corporate, probably 75%, but that is because I veer away from programming stuff, although I do create agents and all.

One thing I have noticed is the reliance on the group lists for email distribution has never changed, it is probably the most common used item!

Yet this excellent feature suffers from a number of UI/functionality issues.

1)For instance, on the fly creation of the user to a group because I received an email from them and need to add them.

2)Verification! How do I know when EVERY email was sent? Even the mail log will not tell me unless I do verbose logging.(From my wife who always needs to resend mails because of this "issue")

3)Auto name deletion to local NAB from server NAB. I know this sounds like whinning but really if you killed a user from the Directory, why can't my local sync or be part of Adminp too?

Also there has been issues emailing large groups on various versions. I call these anomalies because if I have 3 mail boxes, all using the same mail template, one box always has problems emailing groups, the others don't.

Reasons to hate Notes? No, just pet peeves which would make some people happier. um, what was the question again?

C U In Orlando!

2 David Allen http://www.davidco.com | 8/27/2006 11:09:36 PM
Ed/Eric et al,

Since my good friend Patricia Seybold turned me onto Notes in the early 90's shortly after she had convinced Anderson to buy in, I have been fascinated by the power inherent in the simple informal distributed conversation it so supported. And amazed how few people have ever really taken advantage of it. Just to have a shared database only accessible to me and my wife, and to be able to have my own solo-accessible database that I can use to multi-categorize any digital information, is worth whatever investment Notes requires. And almost nobody in distributed Notes environments I've encountered knows they could do this. Fascinating.

3 Dan Sickles http://dansickles.blogs.com | 8/27/2006 11:12:22 PM
Too much time spent Telling people what it can do, not enough time Showing them what it can do.

Not implementing high quality/high business value apps early on.

Not aggressively promoting Notes integration capabilities and multi-language APIs.

Not educating users on Notes capabilites. Often, training is done by a training department that knows EMail and specific applications but not Notes. Make someone in training a Notes power user.

4 Peter Ellenby http://qplace.lnb.com.au/lugmelbourne | 8/28/2006 12:14:15 AM
Why don't people "Get" Notes - perhaps we all need to understand what "Get" means - presumably it mean successful, comprehensive implementations of Notes being used to the fullest extent.

For my experience, published papers and research provides a good guide to CSF's for successful implementations of Intranets, and I suggest this is a good area to start .... use research opportunities to determine what makes a site successful and what factors lead it to be less so.

A PhD or sponsorship of a University study might be a good approach here ....

5 Justin Ord | 8/28/2006 1:38:51 AM
In my experience user awareness and education plays a vital role in driving the “get factor” of Notes and Domino to the business and assisting people to understand the power of Notes / Domino.

@3 I agree with the “Too much time spent Telling people what it can do, not enough time Showing them what it can do. ” statement, however, to often I get the “I didn't know Notes could do that” response from users after showing them what Notes is capable off.

In my personal opinion business partners and support staff should really take the initiative to show the business just what Notes can do, even the most simple of applications can to spark new ideas in the business that can be implemented very successfully in Domino.

Help people to “get” it :)

6 Thilo Hamberger | 8/28/2006 3:36:32 AM
Don't do registrations on the downloadable showcases. :)

Seriously, I have a dream: IBM should show off the features in movies just like the SAP integration stuff. Then put them on a CD and send them to all customers and put them in all computer magazines. And this on a regular basis. Everybody can't wait until it gets published to see the new cool features that help people with their daily work. In the morning my boss jumps into my room and asks me why we are still on R6 when R7 can do so much more for us.

But then I wake up and go on with my presentation why Domain search and Sametime might be a good idea for us and actually help people instead of keeping them from work.

Conclusion: Bosses love simple and short movies that show how the competetion can do all the collaboration in no time.

7 Mick Moignard http://www.dominopower.com | 8/28/2006 4:38:12 AM
I think that the answer to this question is nothing to do with Notes itself, but is more in the way that the organisation in question works and is organised, and so whether it gets collaboration or not. Those that get collaboration almost certainly run Notes already. Those that don't get collaboration don't see the point of all that extra stuff beyond email.

People will only get Notes if they actually need to get the functionality it offers. If they don't see the corporate point of collaboration (which is an organisational and cultural thing, not a technological thing), then all the features that make great collaborative sense to you and me won't mean anything to them, and they'll never get it. Show them the collaborative light in terms of corporate agility, speed of product to market, and bottom line, and then, maybe, they'll get Notes.

8 Timothy Briley | 8/28/2006 8:28:07 AM
Ed,

Can you give us some numbers on the usage of Notes only for C&S at the user level, not the corporate level?

Specifically, what percentage of Notes users only use it for C&S. As an example, if Company A has 10,000 Notes users, but 9,000 of them only use it for C&S, and Company B has 6,000 users and 3,000 of them only use it for C&S, then the percentage would be ((9,000 + 3,000)/16,000*100)= 75% C&S only users.

So given the entire worldwide Notes community, what is the official IBM estimate of the percentage that only use Notes for C&S?

9 Chris Forrett | 8/28/2006 8:31:47 AM
I have been a Notes programmer for 10 years and have tried to get Notes into the SMB market during that time with little success. SMB customers have never heard of Notes so I have to explain it from the beginning. Because of that I have lost the battle against products from Microsoft before I even start.

These customers know a lot about Microsoft products and feel comfortable with Microsoft. All a Microsoft rep has to say is "we can do that" (whether it is true or not) and I have lost the sale. I feel Notes will never get a large portion of the SMB market with out IBM spending years of providing information to people in that market, such as free training and lots of advertising.

I am not a salesman but since microsoft is popular with this group my only guess is to give Notes away to every college possible to expose students to it and hope that helps later on and to give it away to SMB clients for years (because IBM is not selling a lot to them any way) with lots of advertising and free seminars on how to use it until you get the level of knowledge up. Then you can charge for it.

For those larger organizations that do use Notes, I think lots of free training from IBM would work.

10 Greg http://www.ibmeye.com/lotus-notes-sucks | 8/28/2006 8:38:11 AM
I agree with the comments so far... helping users and showing how to make their lives easier using notes is the best way to get folks beyond the 10% threshold. The ROI for a company doing this would be well worth it.

As far as the main thrust of the post -- that folks don’t use many features -- MS Office is the same way. The software is so large that no one could ever need all the features. This morning MSNBC ({ Link } ) talked about Google taking on notes and office with their online productivity suite. They aren't competing for the folks that use 90% or even 50% of the features. But most people use very few features... a mail merge is a voyage into the unknown, and Google is banking on winning with that (at least at first).

In my opinion, Notes also has a steeper learning curve than other apps as it doesn't use typical MS menus. Like it or not, that inhibits (some) people. Folks using notes forever would fly off the deep end if things changed too much, but non-standard menuing and an (arguably) clunky UI makes it tough for some users, particularly new users to venture beyond the 'must use' features.

11 Deleted | 8/28/2006 9:12:06 AM
Comment deleted -- invalid e-mail address

12 Charles Robinson http://cubert-codepoet.blogspot.com | 8/28/2006 9:17:20 AM
I agree that there needs to be some more specific discussion of what "get" means. It's one thing for management and users to understand the collaborative power of Notes. It's another thing for the technical staff to understand it to the degree they know what needs to be implemented in Domino to support the business' collaboration requirements. It's yet another thing to be able to decipher the documentation well enough to actually make things work.

For my users the single biggest barrier to "getting" Notes is the client UI. My users understand the concepts, but trying to remember all the bits to fiddle with in the UI to make it happen quickly frustrates them. Context menus are cluttered, toolbars sometimes get "stuck" until they click a different area of the screen, and the action bar in Mail wraps at 800x600 resolution.

From a technical perspective, I get lost when I try to configure some of the pieces of Domino. I'm both the Domino admin and Notes developer, so I don't have the time to fiddle with this stuff endlessly. In particular I've been stumped for years by server SSO, SSL, and statistic and event reporting. Concise documentation that targets specific functionality and walks through it end to end would be tremendously appreciated. Including troubleshooting steps would be a nice touch, too.

13 Peter Ward http://www.faiconsulting.com | 8/28/2006 9:25:23 AM
The problem, is that the customer is not a big technie., They want something simple very quickly.

Shame there’s not a Notes lite, to get them on the path

14 Joseph Hoetzl | 8/28/2006 10:00:52 AM
Poeple don't get Notes for a lot of reasons...one recent battle was because the Notes client doesn't ship with MS Office...where Lookout Lite comes with windows and the full lookout product comes with Office.

And if I could get that blasted three column layout working properly, more people would like Notes email!

They quickly forget that you need 15 different servers to do the sames thing with Exchange

15 Chris Forrett | 8/28/2006 10:35:35 AM
I like the idea of a noteslite. Make it a free download since Microsoft's mail client is free with the operating system.

Changing the GUI is good but as others have suggested it could confuse existing users. Would it be realistic to have two clients one with a new GUI and one with the old GUI or two GUI's in one client that you can switch back and forth.

That way you could update the new GUI all you want to be more current and user friendly but allow existing users to keep doing things the same way.

16 Steve Kobb http://www.stevekobb.com | 8/28/2006 10:41:59 AM
Ed --

I hate to be the one to say it, but your "Special Friend" already gave you the answer.

I refer here to the one-and-only Steve Ballmer, who famously got on a stage and shouted to the crowd...

"DEVELOPERS DEVELOPERS DEVELOPERS!"

Long ago, before IBM ever got into the picture, Lotus should have made it cheap and painless to learn the art of Notes application development. THEN, Lotus should have worked hard to ensure that newly-trained coders would find gainful employment.

So why don't people "get Notes"? Because they haven't seen what it can do. If you want the WOW factor, you need to get a developer involved... but there aren't a whole lot of those around, so IT managers all too frequently opt for some other solution.

17 Ed Brill http://www.edbrill.com | 8/28/2006 10:49:44 AM
Some good comments so far, thanks.

First, I'm intrigued that nobody has referenced the Solutions Catalog that I linked to. Was there even awareness that it exists?

Second, @8 Tim, don't have any such data (and not sure I could disclose it if I did). I believe it to be a minority of the market.

Third, the whole Notes lite thing -- it's pretty hard to compete with an Outlook Express that comes bundled with the operating system and Office. It would also take a fair amount of engineering to optimize the Notes client experience for a lite experience. We've tried it before, and it has been suggested many times. I'm still skeptical for a variety of reasons, mainly coming down to the notion that there are plenty of B2B-only suppliers in IT and otherwise (there's no SAP "lite", right? :-) ).

18 Chris Forrett | 8/28/2006 11:06:48 AM
@Ed Brill - comment 17 - There is not SAP lite.

What is your market? Not everybody needs to use SAP so I think it is not necessarily the best comparison but most business users would benefit from Notes.

This is not ment to sound harsh but since I focus on the SMB market your comment almost sounds like you only understand the fortune 100 market. As for the SMB market you are saying, well if you guys do not get it, that's your fault.

In my opinion if you want to sell to more than the F100 you need to make it simple and easy to understand.

19 Sean | 8/28/2006 11:09:54 AM
I've worked as a developer for the past 17 years, with the last 9 focussed upon Lotus Notes. From my experience, some of the reasons why people don't 'get' or 'dig' Notes are;-

(a) Notes is designed for 'collaboration'... however in many offices here in the UK the concept of collaboration isn't understood or implemented. In fact, in many cases people feel compelled to compete against their colleagues rather than collaborate with them.

(A sad comment of UK corporate life I'm afraid.)

(b) There is very little, if any, end-user training given. Instead end-users are supplied with cheat-sheets or internally produced manuals which they neither have the time nor inclination to read through. Users need 'Mac-sofware' (as in a certain fast-food chain) thats usuable immediately, without having to invest any time in how to use it first.

(Getting management to spend money on training can be akin to getting blood out of the proverbial stone..)

(c) The only people with a true appreciation of the capabilities of Notes within a company are the hard-core techies, principally the developers. Unfortunately these are at the bottom of the food-chain, and trying to convince middle-management to invest in Notes (or even get the opportunity to simply state the case) can be nigh impossible. This can be even more difficult when the competition lavishes corporate-hospitality in order to influence management decisions.

(d) End-users often have poor experiences of situation-specific (ie in-house/bespoke) Notes applications. Notes development isn't see as the leading-edge of software development and so it doesn't attract the highest calibre of developers. (The number of Notes developers I've worked alongside who have Computer-Science Degrees can be counted on the fingers of one foot...)

20 Ed Brill http://www.edbrill.com | 8/28/2006 11:16:25 AM
@18 as I've said many times, about half of the Notes business is from SMBs -- companies of <5000 employees. IBM has published Notes case studies for companies as small as seven employees. Most of the customers I talk to are well outside the Fortune 100. Don't assume that IBM always has a big company mindset.

21 Charles Robinson http://cubert-codepoet.blogspot.com | 8/28/2006 12:16:04 PM
@17 - I didn't know the Solutions Catalog existed, but I don't see what that has to do with "getting" Notes and Domino.

@20 - I don't want to drag this too far off subject, but with all due respect perhaps IBM should consider looking at what the rest of the world classifies as small and medium businesses: { Link } As that illustrates, 5,000 users is not small or medium to anyone but IBM. If IBM would embrace something more reasonable it would go a long way toward changing the perception that IBM is focused solely on big business.

22 Keith Brooks http://www.vanessabrooks.com | 8/28/2006 12:16:25 PM
um, Ed, an SMB defined as <5000 employees?

I believe that equates to IBM having a big company mindset.

SMB to most people IMHO is under 100, posibly under 250 in parts of the country.

5,000 is large, my current company has about 3,000 and I don't think they see themselves as an SMB.

Would IBM really say they are an SMB, definitely not by $$?

Over 11B in sales is an SMB?

23 Jess Stratton http://www.mattandjess.net | 8/28/2006 12:24:36 PM
In my opinion, I think people don't "get" Notes because they've been given no opporunities to relate to it. On all points, it's even hard to figure out that it's an actual tangible product. It needs to be related to something we can all understand.

On the Lotus products by category page, there's a link for: "Content Management" and "Information Integration" - If I click this link, am I going to a product, or an instruction manual? This is a concept. I have no idea how to relate to this.

Now if the word "database" was on that main page there, somewhere, *anywhere*, well, everyone knows what a "database" is. Everyone has a basic means to visualize what to expect from the word "Database". When you tell me about content management and you use words I recognize (and care about), then the "A-ha" light goes on.

I did find the word database eventually in the descriptions, which was great, but at that point, it's too little too late. I'm too confused and frustrated by that point. :-)

24 Chris Forrett | 8/28/2006 12:28:22 PM
I apologize for making it sound like the discussion is headed toward the SMB market but one possibilty is that not thinking that way may be part of the problem.

Assuming that users or the company have the budget or time to train themselves means that you may not put enough thought into what it might take to help users and decision makers understand the power of Notes. I am not saying you think that way intentionally. But trying hard not to think that way may help.

25 Ed Brill http://www.edbrill.com | 8/28/2006 12:42:42 PM
OK, let's look at a different number. The Express products (Notes/Domino ones) are restricted to companies of 1000 employees or less. Does that show IBM looking at things different from the 5000 employee level?

26 Stan Rogers http://stanrogers.blogspot.com | 8/28/2006 1:08:51 PM
... and Collaboration Express can be bought by the each. Not that it's easy to collaborate as a single person, but it can be done -- and for purty cheap when you consider what you get. One client license, pretty much unlimited servers ... and all to yourself.

27 Paul | 8/28/2006 1:14:23 PM
Why people don't "get" Notes:

1. The UI makeover is 10 years late, and may not go far enough in Hannover. Functions used often (e.g. add new correspondent to address book & enter their company) are rarely one click away.

2. Some concepts/terms are non-intuitive to normal people: Replication, Views instead of folders, Databases full of Documents, settings called "documents" instead of settings, options or preferences....

3. Notes's development environment and language design seem clumsy and primitive to anyone who's worked with anything like Turbo Pascal or newer.

4. Marketing hasn't highlighted hot features that Notes pioneered, e.g. PKI email security.

5. IBM (until recently?) seemed almost to limit the amount of read-world truth on config/performance publicly available. (Perhaps better to sell hardware or services?) Is IBM willing to publish IO specs for mail/calendar user populations like Exchange? How about Enterprise Mail NotesBench for Linux v Win2003 on identical hardware, tuned by experts on both? Why can I get a competitive Express bundle for Oracle or SAP on a p520Q - but not Domino?

6. Notes doesn't come out of the box with usable workflow apps, and too often potential users never see one. When they do, UI complexity/awkwardness can spoil perception.

7. Product managers pay more attention to the wants of Notes techies (to whom its perversities seem normal) than those of users (to whom they don't). Few decision-makers are Notes techies.

28 Samuel deHuszar Allen | 8/28/2006 1:15:51 PM
@20 & 25: Ed, that IBM does not have a small business mindset is not an assumption, but the day-to-day experience of most of us trying to pimp Notes out to our clients.

I primarily deal with small businesses of 30 people or less. And barring three companies, no one had ever HEARD of Notes. One of the companies who had heard of Notes was a former OS/2 user, and the other two thought it was a dead-end product.

Instead of re-stating my previous post, I'll send you back to this thread: { Link }

My comments start at @26. This is probably a more appropriate thread for those thoughts anyway.

The only thing I'd add to that is that the cost of entry for developers is pretty high.

While the overall cost of Microsoft products is much higher over the long run, most small businesses are too swamped, inexperienced and disorganized to do long-term cost-evaluations, and that's usually how Microsoft is able to snap 'em up quick.

Again, in your original post on this thread, you wanted to know what else IBM can be doing besides more advertising. My answer is to stop thinking about traditional advertising. That's where you lose the small businesses. They're not reading the trade journals or web-press releases. They've got their heads down trying to get their work done. You have to go where THEY are and put Notes, and all it's goodness + training tools + development resources right in front of their noses.

People "think Microsoft" because when they went to the computer labs every computer used MS Office, and all their homework had to be submitted in .doc or .xls format, and they use Outlook because it comes with Office, etc, etc.

IBM needs to be working with schools, non-profits, small-business incubators and do some ecosystem building. Get people used to the idea of Notes and what it can do BEFORE they're in the workplace.

29 Axel | 8/28/2006 1:24:50 PM
People don't "get" Notes, because they find other things to look nicer, shinier and happier. Maybe they enjoy more reading a car magazine or poems from the 19th century.

People are different. I like Domino, because its about to become the hugest Eclipse RCP application. My personal reasons I liked Notes for changed over the years. So did the things I did not like.

30 Chris Forrett | 8/28/2006 1:33:45 PM
Comment 28 explains the exact same experience I run into all the time. A very accurate and common experience for me.

31 John | 8/28/2006 1:53:52 PM
@25

Ed, you still don't get the SMB definition... an enterprise with up to 1000 employees is still a **large** enterprise over here in the UK. So, with the Express product aimed at companies with less than 1000 employees, there are a lot of larger European companies who feel they do not want a cut-down, Express product that the "proper-sized" Lotus products are aimed at the upper end of the large enterprise companies. These companies will look to other offerings, and mostly to our dear fiends at MS.

More needs to be done to reach out to the SMB market (ie, sub-250 employees) in the UK and other European markets.

... it's all about perception.

32 Samuel deHuszar Allen | 8/28/2006 2:10:37 PM
Wouldn't you know it! Kathy Sierra's blog has a VERY APPROPRIATE post today. Fits in perfectly with this thread. { Link }

...Oh! And an even more appropriate post here: { Link }

Ed, I'm telling you. You and Mary Beth (& anyone else involved with the necessary processes @ IBM) need to comb Kathy Sierra's blog. She's one of those people who "get it". Don't know if she's a Notes user or would "get" Notes, but if I were IBM, I'd hire her on a contract consulting basis to just look over current UI development cycles and get her feedback.

33 Timothy Briley | 8/28/2006 2:39:15 PM
@17, Ed

Since there are no hard numbers on the percentage of users who only use Notes for mail and C&S, then we are left with only our personal experience to go on. Your experience is that mail and C&S only users are a minority, but I also expect that you spend much more of your time with executives than with working stiffs.

My experience is that the majority of Notes users are working stiffs who only use it for mail and C&S. Pretty much everytime I meet someone, I ask what email client they use. If the answer is Notes, I ask them if they use it for anything besides mail and C&S. The vast majority reply "No".

If the user has only used Notes for mail and C&S, then he won't "get" Notes. If I'm right and more than half of Notes users only use it for mail and C&S, then most Notes users don't get it because they're never really seen it. My experience is that once they've seen a Notes application, they pretty quickly start coming up with ideas for new applications. But they have to see the first one.

34 Charles Robinson http://cubert-codepoet.blogspot.com | 8/28/2006 2:44:27 PM
@25 - Ed, it does show you're treating smaller companies differently, but not in a good way. There is a point of critical mass but it is set much too high today. It should be somewhere around 250, not 1000. There needs to be a more equitable licensing model for smaller shops that doesn't remove all the features that makes Domino worthwhile.

The Express offering is crippled and unusable by all but the smallest of shops: no partitions, no clusters, no directory assistance, no directory catalogs, no extended ACL, no NSFDB2, no SAP features. That further contributes to the perception that IBM doesn't understand what SMB's need. You have said before that there has to be a break in functionality somewhere, but I strongly disagree. What point is there in crippling Domino's biggest strengths?

35 Ed Brill http://www.edbrill.com | 8/28/2006 2:44:31 PM
@33 while I'm not sure I'm prepared to assume that your sample is more relevant than mine (I have visited Lotus customers in more than 25 countries, for example), your ultimate point of users needing to see the apps is well-taken.

36 Timothy Briley | 8/28/2006 3:02:24 PM
A slight correction on my part. In @33, I wrote:

"My experience is that once they've seen a Notes application, they pretty quickly start coming up with ideas for new applications. But they have to see the first one."

What I should have written is:

My experience is that once they've used a Notes application, they pretty quickly start coming up with ideas for new applications. But they have to use the first one.

I make this change because I don't think that seeing a Notes app is enough. I think that to "get" Notes, you have to use a Notes app.

@35 Ed,

Since IBM isn't collecting the data, a good question to ask your customers might be: "Of all your Notes users", how many use it for applications?" You might find that at many customers, out of the 5,000 users, only the 500 at the top of the food chain use it for applications. Or the answer might be 5,000 out of 5,000. Never know until you ask.

37 Karen | 8/28/2006 3:11:44 PM
I second @32's comment about Kathy Sierra. Getting her on board in any capacity - wow, that'd be a worthwhile investment. Also have to stand behind @23 - Jess's comments. Sorry I don't have more, but there's already a ton of good feedback here.

38 David Schaffer http://bloginprogress.us | 8/28/2006 3:44:34 PM
Slightly different take: I've been supporting Notes in a truly small company -- under 40 users -- for over ten years (glancing up on my System Administration 1 certificate dated October 1995). It drives me crazy that the users don't "get" Notes. But they don't "get" Windows either. They care about their work product and will do only the absolute minimum amount of learning needed to get that product out. But they also couldn't run around the world creating product without Notes. Replication is what makes Notes indispensable -- it should be front and center in the marketing. Everyone does "collaboration" these days. Nobody else gives you your corporate data on your laptop on an airplance and then replicates with no effort on your part when you get to a WiFi hotspot.

39 Henning Heinz | 8/28/2006 5:55:36 PM
- The client needs a better look

Sorry but the current UI is only attractive for conditioned long term Notes users, and not even all of those.

- Designer must be enabled to use more OS design

Notes applications look like Notes. A different design is more magic than development.

- Business Partners must do more than ordering licenses at IBM

Sorry to say but there seem to be business partners that seem to just sit and wait. If partners do not perform, IBM should support them, if they still do not perform they should not be Partners.

- A Notes CAL should include a right for home use, not only for the user but some kind of family license.

- No crippled anonymous HTTP access for Express

What does it cost for our cleaning woman to look at the daily menu generated by the Domino server?

Answer about 3.000 $.

- A Designer client for Express

Of course you can always complaign about pricing but I really think that Designer is too expensive. I think 399$ is a competitive pricing, preferable 299$ if I compare with Zend Studio. I really think that IBM is not selling a lot of Designer licenses although the CEO license is always a good excuse for not keeping track of that.

- better support for SQL databases.

DECS is not bad but it is not integrated into Designer and you cannot update outside of Notes (that is where LEI comes to play). Some customers always said that they did not know that Notes can do that. By the way I am quite sad about how DB/2 is integrated into Notes. I would be surprised if more than 20% of all customers will use it and that is sad because SQL has always been a missed feature.

- better HTML rendering

I know that might sound boring but I have seen Marketing managers that became very very angry when they saw what Notes did with their "fantastic, never seen before" newsletter compaign.

- have I mentioned better UI design?

I am disappointed myself sometimes that it is so important.

- Apache as HTTP server

There are situations when a company decides not to use Domino for the web. This often means that Domino is replaced with a LAMP configuration. That's a pity because at the end when the project is over you could come back through the backdoor.

Ok, I think we talk about Notes not Domino so I have another one that is important

- 3rd party sync of mobile devices.

I even do not think it should be free. 30$, 10$ renew is a good price. You can deliver it with the product but only activate it for an additional license fee. I would prefer a sponsored 3rd party approach as I do not expect that IBM is willing to dedicate many resources for a product that cost 30$ and is in the consumer market.

- I do not need better marketing

I think that you cannot sell Notes with "better" marketing. Notes is more about solutions and some kind of viral marketing. It does not help if every SMB starts to know Notes but they are not able to find partners that support it.

Having said that comments like

{ Link }

should not happen. Really, even if it is true just keep it secret. This is cheap food for conspiracy theorists like me.

- Dedicated product websites, a comeback of notes.net and dedicated support databases.

I know that the current approach has advantages but I think the IBM universe is just too big for this approach.

- I do not need Kathy Sierra

The people are already at IBM. It really is a pleasure to work with Domino Administrator nowadays. This seems to be more a question of priorities and budget for a certain task. For me it would be enough if Mary Beth Raven gets more resources instead of Kathy Sierra working for IBM.

- Notes needs something that it excels at.

Notes can do nearly everything but in most areas it is just a me-too approach (except maybe replication). The productivity components have the potential to fill this gap.

- better import and export filters

I can understand that the vendor lock-in approach still works but at least the import could be much better. Maybe Notes should create a Notes-SQL connector during install.

- Notes should have an alternate access method

NSF is cool but I would like to see Explorer integration with Drag & Drop aso. Many companies have Notes but their network drives are fully stuffed too. Some clever people use their email file as datastore but not every Administrator likes that. A better DNFS so to say. The best and easiest way to store your data should be nsf (or any other one data filestore that Notes uses). This also is a big advantages of products like VMWare or MS Virtual PC. You have just one file (the image).

If Notes would be able to manage the fileserver chaos that I see nowadays, that would be a real killer.

- embrace pdf

pdf is everywhere. I am not a big fan of pdf, probably because Acrobat writer is too expensive from my opinion but everyone uses it. A right click - Print on a pdf file, at least, would help.

- better printing support

20 years ago Notes has been designed to create the paperless office and although it is not Notes to blame for, people still print nowadays. I do not print much (and if I do I do it for legal reasons) but my customers love printing, users love printing. Printing should not be an excuse to write with Word. Again I have hope that the productivity components will help.

- Designer with the Client!?

I do not like the apps that people produced in V4 when the Designer was still integrated, it was a licensing nightmare too but this department level stealth development by Notes power users worked. I do not know if it would still work as Designer got more powerful since R4 and it is against the concept of policies and IT controls everything. But I still get those apps on my desk so some seem to be still in use today.

I could blow the text field limit of Notes with topics like this but I will better stop now.

40 Bernard Devlin | 8/28/2006 9:43:27 PM
This strikes me as a really, really strange question to be found on edbrill.com.

If IBM does not even keep statistics (even under NDA) about how people are using Notes, how can you even begin to wonder why people "don't get Notes"? The biggest IT company on the planet has no information about the usage of a product with a 20 year history and 100s of millions of seats. IBM does not know how people perceive and use Notes.

Businesses rely on an assumption that people will find their way around applications without training, and when it comes to Windows, IE, Office, Outlook they are not totally disappointed, since so many people have these products at home (or some part thereof). How many users are exposed to Notes in anything but the work environment? Notes must seem like an even more alien application to these people.

Looking at why SMBs "don't get" Notes is an issue about why management and developers don't get Notes. Notes is at an inherent disadvantage not only because of the training/familiarity issues, but because Notes is something of a unique product. Most other databases are architecturally very different from NSF. The formula language is a remnant of the days of spreadsheets and 'power users', and quite alien to most programmers.

Moreover, despite the availability of the Express offerings, as one poster points out, they are seriously missing in features (clustering, etc), features that can make Notes stand out from the crowd as far as a small business is concerned. Then there are the problems of buying licenses for Notes. I can walk into the Apple store, and buy a copy of WebObjects (Apple's Java applications server), or I can buy it from their website. If I try to go to the IBM web site and buy a copy of Notes/Domino, even as a CLP I can have trouble even finding product details. Moreover, there are times in the past where I've bought Notes and Domino licenses directly from IBM over the phone, and the sales staff have denied that those particular products existed, until I went and found the part numbers for them from the website!

Let's consider the larger companies. If a developer wants to write web apps using Domino but doesn't want to use the formula language, she has to use agents. Not only are there performance hits with agents, but the Designer IDE leaves quite a lot to be desired for writing either Java or Lotusscript agents. And in their infinite wisdom IBM decided that even though the world and his dog can at the very least use Tomcat as a servlet engine, Domino developers can't. We don't have to re-hash the removal of it in R6, but why not at least provide an IBM redirector to Tomcat? Because IBM can force us to use WAS instead (I don't care that there is a _limited_ license for that included in R6 and R7). Why would any web developer coming to Domino from the outside world "get Notes" when IBM is so clearly limiting what it can do? We're stuck with a crappy environment for developing servlets and a deliberately retarded servlet engine.

Where's the hard-copy documentation for Notes? Go into any bookstore and see how many books there are on Oracle, and then look for the Notes and Domino books. Where's IBM's attempt to appeal to the open source movement? They bought Geronimo to give it away as a lite version of Websphere. There's a free, 'community edition' of DB2. Where's the same thing for Domino? IBM could at least give free server and client licenses to universities - there could hardly be a more knowledge-intensive, collaborative, workflow environment. The original Plato system came from that environment. Cultivate relationships with those environments so that they can learn how to benefit from collaborative tools, and if it was done properly students would roll out year after year having _used_ Notes applications.

Of course, that is assuming that IBM really has any intention of pushing Notes as an application development platform (an assumption about which I have my doubts). Go to ibm.com and look under the following categories, and you will find no mention of Notes and Domino: 'content management', 'data analysis and business intelligence', 'databases', 'information integration', 'other data and information management', 'application servers', 'Organizational Productivity Portals and Collaboration'. The one category where you will find the majority of references to Notes and Domino is in the 'Messaging Applications' section. Notes and Domino could appear under many of the above categories, but IBM only position them under messaging. Looks to me that IBM doesn't "get Notes" either.

Notes application development is probably more niche now than at any time in its history. If it wasn't for the fact that there are so many problems with Exchange in terms of architecture and security, Notes would be even more of a niche product because less people would be using Notes for mail.

41 Ed Brill http://www.edbrill.com | 8/28/2006 10:20:02 PM
@40

If IBM does not even keep statistics (even under NDA) about how people are using Notes, how can you even begin to wonder why people "don't get Notes"? The biggest IT company on the planet has no information about the usage of a product with a 20 year history and 100s of millions of seats. IBM does not know how people perceive and use Notes.
I NEVER said that. I said that I don't have data at the user level for how many use Notes only for mail & C&S. I have tons of other data -- IBM runs an installed-base tracking study twice a year and it's over 100 pages long. Most of it is IBM confidential, though occasionally we share tidbits in presentations at Lotusphere or Partnerworld.

The rest of your comment is fairly insightful. There is no doubt we are at an inflection point as far as Notes/Domino development. "Hannover" is opening many new opportunities, with the same objective as some of your comments even if it is a different path.

42 Alan Lepofsky http://www.alanlepofsky.net/ | 8/28/2006 10:45:38 PM
@40. I agree with many of your comments, especially around Express missing some features, and that Domino should be listed on the main IBM Software page under Application Servers! However, I do want to point out that at least Domino Designer is listed as a Development tool { Link }

43 Henning Heinz | 8/29/2006 6:13:12 AM
Our apologies...

The Web application you are attempting to access is currently unavailable. Please try again later.

So no Lotus Domino Solutions Catalog for me today :-(

44 Bernard Devlin | 8/29/2006 7:57:34 AM
My reference to Geronimo in @40 should have been to Gluecode, but in acquiring Gluecode AFAIR IBM ended up employing most of the Geronimo developers, so in effect they bought Geronimo.

The open source movement (the great work of openNTF excepted) has almost no interest in Notes and Domino, and when Notes is mentioned in those environments it is mostly greeted with hostility. 10 years ago, the perceptions of those people might have been unimportant. But that movement has been able to force Oracle, Sybase, IBM, and Ingres to produce free or open source versions of their bread and butter servers. There is a huge amount of opinion-forming going on there, and the opinion of Notes and Domino is mostly bad (on the rare occasion when there is any reference to Notes and Domino).

@41, apologies Ed, if I am misinterpreting you. You might think that we are at an 'inflection point for Notes/Domino development', but I would argue that what is happening with Hannover/Eclipse might be of more importance for how Notes is perceived by managers, users and developers already using Notes. As far as the organizations and people who don't use Notes, they still won't "get Notes".

There is no 'buzz' about Notes from developers who are not already Notes developers. I know developers who when setting up their own consultancy business surveyed the market for tools and servers, and Notes was not even on the horizon. My guess is that there are very few new Notes developers who are not already employed by an organization already using Notes. Notes is a legacy product because of decisions by IBM.

@42, I know, I saw that that reference to Designer was just about the only other reference to Notes/Domino products for sale on ibm.com. Unfortunately there are about 33 other products on that page. Including other highly desired products such as Visualage for PL/1 and Visualage for Smalltalk... It would appear that designing applications for Domino was very niche compared to say using Rational products which occupies far more of the page.

I decided that my previous post might have been unfair to ibm.com, because I didn't follow links for 'Software for small & medium business'. But even following that link, it takes me to a page where there are 8 specific references to Websphere products listed before one gets to 2 specific references to Lotus products, then the reader alights on "IBM Lotus Domino Express".

What is the rationale for listing loads of Websphere (and even DB2) products higher than Domino in a page aimed at SMBs? It is obviously not an alphabetical list. It surely can't be in terms of sheer utility and ease of use. I doubt that it is even in terms of least cost. The links to Domino don't even appear above the fold on a display of 1024 x 726.

If the potential customer follows the link to "IBM WebSphere Application Server - Express" they get a page that clearly articulates the (supposed) benefits and ease of use of the product. Assuming they go back to the list of products and find Domino ("Hmm... that's a strange product name - what on earth does that do"), they follow the link to "IBM Lotus Domino Express" The Goal section offers three wordy subsections on the different kinds of Domino Express offerings, and throws in words about 3rd party applications. ("Hmm... that sounds like it might be expensive and inflexible"). There is almost nothing about ease of use or application development. It reads like all forms of Domino are aimed at email and calendaring. Even the list of advantages for Domino sounds like a list of disadvantages! Seriously - look at the difference between these two pages:

{ Link }

{ Link }

Maybe people do "get Notes" after all. It seems from ibm.com that Lotus Notes is dead (no mention whatsoever of a prodct called "Lotus Notes").

IBM do seem to offer an email system called Domino - but there are so many confusing options with that ("maybe I should go with something simpler like Microsoft or Yahoo"). If I want to build a web application it appears I should use Websphere Application Server and Rational Web Developer - those are easy tools to use. If I want to manage content ibm.com says I should use DB2.

The problem seems to be that Notes is so versatile that IBM has decided to play up the only things that Notes does that don't compete with its other products.

Doing a google search for "lotus notes" brings up several IBM links in the first 20, but many of the independent links to Notes in that same 20 links are to attacks on Notes.

10 years ago Notes advocates used to complain that people didn't "get Notes". The situation is much worse now. There is now far more competition in terms of development tools and application servers. The name "Domino" really communicates absolutely nothing about what the product can do - there is no obvious association to web development, replication, RAD, messaging. The name "Notes" at least suggested that it was somehow related to managing ideas or documents. But one cannot even find a product for sale on ibm.com that is called "Lotus Notes".

Unless you already use Notes/Domino, you would think that it is a legacy product with limited features (only to be used for email or with some vague 3rd party productivity apps). You would never think of it as an application development platform. And you might gather from the negative links that appear so high on a Google search that it might not even be a good choice as an email platform.

I haven't given up on Notes. I just never expect anyone outside of a large corporation to have heard of it or seen it. I don't expect anyone but another Notes developer to have a clue about what it can do.

45 Chris Forrett | 8/29/2006 8:18:52 AM
Most of Mr. Devlin's comments are very accurate. The comments about no new developers for Notes and Notes being a legacy product because of decisions by IBM seem to match my experience. In fact after being a full time Notes developer for 10 years I am getting out of the Notes development business because there are not many job opportunities available anymore and I live in Houston the 4th largest city in the US. It's a shame because Notes is a great product. I think maybe IBM didn't get Notes (or how to market it). Sorry of beating up on you but I think you need to know out opinions to make improvements in the future.

46 Ed Brill http://www.edbrill.com | 8/29/2006 8:28:04 AM
OK so let me ask the question --

In a world where the majority of new applications are being built in Java (and associated languages) and .NET, what approach could IBM use today to attract hoardes of new developers to learn Lotusscript? Isn't this the whole reason that Notes get labelled "proprietary" (in the tone of voice where proprietary = bad)?

"Hannover" will deliver the best of both in that the existing model will continue and be enhanced, yet the client will be open to new Java-based development methods. Thus the inflection point I mentioned earlier.

I don't want to suggest that there's no new Notes developers or development going on -- I get to hear about cool new projects every day -- but clearly it's a different market dynamic for developers today than it was when Notes became mainstream.

47 Chris Forrett | 8/29/2006 8:56:08 AM
Adding the new Java-based development methods is a great idea and I would hope that it creates opportunities for new development projects in the future.

48 Axel | 8/29/2006 8:58:32 AM
inflection points were necesary at least in my life of being evil and lonely donkey.

But should be done slowly and steadily to be effective for the greater good.

You will allways find reason to declare new platform as worse than the present.

For example the smarties (they are) at codehaus needed 46 lines in org.codehaus.xfire.eclipse.ui_1.0.0.xfire112.jar/plugin.xml to convince their xfire plugin for eclipse to offer a simple hide-when functionality which can be implemented by 4 year old without much training in Notes.

Thats no argument to stop all eclipse-plugin activity, because for other endeavour that platform is much easier than lotus notes (for example).

49 Keith Brooks http://www.keithbrooks.com | 8/29/2006 9:21:17 AM
Ed,

Does Notes 8 sound hip, fun and new or contemporary?

Or would Lotus 2007 sound better? I have no idea, but it works for MS because at least people can see in theory, the products age. The public does not care if it is version 1 or 6 but that it is modern and current.

Now does the CXO care? perhaps

If you were bringing out a new product, hwo would you do it?

This is what the prod mgr/mkt team should be thinking about?

As an aside look into this guys and their ideas for messaging,

{ Link }

Are they on the right track, maybe, maybe not, but they believe they can take over the messaging area...does IBM?

I know I did and still do believe in Lotus, but often I found it didn't believe in itself.

I liked the boxing gloves idea. Now take that team and have them coem out fighting for real.

50 Scott Joyner | 8/29/2006 1:57:48 PM
Why don't people get Notes? Because sometimes what is important to the average person isn't that important to IBM/Lotus.

We've built our organization's information infrastructure on Domino over the last 10 years and I'm one of its biggest fans. However, just today an officer of our company requested that we use Outlook instead of Notes. I asked him what the problem was. He said Notes 'doesn't work well for our purposes'.

It turns out his biggest complaint is that Notes makes him go through hoops to add a contact to the address book while Outlook is easy. Sadly, I had to agree.

This is a fundamental work process - creating a contact! Would it be so hard to present the all the fields for a new contact when 'adding the sender to the address book' instead of having to add the e-mail address, go into the address book, find the person, open it up and then copy and paste the information, field by field? I found a discussion thread from well over a year ago about this and IBM's response was 'Well all software has pros and cons, thankfully Notes/Domino's pros highly outweigh the competition.' The problem is, as mentioned by others, no one is aware of the pro's except us, the IT people who understand the value Domino from a develoment and managment perspective. The users could care less about unified security models and rapid application development.

I'll continue to fight for Domino, but IBM isn't making my job easy when it ignores the user.

{ Link }

51 Charles Robinson http://cubert-codepoet.blogspot.com | 8/29/2006 2:04:35 PM
@46 - My response got long and could be considered snarky, so I moved it to my own blog { Link } It was also very much off topic, which is ostensibly about why people don't get Notes. ;-)

52 Karl-Henry Martinsson | 8/29/2006 5:07:17 PM
@46: As someone already hinted at, if you want new developers to start using/understanding Lotus Notes/Domino, you need to start at colleges and universities.

Create a "Notes.edu" offering, a free or almost free server, free Notes clients and free Designer. Perhaps you can have the Domino.edu server set to only accept connection from the Notes.edu client, and from web browsers.

Make sure there are some good books on development available in the offering, perhaps to a reduced price, if not for free.

It is good that Notes now support Java, make sure the books cover that as well, not only Lotusscript.

In a few years, you will have graduates that understand Notes. They will go out in the real life, and be influential on purchases. They will use the toosl they are used to.

Example: I worked tech support at Microsoft in 1988-90, while going to school. I started using Word, first for DOS, then for Windows when it came out. When I in 1993 started working as a journalist, most of my coworkers used Word Perfect for DOS. I used Word, created some simple macros to format the text for Quark Express on Mac (where the page layout was done). Within a few months, most used Word for Windows, and within 6 months Word Perfect was banned.

They were simply so used at their existing tools, they did not look into other tools. But when they saw what was possible to do, and how much time could be saved by switching, it was a no-brainer for most but the most stubborn users.

So get Notes and Domino out in schools, to the future decisionmakers. Do you think it is a coincidence that Microsoft sell a Student/teacher edition or Office for about 1/3 of the full price? They know that when that student start working, he will demand MS Office, not OpenOffice or some other product he is not used to...

53 Ed Brill http://www.edbrill.com | 8/29/2006 5:23:11 PM
@52 why doesn't it work this way for Apple?

54 Richard Schwartz http://www.rhs.com/poweroftheschwartz | 8/29/2006 7:20:09 PM
@52: IBM is already at many colleges and universities. Where they need to be is the community colleges, the technical colleges, the adult education programs, where Microsoft (and Cisco) have huge presence with their certification programs. This is a refrain I've been repeating for as long as I can remember, and it makes so much sense -- an IBM Linux certification program with tracks in DB2, Websphere and Domino -- but I'm not going to hold my breath waiting for it.

@46: Hannover's new Java-based capabilities are going to be great, open lots of new possibilities, etc., etc., but an inflection point? I'm not so sure about that. Nor do I care. At least, I'm not sure that IBM should be putting much thought into this as an issue of programming languages. Java is just a language, and if Eclipse/Hannover were built in any other language it would make precious little difference to anyone. LotusScript is just a language, and if you know VB you know LotusScript -- and there are, in fact, hordes of VB programmers who could be turned into LotusScript programmers with even less difficulty than they turned into VB.Net programmers. Still, knowing LotusScript does not make one a Notes/Domino programmer. In out world, it's the object model and the whole database/form/view/programmability/document/field/item paradigm that really counts. In Hannover, I'm not quite sure (yet) what it will be that really counts, but I'm sure it will be APIs and interfaces, not the Java language.

55 Samuel deHuszar Allen | 8/29/2006 11:23:12 PM
@53, to an extent, it does work that way for Apple. Most universities have substantial Mac labs. Perhaps not to the same degree as PC's, but Mac's whole bag is that it is a closed, streamlined, guaranteed to work experience.

But more than that, Mac has been successfully able to associate themselves with the artist class.

Notes has delighted a fair number of big-picture logistics/tech geeks, but there's not much emphasis on PERSONAL productivity. Which given the complexity of Notes thus far (keeping fingers crossed for Hannover) makes sense, but try thinking about it this way...

I'm not going to invent a number, because I clearly don't know, but I'd wager that the majority of people who use Notes at home only do so because Home is their office, and/or they use Notes at work. That is not the case with Outlook.

Now whether or not that's fair is a different question, and I know Microsoft has packaged Outlook with Office in a way that's difficult and even imprudent for IBM to try and counter, but I think David Allen's presence and comments here should really be the spotlight.

Notes is not built for someone to take off the shelf and organize most every aspect of their entire life, but it could be, and it's the product's greatest potential. Notes is geared towards organizing the life(?) of medium to large sized businesses (you can disagree with that if you wish).

But even if you never intend Notes to be used by a single individual in isolation from a Domino network, which I think would be a tremendous mistake, you still have to make it approachable enough for grandma.

Insofar as what Hannover will bring to the table, you know better than us, we're all just biting our nails, waiting. The promise of a predominantly Java-faced Notes platform sounds good, but there's still a lot you can't do in Java currently in Notes, and I think it's not entirely clear how the boundaries will be pushed.

But to be honest, in my perfect fantasy world, I would

A) invest in a Head-First styled series of training books for the end-user, development, and admin tracks so that new acolytes will have a fun time learning the platform and since there wouldn't be enough of an initial market for book sales, IBM would probably have to eat the cost on that, but I did call it an investment. That book/PDF should ship with EVERY media CD shipped, along with every other Redbook relevant to the purchased licenses.

B) reinstate the bundling of the developer client with the Notes client, or make it a very inexpensive Eclipse plug-in.

C) either develop or license (or encourage in some way if they aren't already available) 3rd party apps for basic productivity tasks. I know the OpenOffice tools are in the mail, but some basic back-end management/financial tools that are priced for super-small businesses would make the business in a box that grows as you do would be a GREAT way to get into the uber-small business sector.

D) re-build the ibm.com site from scratch so that one does not have to themselves be an application to navigate it. For a company pimping out management, organization, and productivity tools, the ibm.com site is remarkably disorganized, unmanageable, and wasteful of most surfer's time as there is no intuitive way for anyone unfamiliar with IBM's entire software line-up to find what their looking for in less than 10 minutes. For shame.

E) Once Notes is in Hannover mode, and the IBM site has been rebuilt by sane people, there should be a search-engine and or easy to use catalog of 3rd-party Notes apps. This should not be left to the Domino blog community, despite their yeoman's effort, as it assumes that new customers are already plugged into the Notes universe. Yes, the IBM site does showcase certain partners, but there isn't a concise way to see the Notes universe like you can look through all the available Eclipse plugins from the eclipse site. In addition to being informative, it gives people a sense that there is a vibrant platform with a lot of new tools being built all the time.

Anyway, we don't mean to beat up on you Ed. We love you and Notes, and hell, even IBM. It's just that IBM has recently renewed it's interest in Lotus Notes and there's a lot to catch up on. Big ships steer slowly, and IBM has a hard time thinking like a small business because it hasn't been one in over 70 years.

Thanks for takin' it like a man, and we hope you take this in the appropriate light. Notes does not suck. But it does have real issues which need to be addressed.

You should come by the GraniteUG meeting in Oct, or Dec. Get some of the Chicago Notes community's war-stories straight from your local, friendly neighborhood business partners, admins, and ne'er-do-wells.

My $1.50

56 Axel | 8/30/2006 1:56:02 AM
Its not only Java a programming language.

But Java transports:

a) the object oriented paradigma. Object orientation is not perfect, but I (and a lot of other people) think it helps them to build sound app. OO with refinement of Asppect Orientation included.*

b) Java has been dominant programming language for new apps in the last years. Lots of ueber-interesting archivements in the development process have been widely adopted in the Java community, especially after the 2001-crisis.

For me the most important are: test driven development, tool-supported refactoring, heavy usage of profiling with good tool support, sound oo-principles where Design Pattern are a great help*

With interesting I mean: A lot of people (including myself) happily use it on a daily basis. It is far more than just an "academically nice thing". One needs some time to get efectively into it, but I experienced rapid progress.

c) Lots of innovative products, companies, open Source projects, communities, hard working & nice people, good books. To learn from (good and bad) and to use. My current favourites: JBoss, Spring, Eclipse, Codehaus.

d) Hani Suleiman as a blogger.

kind regards

Axel

*(possibly not for people on a couch with 6 or more years of university training, but for the oo-noobs who read people on a couch).

57 Rob McDonagh http://www.CaptainOblivious.com | 8/30/2006 8:16:27 AM
@53 Why doesn't it work that way for Apple?

I *think* what you're asking is, given that Apple is heavily invested in the education market, why aren't they more dominant? Why are they still a niche player?

I would answer that Apple's *survival* as a meaningful player in the personal computer industry is a testament to the usefulness of their involvement in that market. Consider that Apple's hardware has always been more expensive, that their OS has been non-standard and closed-source until recently, that they are competing directly with the Wintel juggernaut, that corporations worldwide have standards that exclude anything but Wintel machines, and that many critical applications are Wintel-only - or, as in the case of Notes, practically crippled on the Mac (we wait eagerly for 7.02, but we all know that statement is *historically* accurate). Given those factors, why does Apple even exist anymore? Why haven't they gone the way of Commodore, Amiga, NeXt, etc?

Answer: Macs are astonishingly easy to use, their design is and has always been "hip" and "cool" (whatever those terms mean, they always apply to Apple's products), and children and teachers everywhere have used Apple's products in the schools.

How important is the education piece? I don't know. But I do know that Apple had given up on it at one point, and they subsequently decided that was a huge mistake. Amiga, Commodore, NeXt - these were also easier to use than Windows, and were considered more "cool" than boring old PCs - why did Apple survive and not them? There are, I'm sure, a lot of answers to that question, and an MBA class might have fun with it. But I strongly doubt that Apple's heavy investment in education was irrelevant.

IBM has had an education program for years, of course. The Total Campus Option pricing was phenomenal (at one point, it cost only a few dollars per student to be licensed for all Lotus products), and there was some great work done by Lotus Education. Why didn't it work? Or work better, at least?

If the goal was to get the Notes client into the hands of students, the answer is simple: the vaunted security features in Notes are (or at least were) not university-friendly. Managing user IDs and Notes client installations for populations as transient as students was almost impossible. I was involved in several projects that attempted to bring the Notes client into the classroom, but they all ultimately could not scale to support more than 1 or 2 courses at a time.

Would that still be an issue now? Yes. Oh, the features that have been added (roaming users) would make it easier. But the requirement to manage user ID files is still an onerous burden. And that level of security really does not fit the university model, where sharing and spreading information is much more important than hiding or protecting it. (aside: I know, the Notes ID is the greatest thing since sliced bread - I agree, honestly - it simply isn't as appropriate in universities as it is in the business world)

Long-winded, and probably nobody cares anyway, but the point is this: there is a definite benefit to having a presence in the education market, but is the Notes client (including ID) going to succeed there? Will the Eclipse RCP or Workplace or whatever we're calling it these days work better? Yes, absolutely - the emphasis on ease of deployment for new and updated applications would be huge, as will the new emphasis on Java and JavaScript. So I hope that IBM will not conclude that the relative lack of success of the efforts to push the Notes client into the university market ALSO means there's no point in trying to push Hannover and Notes 9 into that market.

Oh, and those who mention all the courses and books available on MS and Sun and Oracle products are absolutely right. Wooing developers requires an easy entry point (read: free development licenses) AND a lot of educational materials in the developer's face. That, plus a reasonable expectation that they'll be able to either make money with this tool OR build something really cool that they can give away to build their reputation. How do we meet those requirements when Notes isn't "hip" or "cool" and isn't used by consumers? Got me. We have to either make Notes cool and get it into the hands of consumers, or we have to change the question. Otherwise, we fail.

58 Timothy Briley | 8/30/2006 9:33:32 AM
@50

"We've built our organization's information infrastructure on Domino over the last 10 years and I'm one of its biggest fans. However, just today an officer of our company requested that we use Outlook instead of Notes. I asked him what the problem was. He said Notes 'doesn't work well for our purposes'.

It turns out his biggest complaint is that Notes makes him go through hoops to add a contact to the address book while Outlook is easy. Sadly, I had to agree. "

Does this officer actually use Notes on a daily basis to access your company's information?

The reason I ask is that if he does and yet he still doesn't "Get" the power of Notes over Outlook, then perhaps the battle is lost.

59 Axel | 8/30/2006 9:49:32 AM
I don't think that developers do react to signals "hip" or "cool", but are a reliable early indicator about the substainability of a platform.

Much more driven by rationale than by emotional reason.

If you look what Java and the different platforms which build on Java (j2ee standard with Rational Developer, eclipse/rcp as a app platform, cocoon, spring/openSource projects, jboss with seam & hibernate) and super-multi-functional developer tools like Netbeans, Eclipse, Intelij IDEA, etc.

On the contrary journalists create all those funny stories that platform a was better than the winning platform b. Platform b is only popular, because mankind is too stupid for their true understanding of all things IT.

If I start to think that my environment doesn't "get" my points, I start to question the true consistency and rationality of my thoughts.

60 Karl-Henry Martinsson | 8/30/2006 10:14:19 AM
@53: As others already pointed out, it has been working for Apple. They are still alive, and increasing their market share in businesses. Why would IBM otherwise now develop a Notes client for Mac? ;-)

61 david racicot | 8/30/2006 3:25:38 PM
It doesn't matter if most "people" don't get Notes. It matters that the CIO is being misinformed about Notes by his IT people and the IT media that "don't get Notes". It then does matter that other people complain about Notes and there is no backing for Notes by the people that "don't get Notes" but should. Make sense.

62 Samuel deHuszar Allen | 8/31/2006 11:05:19 AM
Yet again on Kathy's blog, a very pertinent post to this conversation: { Link }

In this post, she talks about the difference between promotional marketing and educational resources.

I don't mean to keep flogging this particular site, but it's so relevant to this discussion as she (as a Sun Microsystems refugee) dedicates the majority of her blog's content to the type of rifts that "very large companies" create between themselves and their end-users/customers.

Her forte is in wrestling with exactly these perceptional problems, and how slight changes in attitude and expectation can totally change a product experience, often far more than any serious code/structural redesign.

63 Jay Ames | 9/1/2006 10:31:11 AM
For email and calendaring, I think those that have it do get it. For the apps, however, the problem is the developers, and what they've had to work with. I bet there's not a person out there who hasn't seen totally horrible Notes apps that users hated. In my experience, the users blame Notes...when in fact it was the fault of bad requirements, lack of testing, and a mostly developer(s) who had no clue but thought they did. I've seen pink and purple forms, silly graphics, irregular fonts, forms with hundreds of fields, views that were hideously slow...the list goes on and on. No standards, just wild and wooly development. So many developers were never schooled in programming and just "picked up" Notes through trial and error back in the day. It's like MS Access, it's always just been too easy to do most things, which made it a favorite entry point for any bloke that wanted to be a developer. With Notes you have to be more than just a programmer as well. You have to develop the user interface, and we all know programmers tend to have less than desirable skills in this area anyway. If Notes required the level of expertise as most any other development platform (J2EE, .NET, etc.), it would require a higher calibre of developer, which would also bring along all of the advantages of that level. I hope that once Notes evolves into an Eclipse-based J2EE platform, the mediocre developers will get weeded out. Then the apps will be better, will not be developed in a few hours after lunch, and will be upgraded to the level of "users get it".

64 Jay Ames | 9/1/2006 10:51:27 AM
@46. I want to frame that posting by Ed. It was probably the first time somebody at IBM acknowledged that the Notes developer job market is no longer as it once was. I've seen this debated ad nauseum for years with those that just refused to believe that finding a Notes development job has become about as difficult as finding work as a dBASE III programmer. If you really want an indicator if people "get" Notes, look at the job ads. If there are tons of jobs for a given platform, then that translates into demand, which means people get it and want it and are willing to hire and pay for it. If there are few jobs, well, you know...

65 Ed Brill http://www.edbrill.com | 9/1/2006 5:10:10 PM
@64 don't take my acknowledgement to extreme. There are still Notes developer jobs, not so much on that dBase thing. Wild Bill used to track Notes jobs, like at { Link } (he's got one more recent reference, but the graph hasn't been updated).

66 Theodore Ts’o http://www.thunk.org/tytso | 9/1/2006 11:01:39 PM
Why don't people get Notes? Because if it is going to be a collaboration tool, it has to start with what people think of collaboration <b>today</b> (or heck, the last ten years), and then move on from there. Which means that it needed to have embraced internet mail standards much sooner. It should have had mail threading about 8 years ago --- I've been using threaded mailers in open source land for at least that long, if not longer --- and for goodness sakes it should be able to have a mode where it preserves spaces, and not mangle plain ASCII text. Within the Linux Technology Center we have to run a parallel IMAP server, and not use Notes when interacting with the open source community, because Notes mangles patch files, and no amount of complaining has fixed it in the seven years of the LTC's existence. It's nice that you can embedded buttons and Lotusscript programs in Notes e-mail. But it's absolutely exasperating when it can't even get plain ASCII text right.

More practically, IBM should have released a free-as-in-beer community express edition of Domino server that only supports at most 3 users, and set it up to make it easy for people to run their web logs, like you are apparently doing. IBM makes all of its money on big installations anyway, so making a restricted version that was free of charge wouldn't cost much if any sales. But it would get people used to learning Lotusscript and increase Notes' developer mindshare.

The Lotus developers needs to listen to the complaints of its users, both internal and external. It's just embarassing when a freeware open source mail client has better threading and searching capability than notes client, and the only reason why some users use notes is because they are forced to. Yes, I know that Notes can do more than just e-mail, but when it does a mediocre job at being an e-mail client compared to the state of the art, and then users are forced to use the client, it gives them a bad taste in their mouth, and they're not particularly enthusiastic to try to use its more advanced capabilities.

67 Ed Brill http://www.edbrill.com | 9/2/2006 7:47:04 AM
Theodore,

As an IBMer, I've sent you internal e-mail to respond to some of your comments. Certainly, I don't know what you mean by lack of threading or searching, and you're incorrect on where the sales for Notes come from.

You should also check out Mary Beth Raven's blog for "needs to listen to the complaints of its users".

{ Link }

68 Luke Kolin http://www.deltava.org/ | 9/2/2006 12:55:54 PM
@65: I took a look at the link and the stats below, and I'd respectfully suggest that "LotusScript" might be a better tracking word for Notes/Domino development jobs that Notes/Domino - I see an awful lot of admin or (primarily) clerical type jobs that get picked up using the Domino and Notes keywords, respectively.

69 Ed Brill http://www.edbrill.com | 9/2/2006 4:40:37 PM
@68 which, i'm sure, is also true for Exchange and (especially) Outlook.

70 Mark Woods | 9/5/2006 9:20:28 PM
ED,

I've been in the IT business for a short 7 years, and am a huge fan of Domino/Notes. The product has some awesome potentials, and since I've recently begun programing in Notes, I've learned a lot more about it(but have more to go). In my opinion, there are several shortcomings that fuel why people don't 'Get' Notes.

#1) Lack of advertising... Microsoft is everywhere... where is Domino? Most people are going to tend towards what is familiar and Microsoft is familiar, almost to the point of no matter what's wrong with it.

Not every executive/manager/tech evaluates all the solutions to an issue. Many are hard pressed for time to evaluate, so they go with what they know, what's familar.

Get it out! Show people how to use it... for free if you have to. BUILD THE DEMAND and they will want it.

---

The guy who created post-its from 3M was told that there is no need for the product. He was told that you can't sell a product to the consumer if the consumer doesn't know what it is or if they need it.

So he created demand... he gave it out to all the office people at 3M, and they loved it. The rest is history

(from The Evolution Of Useful Things by Henry Petroski)

---

This isn't the first time I've read someone discuss this same issue, but it seams IBM / Lotus has done nothing about it. It seams that IBM is focused on buying solutions... now you need to advertise heavily that you've got it all..

Advertise so that the next time I say "Got Domino?", someone asks "the game, or the software?"

This drives the next issues:

2) Lack of jobs or opportunities. The number of domino positions are few and far between compared to Java or .Net The lack of opportunities makes it more difficult to decide to specialize in as your constantly wondering if the market will make your skills worth less, or worse, obsolete.

3) Lack of domino resources. Being a newer programmer, I've had a hard time finding books / training classes that teach domino in depth. OK, great, lotus script is easily learned, and the best recommended book is 5 years old, but how about a book on the ins and outs of why you use domino.

How to build an application in the domino infrastructure of Framesets / pages / forms / views / agents and script libraries. What are some of the best techniques. I get a lot of great ideas from the software we buy then from the materials that are available. I'm sure there is lots of material on notes.net ;) but could somebody please organize it? How about an IT training center.. admin / programmer sections.. progressive lessons / white papers / red books?

In the end I need to evaluate not only is Domino right for the company, but is it right for me in the long term. I love Domino because it embraces so much potential, but if IBM can't launch it so that companies demand it then Domino will be less 1 more programmer.

Go Notes!

71 Bernard Devlin | 9/6/2006 11:28:03 AM
I hadn't realised this thread had continued so long.

As I pointed out @40 and @44,

a) it doesn't even look like one can buy a product called "Lotus Notes" from ibm.com

b) there are some products for sale at ibm.com with 'Domino' in their title, but they are really only to be found in the 'messaging applications' section - there is almost nothing to suggest that Domino can be used to produce web applications and non-web applications (apart from the existence of Domino Designer along with other state-of-the-art technology like Visualage for PL/1)

c) the advantages for the product called 'Domino' look more like disadvantages (compared to the way that Websphere's advantages are listed)

d) Domino products are pushed down the page, far beneath Websphere products

Clearly, IBM is moving people away from Notes as a development platform and pushing Websphere for web development. Notes is NOT positioned at ibm.com as an application development platform, but only as a rival to Exchange. How else does one explain the above facts?

After I made those points they mostly went unanswered and the discussion was deftly moved to talk about Java and Apple. Since the discussion carried on much further, I just want to draw attention back to what ibm.com is doing itself in terms of positioning Notes and Domino.

If you want people to 'get Notes' at the very least ibm.com needs to play up its strengths - RAD, replication, performance, scalability, security, versatility, low price, easy managability, longevity, backwards compatibility (and forwards compatibility).

More specifically: Why not even provide a DVD on request with sample Notes apps on them - full of GBs of mock data in the dbs, so that people can request a trial copy and see it running for themselves? Provide tutorials on how to customize those apps i.e. simply using formulas. You can even make it clear they are not supported, but just for educational/demo purposes. I suspect there are even scripting tools that could be used to 'walk' the user through using the apps and customizing them so they could see what goes where.

But at a minimum let's at least see ibm.com position Notes and Domino more appropriately.

72 Karl-Henry Martinsson | 9/12/2006 10:46:12 AM
{ Link }

Anyone guessing what products these students will recommend when they get out of school and start working? Or suggest to friends and relatives when asked "you know computers, what software should I get?"...

Ed Brill

Eric Mack: GeekTD: Why don’t people get Notes?

August 27 2006

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