Surprised to see this document on Google's website. While Google is getting a lot of attention with their Google Apps offering, I'm still not seeing a lot of current impact in customers actually migrating. Sure there are some corporate customers moving, but where they are, they tend to be small organizations with email-only kind of requirements. That seems to me to be a retro view of the market, not an innovative one as so many seem to want to ascribe to Google.
With that in mind, perhaps it is no surprise that the cleverly-named, weakly-written "Life after Notes" PDF is on the Google website. It has holes like Swiss cheese, though, starting with the very first assertion, that the only way you access Lotus Notes is "from a dedicated computer behind a firewall" versus Google Gmail which you "[a]ccess mail securely via the Internet, from any computer, anywhere".
It's interesting to see their screenshots of the Lotus Notes interface are Lotus Notes V7. Logically, a customer who has deployed the Notes 8.x environment is less-likely to consider migrating to something else, since Notes 8 is what Gartner called "the future of email" in describing the "Collaboration Console" last year. So I guess Notes 7 is the target for Google; a dwindling opportunity for sure.
At least, unlike competitive collateral that I've seen come out of Redmond over the years, Google has made some effort to admit where their offering is different or weaker. They have no in-line spell-checking, they admit that comes after finishing a mail. But on the other hand, they seem to have a total blind spot to the full-text search engine in Notes, asserting that sort by sender and browsing folders are the only ways to "search" in Notes.
Bottom line, I don't think this document is a "sales tool" for Google as much as a deployment one. But if I was an end user and had to read 16 pages of training material just to get used to a new email tool, how much time and money has that cost me -- and my company on a per-user basis -- as part of the migration? There's always more to the story than hiring a moving truck.
Post a Comment
- 2
Thomas Duff http://www.duffbert.com | 7/14/2010 5:45:31 PM
I must admit I'm surprised by your statement that most of the companies that are moving to Google are just small organizations. City of LA? Universities with thousands of students and faculties? These are not *small* by any means.
I realize we can get into the "but have they *really* migrated arguments and such, but to say that Google migrations are only appealing to small enterprises goes against what others have seen and reported.
Now if you're talking about migrating Notes *applications* to Google Apps, yes... that's not something you see or hear about. But swaps of Notes infrastructures for Google email infrastructures is hitting more than just small enterprises.
- 5
Gavin Bollard http://dominogavin.blogspot.com | 7/14/2010 6:02:31 PM
A great document even though as you say, it's full of holes. (and it doesn't recognise Notes as anything other than an email/calendar app).
I love Google's labels. It's something that Notes did years ago and then removed because the market wasn't ready for it. One of several IBM/Lotus innovations several years too early. Can we get that one brought back.
Also kudos to google for highlighting that the Lotus Equivalent of their "STAR" feature is in fact follow-up. I never use follow-up but absolutely love stars. Now I'm going to go spend some time figuring out if follow-up does for me what I do with stars.
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Thomas Duff http://www.duffbert.com | 7/14/2010 6:06:27 PM
That makes a bit more sense... :)
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Mike Robinson http://www.invcs.com | 7/14/2010 7:41:05 PM
@1 That is a killer point, lack of directory or integration with some directory, though I suspect somewhere in the depths of google labs some skunks work project is under way, but for the time being that's definitely a head scratcher for anyone considering...
@4 Good point regarding Harvard. I'd like to see the article on that, else I guess I can "google" it :)
I'll add those to my debate arsenal (along with the fud around single instance storage)....
- 8
Bruce Elgort http://elguji.com | 7/14/2010 10:29:55 PM
Ed - where is an "IBM" document showing a comparison between Google and Lotus?
- 9
Craig Brown http://www.uwindsor.ca | 7/14/2010 11:18:05 PM
@4 Ed, at Lotusphere 2010 during the "Ask the Developer" session, you hinted at many proposals in the works at IBM regarding the education sector after a question/comment from Marie Scott. Is there anything coming down the pipeline that you can share with us? A lot of Universities in Canada are looking at Google Apps, however all seem to be stuck in the privacy and security phase of things.
- 10
Rob Novak http://www.lotusrockstar.com | 7/15/2010 12:16:02 AM
I am currently - tonight - accessing Notes through either a triple-NAT'd wireless router via a crappy hotel setup or, if that fails, via a Bluetooth tether on my Blackberry, r, if that fails, via Viktor's iPhone which since I own can crack. Google has much to learn about dissing Notes re: ubiquitous access.
That said, IBM also has much to learn about end-user training materials.
- 11
Darren Duke http://blog.darrenduke.net | 7/15/2010 2:37:43 AM
@8 + 1, IBM needs a response doc to this and the Microsoft Exchange 2010 page on their site too.
@9 +1, I remember that too.....
While we're on the subject of full-text indexing, can we please have the ability to move the FTI storage to another drive? Pretty please? This will ensure more and more Notes customers can turn this feature on (it is not turned on in most customers I work with due to disk space requirements).
- 12
Brian Parker | 7/15/2010 3:31:36 AM
"But on the other hand, they seem to have a total blind spot to the full-text search engine in Notes"
Which is amazing. I use full text search as my knockout blow whenever I have to justify using Notes in our organisation (Fortunately not too often these days). I have even got oohs and ahhs when I show what you can actually do with ridiculously large databases on a relatively small server. Try that with Outlook/Exchange. Or Google apps. 8-)
- 13
Sonia Malik http://www-01.ibm.com/software/lotus/training/ | 7/15/2010 5:37:06 AM
@10 Rob, what would you like to see in terms of Notes end-user materials ? Have you checked out the MultiMedia Library for Lotus Notes. would love to hear about what you think is missing.
- 14
Mark Davids | 7/15/2010 6:12:04 AM
I think that this is aimed at 6.5 and 7.0 organisations who are considering either an upgrade to 8.x or a migration away from Notes. For those users, the interface really is "old style", and the search syntax is so awkward that FTI may as well not exist.
I evaluated Google Apps against Notes 8.5 for our company, and I actually considered that the GMail interface was an advantage. Many of our users (probably the majority of young joiners) use GMail for their personal email, so they're more used to that interface than to Notes.
There are many issues with Google Apps, but I don't think anyone could seriously argue that Notes has a better user interface, even in 8.5.
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Mike Robinson http://www.invcs.com | 7/15/2010 6:22:08 AM
@11 How big is your org? Not being funny but at the enterprise level (which I guess is what 20,000 and above- I don't know) there's a lot of consideration to figure, particularly around policies. Which I suspect is why things like the iphone,android, win mobile devices still can't touch Blackberry and the BES server in the enterprise (as an example).
There's to much to do without that crushes the "my end users are familar with the interface" arguement. I'm not discounting it but when you put all the things on the table like having a security breach end up in the Wall Street Journal, the thought process becomes increasingly more practical.
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Mark Davids | 7/15/2010 6:48:05 AM
@15 Agreed. But Ed made the point about dealing with a new user interface, and I think we need to remember the initial training that people require as well.
We're a much smaller organisation and Google would mostly be a good fit for us, but in the end some regulatory concerns meant that we went with a Domino upgrade.
I know that most of my users would have preferred Google, and so would I as an administrator.
For most small companies (say, under 100 users) I can't see how Notes can compete.
- 17
tom oneil | 7/15/2010 7:26:09 AM
That "Life after Notes" doc is great. I never knew there was a "Forward All" feature.
@13 I went to the training site and I don't see anything of immediate value (like the "Life after Notes" reference card). Is there a (free) reference card for users upgrading from the basic to standard client that looks as good as Google's?
@16 Notes as an email platform isn't as sexy as Google... but did you think about the value-add of having a ready-made application platform for your users?
I know administrators usually abhor the idea of developers on their servers... but users find real value from it.
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Mike Robinson http://www.invcs.com | 7/15/2010 7:33:09 AM
@16 I would have to agree. For a small business email, branded gmail makes sense. It's turn key, you can tie to a Blackberry fairly easily and it's fairly accessible from anywhere and like you said, the users know it (and if you're one of a handful of people support 100 people, that's one less help desk call that's made). And you get pretty good AV and anti-spam built in.
As your user base count goes up though those niceties tend to diminish and real security and enterprise mgmt concerns take their place.
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Tom Dobrucky http://www.famcomp.net | 7/15/2010 8:09:10 AM
@Ed you remarked,
"Which begs the question...why is Google succeeding in penetrating education and government and not elsewhere? Answer: cost. Free to education? Oh sure, we'll take free (and then throw it out later, like Harvard has done). Government pricing? Oh sure, but maybe not going so well ({ Link } ). Corporates? We've seen a few case studies, but their market share is still not on the radar in most cases."
I've replied on various blogs asking the same question? So IBM, looking at it's stock, appears to be doing well. Why don't they give out FREE accounts ala LotusLive or something to college kids or even high schools. My kids only know Notes because I do it for a living. When you ask their friends they are like "Notes?? What's Notes?". It is not getting visibility to kids. I did try and get it in at the school my kids go to but the Microsoft group had and in with administration and I stood very little chance. Not mainly because of politics but the school administrations lack of knowledge of Notes. One person used Lotus 123 years ago and liked it and liked my idea but that wasn't enough. Kids are the ones that will be pushing the tech boundaries as they grow and mature and join the business world. Another thing I haven't touched on is applications that can be used on electronic devices that kids use but that is whole or nut to crack. Your thoughts?
- 21
Michael Kinder http://www.acadiasolutions.com | 7/15/2010 8:46:08 AM
@13, I may have missed something, but the Multimedia stuff seems to be available, but for a cost. Why is that? I don't disagree that training for Administrators (since it is specialized and more detailed) might need to cost something, but training on how to develop and how to use the product should be free. We want people to use the product, you make the money on the product.
Not only should it be free, it should be easier to find. Until this post I had not even heard of this information, why is that? True, I have to do somethings on my own, but when this is made free, you should shout from the rooftops about it. I think if more free information from within the IBM/Lotus team was available, enterprising writers might actually start writing books on the product. As it is, there seems to be little incentive for someone not currently using Lotus products to learn this information. How much can actually be learned in 15 days (which is how long it appears to be free)?
- 22
Mark Davids | 7/15/2010 8:48:03 AM
@17 Using Notes as an application platform requires Notes developers, and our existing developers don't want to put (as they perceive) a disliked, dying platform on their CV.
- 24
tom oneil | 7/15/2010 9:14:53 AM
@22 I know exactly what those developers mean. I've seen pages posted on our intranet (circa 2003) saying Lotus Notes was going away.
It's too bad they don't try it. I won the company's "green" award last year with a Lotus Notes app and I just received a nomination for a different award (different app too). Someone in this 50,000+ person company finds value in these apps.
- 25
Chris Miller http://www.IdoNotes.com | 7/15/2010 9:30:31 AM
I think something has been missed when talking at least academic that Lotus did used to offer. Free Lotus software, not for learning, but for students and faculty. You had them in the palm of your hand early selling licenses to admin staff at schools and letting students and faculty use Notes free. Sure, they then added licenses for Sametime, Quickplace, Domino.Doc (back then) and more. Suddenly it was terminated and the IBM scholars program stepped in and schools and universities could not find a rep to handle them anymore.
So what happened? They turned to other solutions. I wanted it like a wave across the country. Can they bring that program back?
- 27
Mark Davids | 7/15/2010 9:52:03 AM
@26 Why would these institutions not want to deploy in house Domino?
- 28
Bill Brown | 7/15/2010 10:00:51 AM
Man, they lost me from the start...
In Lotus Notes®, you ... In Gmail ...
Access mail from a dedicated computer Access mail securely via the Internet, from
behind a firewall any computer, anywhere
- 29
Bill Brown | 7/15/2010 10:05:27 AM
Sorry, @28 should have shown
In Lotus Notes®, you ...
Access mail from a dedicated computer
behind a firewall
In Gmail ...
Access mail securely via the Internet, from
any computer, anywhere
These were columns that didn't copy/paste well.
These were at the top of page one. How can you take anything serious that screws up that badly from the get-go?
- 30
Tripp Black http://www.mindwatering.com | 7/15/2010 11:45:07 AM
@11 is right, I concur.
The reason that Google can get away with the Full Text comment is, that as implemented, most companies cram as many users on a box until the experience is pretty dismal - No FT Indexes allowed. At a couple RTP companies (which one converted to MS live but still has $$$ going out to reinvent the apps), I told friends how to setup local replicas, turn on replication and then have FT Indexes. Suddenly, Notes was fast, you could find something and it didn't SUCK!. What a concept. (It also didn't help that the RTP company on MS Live now was forced by merger to go Lotus but was given the IT work and were looking for a way to MS the whole time. It took years of crippling Notes to get Notes to be evil to escape at any cost.
@20, Ed,
I started out not an IT person. For non-techs, it's what we know. We only run Notes becaused it was forced on me at a previous job. It was the app development that won us over. Our company used Windows because we thought it was cheaper and it what the business we previous worked for used. Vista fixed that notion for us. We are now primarily a Mac shop with VMs to run the Admin and Designer clients on XP. We run Ubuntu on a couple remaining PC workstations and our servers are all VMware running almost entirely Linux distro VMs. We keep one Windows box around so we know how to fix issues on Windows 7. (Monday it was Windows 7 and Norton 360 - a power combination to break local replication and ping, too.)
@26,
Ed you're completely right for the most part. Some will still want on-site that have a bias against "cloud" (aka hosted in old terminology). To get e-mail it needs to be cheaper and easy to deploy (or just use iNotes which has no deployment other than lettign plug-ins install in the browser). The ones converted by app development are only the number of previous MS ASP developers who got won over by the Quick IDE and the security. I believe that is few, as most MS developers I know are blindly pro-MS and everybody else should just give up - I was.
@10, @29, and others.
To take Notes outside the firewall, open port 443 and install a SSL cert for iNotes. (You can self cert to save $50/year if you have a minimual budget.) Then for Notes apps, check on/enable the port option on the server to encrypt all traffic, then open port 1352 to the firewall. Now you have secure encrypted access to Notes and web applications. And you can go offline via Local Replication or that under utlized thing called DOLS. (I'd recommend local Directory Catalogs for addressing and app group security in local replicas, too.) To get the mobile devices, either run Traveler, or put that same SSL cert on the IMAP port and open it's SSL port. Either way your mobile devices now have e-mail. And as mentioned earlier get all the users with Full-text indexes. If you haven't got it on the server, set them all up with local replicas by policy. You should have happy users from anywhere.
- 31
Kevin Smith http://www.kmssolutions.com/ | 7/15/2010 11:48:03 AM
@26 - first, Ed thank you for being the voice of IBM Lotus Notes/Domino for all of us. You and your opinions are much appreciated.
I have large state university client that has had 20k, now 13k, seats deployed and now primarliy because of Lotus pricing is considering leaving to go MS. I arranged and attended several calls with IBM sales reps where the 'best' pricing they could do was $15 per seat while the comparable MS price was $3-4. Ignoring migration costs, for now, this is a big difference which the CIO is forced to consider. They have had Notes since 1995/6 and originally had the 'Total Campus Option' Over the years thier purchases were joined with other entities in the state university system.
The upshot is that pricing is forcing them away.
- 32
Chris Whisonant http://www.bleedyellow.com/blogs/lotusnut | 7/15/2010 12:31:19 PM
Just published an article at my blog where I go through each of the 10 items mentioned on the first page of the document. Let me know if I missed anything... :)
{ Link }
- 33
Mark Davids | 7/15/2010 12:44:33 PM
@32 I don't think this is meant to be a "Google is better than Notes" document. It's just supposed to help users when they've been migrated
- 34
Chris Whisonant http://www.bleedyellow.com/blogs/lotusnut | 7/15/2010 12:58:22 PM
@33, I can see that, but the way that they word the very first "key difference" shows that there is a major bias in their document. It's no help to users to give them FUD - especially if they recall that they already could access their mail from anywhere.
- 35
Bill Brown | 7/15/2010 1:33:04 PM
A quick note to +1 the academic pricing. As with @31, we had TCO, but in the K12 realm until it went away. Now we're getting priced out of the market w/ school budgets in dire shape and districts looking for every dollar they can save.
- 36
Erik Brooks | 7/15/2010 1:37:07 PM
@Ed/@20:
"The whole "they will use what they used in school" argument is often a red herring. I did not deploy VAXes, Ungerman-Bass terminal servers, VT100s, or Toshiba laptops when I got out of my University Computing Services job and into the real world, so maybe all those supposedly-influential "used it in school" lines didn't work on me?"
I'm guessing that virtually none of those pieces were available to you outside of the university (save the - no doubt very expensive - laptop). The dynamics today are obviously completely different... laptops for < $500, grandmas burning CDs... heck, THE INTERNET.
Check this out:
{ Link }
How many future corporate users are sitting there? Do you think that 10 from now they're more likely to be showing off their Blackberries to the CIO, or the iPhone 12?
- 37
Mike Johnson http://google.com | 7/15/2010 4:10:41 PM
As they say, good marketing beats a good product. Unfortunately IBM wasn't intelligent enough to market Notes or lead the way in many of the more advanced features people come to expect in modern email systems.
Instead, they clouded the Notes roadmap with daunting "Notes is dead" propaganda giving the sinking ship even more momentum to its death.
As much as that Google document illustrates differences between an older version of Notes (R7), much of what they compare holds true contrasting the latest and greatest version of Notes.
I think it's time for IBM to give up and admit defeat.
-Mike
- 38
Scott Hooks | 7/15/2010 9:41:55 PM
@37 - Yeah Mike. By your logic, I'll expect Google to do a press release admitting defeat to Bing around noon eastern Friday.
- 39
Mike Johnson http://google.com | 7/15/2010 9:50:28 PM
@38 - This isn't NEW news here..
{ Link }
"NEW YORK - The marketing folks in IBM's Lotus division are starting to sound like the Black Knight in Monty Python and the Holy Grail, who insists he's winning a fight even as he loses both arms and legs: "'Tis but a scratch," the Black Knight declares after one arm is lopped off. "Just a flesh wound," he says after losing the other. "I'm invincible!"
The same goes for IBM's (nyse: IBM - news - people ) Lotus, which keeps declaring victory even as Microsoft (nasdaq: MSFT - news - people ) carves it up. "
- 41
Scott Hooks | 7/15/2010 10:20:28 PM
@39 LMAO. Funny how Lotus Software experienced 16 consecutive quarters of growth immediately following that article. How about something a little more current.
{ Link }
- 42
David Bell | 7/16/2010 12:31:59 AM
@16 - LotusLive Notes gives you all the power of the Notes client (and/or browser access if you prefer) from anywhere via the Internet while leaving management of the server infrastructure to IBM.
It's ideal for organizations small and large.
- 43
Mark Davids | 7/16/2010 3:33:20 AM
@42 For our purposes, LotusLive Notes has all the disadvantages of Google (cloud-based outsourcing) combined with many of the disadvantages of Notes (Notes client user interface, disliked by users). It does save on hardware costs, but that's about it.
- 44
Travis Hiscock | 7/16/2010 7:27:05 AM
@42 - It's ideal for organizations small and large.?
Minimum purchase for Lotus Live is 1,000 seats I do believe... doh!
- 45
Marie Scott http://www.bleedyellow.com/blogs/crashtestchix | 7/16/2010 8:05:35 AM
As I've written previously, universities have made the decision to go to Google or MS Live@EDU for several reasons including (1) for cost savings - a free cloud solution versus hosting an on premise solution; (2) student requests for a cloud solution - in particular Google; (3) the ability to provide "lifetime" accounts to students who become alumni; (4) Google and MS Live@EDU were available when the universities were ready to jump to a new email platform and (5) because other universities have done so. Many universities (not all of course) tend to follow trends and if major research institutions make a decision to move in one direction or the other, the others generally follow. If several tier one research institutions were to move to Lotus Live Notes others would take a hard look at that as an option. But is Lotus Live Notes ready for market? And will it be free for universities or other educational institutions? Robert McDonald, now Vice President, WW Software Services Lotus Collaboration & WebSphere Portal Software responded to my question at “Meet the Developers” at Lotusphere 2010 indicating that some proposals were in the works. I hope that I don't have the question again at Lotusphere 2011.
- 46
Mike Robinson http://www.invcs.com | 7/16/2010 8:45:53 AM
All this talk on LotusLive I decided to sign up. Well my first learning point, LotusLive isn't just email (keep having to remind myself these things are brand/umbrella terms). I really want LotusLive iNotes to test drive. Learned I guess you can only buy this stuff at a minimum of 1000 seats- no biggie so I did the trial.
I like it so far, I see a few things that I don't have in my gmail account. I like the signature and the auto-reply and the multiple calendars (why isn't that in DWA?). Mail delivery is very very fast.
That's it. Bummed that I can't just buy a single license for me (even if it cost like $12/mo or something), but no biggie the one off guy/gal isn't the target here.
- 47
Mike Robinson http://www.invcs.com | 7/16/2010 8:47:10 AM
Oh probably what would inevitably kill it now (for me) is no easy sync for mobile devices (either pop/imap or whatever). But it appears the LotusLive Beta program will address that.
- 49
Mike Robinson http://www.invcs.com | 7/16/2010 9:47:45 AM
@48/Ed thanks for clarification. I snafu-d and signed up for LotusLive Meetings, thinking it was the email option. I saw 1000 users for that, quickly realized my mistake (would be nice to add that to the trial to add iNotes after you sign up for meetings, I had to sign up again with another email addr to get the iNotes trial- I guess I could have mail support though).
I saw the pricing of starting at $3/user/month but didn't see a quantity and then could really find it on the web.
25 is reasonable and if mobile support (even if it's just imap) it wold be viable.
Personally seems to be a little richer mail experience than gmail.
- 50
David Bell | 7/16/2010 12:20:19 PM
@46/48/49 - LL iNotes has many single employee organizations :)
I think you can only sign up on the site for one trial subscription, but can request to have other offerings added once your identity is established. So you should be able to get LL Notes or LL iNotes added to your meetings trial.
The LotusLive Engage trial covers all offerings except mail, to which you could add either LLNotes or LLiNotes messaging service to experience all that LotusLive has to offer.
- 51
Mike Johnson http://google.com | 7/16/2010 7:00:01 PM
@40 (Ed Brill) why the sensory? It's true. How can you argue with the fact that Lotus's Marketing campaign has been horrible in defense against the marketing machines like Microsoft and Google?
And my link to forbes.com is free press...
Being a citizen of the USA I thought you understood what the first amendment stood for..
Really??..
- 52
Rob McDonagh http://www.CaptainOblivious.com | 7/16/2010 7:43:57 PM
Yeah, Ed, why the sensory?!? The First Amendment is all about the sensory stuff! Sheesh! What kind of American are you?!? *snicker*
- 53
Darren Duke http://blog.darrenduke.net | 7/18/2010 5:28:50 AM
@51, shame you didn't put this kind of belief in freedom to the test when Google are dealing with China.
I won't argue with your quips about IBM and Lotus marketing, but comparing a 5 year old version of Notes to Gmail speaks a whole lot for your company and their oft-quote "morals". Very "Microsoft" of you.
See I can do the same too, { Link }
- 54
Don Mottolo | 7/18/2010 11:40:51 AM
@Ed/@20:
"The whole "they will use what they used in school" argument is often a red herring. I did not deploy VAXes, ... when I got out of my University Computing Services job and into the real world"
Me neither, but I still think it's a good idea. Instead, consider providing it free to universities as the best use of advertising dollars. We all appreciate the role you play in listening to the Lotus community and being an strong advocate; and know it bothers you that when some of us complain about the marketing, but IBM needs to stop poo-pooing complaints about the plain fact that Notes has terrible brand recognition (most people I talk to either don't know it exists or think it's a dead product that nobody uses anymore).
Which is likely to have more long term impact: magazine ads and a "Lotus Knows" bus traveling around the country -or- a college full of students using Notes for several years?
- 56
Don Mottolo | 7/18/2010 4:47:49 PM
For "immediate,game-changing results"
-> Showcase Notes APPLICATIONS (because that is Notes' key differentiator)
In a nutshell... Have short videos/web/print ads that show why many of us use Notes. It could show 2-3 quick features in a modern looking Notes app, and a one-liner by a developer saying why it was faster/easier/cheaper to do in Notes and/or an IT manager saying why this app made him/her a hero within their organization. I've got a lot of ideas how this could work, if you're interested.
Google is still missing a corporate directory as part of their portfolio. Contact management across a Google enterprise domain may be under development, but it is certainly one of Domino's strengths and bears mentioning.