Ed Brill

Post a Comment

1. 1  Alan Goldt  | 2/22/2006 8:45:54 AM

   Not sure of the # of seats, though if it was substantial - Lotus should have swarmed in with an amazing deal and some free services to get them to 7.0.1...

   Short term cost for Lotus, and could get a customer on board for 10 years.

   Of course these sort of things can't always be on Lotus' radar - though it shouldn't be too difficult to target those customers without maintenance and creating a "maintenance amnesty" program to get them attention and back on the farm.

1. 2  Paul Robichaux http://www.e2ksecurity.com | 2/22/2006 9:06:50 AM

   Actually, this is more like someone who bought a car in, say, 1990, before airbags were mandatory. Now they want to know what's going to protect them in a crash! I've seen this same behavior before, but mostly among organizations with low budgets (like schools); for example, there's a group of Catholic schools in Australia that switched over to using MSN Hotmail as their email system, leaving their previous IMAP-based system behind. It's awfully hard to compete with "free".

1. 3  Rob McDonagh www.CaptainOblivious.com | 2/22/2006 9:46:16 AM

   This sort of thing is likely to increase in certain business segments once Google releases its domain-branded Gmail offering (as Volker pointed out - { Link } In small companies (say, 50-250 employees?), Google's offering will be very compelling.

   It will be free to the customer, probably supported by targeted ads the same way Gmail is now. This is a guess, but that's usually how Google does things.

   It will be pretty robust, and will generally not have more downtime than internal mail servers. Gmail is, in typical Google fashion, quite good about this.

   It will have SPAM controls built in. They aren't perfect, and they aren't controlled by your internal SPAM wizards, but they're there. And given how badly most email administrators handle SPAM anyway (most of them desperately need to hire Chris Linfoot for a week's training), taking Google's default settings may not hurt one bit.

   Security fixes will be applied to it very quickly because the codestream is shared with Gmail, which is used by millions.

   Will it match Domino (or Exchange) for power or flexibility or advanced features? Hell, no. But we've all been saying for years that MS Office is major overkill for a lot of companies. Guess what? Domino (and Exchange) is overkill for some companies, too.

   Now, would I apply that same logic to a larger company? Personally, no. But I could play Devil's Advocate like this: The answer depends. Does this large company use Domino for anything other than email? If they don't, shame on them. But by the same token, if they are using it for just email, there *is* a value proposition to be considered around the cost of buying and maintaining the software and hardware vs a free hosted service that meets 99% of their needs. What is the quantified cost of not having the SLA, what is the cost of not being in control, what is the cost of being at the mercy of a change in Google's business or billing practices? In certain industries, there's no excuse for even thinking of this: industries or organizations where your email contains trade secrets or otherwise sensitive information. But you could conceivable make a case for treating those departments that have such confidential or mission-critical data differently from those departments that do not.

   That's a very long-winded way to say that there are times when the decision to go with external email will *not* be an unbelievably stupid choice.

   I'm gonna get pounded for this comment, I suspect. So be it. What was that about a 'group-think' mentality among Domino bloggers again? <*snicker*>

1. 4  Dravid  | 2/22/2006 10:02:34 AM

   [2] - It's not about external email being a stupid choice always; it's about overlooking the advantages of owning a corporate messaging system, just because someone offers something for free.

1. 5  David Bell  | 2/22/2006 10:03:50 AM

   Why do so many people think "free" means it will never cost me anything. It might cost nothing today, but I venture that over time it costs the company plenty but since its hard to quantify its easier to hide from it.

   How much is it worth to have control of your company data ? (a bit like giving control of your sea ports to the UAE - where is that internal data going ?)

   It could cost them plenty over the course of the use of this alternative.

   In this world, nothing is ever free. No-one would be in business if that were true. It's a law of physics; there is always a cost.

1. 6  David Schaffer bloginprogress.us | 2/22/2006 10:04:01 AM

   Lotus basically gave up pursuing the single-server under-100-seat Notes shops after 4.6. I think the main reason I was able to sell my client on the upgrade to R5 was just for HTML mail. This wasn't an e-mail only installation, but the "applications" were all lightly modified versions of the standard R3 and R4 templates. They did what a small company needed. Of course once they were on R5 they could buy or develop applications that weren't possible on R4, and had an incentive to say on the current releases. (They're now at 6.5.4 preparing for 7). But that push came from third parties. Lotus has continued to ignore the small business market from what I've seen.

   It's easy to see how, without an internal champion, an R4.6 shop could sit on their existing system until it was no longer competitive with free webmail.

1. 7  Sean Burgess http://www.phigsaidwhat.com | 2/22/2006 10:54:53 AM

   What kind of service do you think they will get if they are ever served with a subpoena to turn over email records? How much do you think that will cost them then? What's going to be the legal recourse when they aren't able to give opposing counsel everything they requested? I bet these are not questions they asked themselves.

   Sean---

1. 8  Jon Johnston http://bingo.cbsol.com | 2/22/2006 11:08:29 AM

   Recently lost someone the same way. Can't say I regret the loss, to be honest. They didn't want to spend any money on a new email server, nor upgrade clients, so they went the cheap route. They didn't ask many of these same questions... (in fact, they complained that the stuff we were using for anti-spam didn't work very well, so we turned it off, then they complained that too much spam was filling their mail server and crashing it).

   Sometimes, it's not so bad to lose a customer. Especially cheap ones.

1. 9  Alan Lepofsky http://www.alanlepofsky.net | 2/22/2006 11:15:28 AM

   @5 Are you aware of Domino Express licensing? These offerings came out long after 4.6! Please take a look: { Link } For around $100 per user, no server charge at all, I think Domino Express is an excellent solution for the thousands of 100 seat companies out there.

1. 10  Roberto Boccadoro  | 2/22/2006 11:17:52 AM

   @5 - Sorry but I do not agree with your statement. Here in Europe we do sell ND to under-100-seats companies, and I guess this is true also there in USA. Sure, a company that buys 50.000 licenses is definitely a good thing to have but, at least here, most of our customers are in the "x00" or "x000" range of seats.

   Can't give details but let me say that in several countries the majority of our customers falls in the category you say we gave up :-)

   RoB

1. 11  Mike Sullivan  | 2/22/2006 11:24:00 AM

   Before you trounce someone for not spending money, I sugegst you step back and look at the potential market for Notes and Domino today. A lot of us "Microsoft shops" stopped paying mainteance four years back and our old Exchange 5.5 infrastructure is about to become boneyard material. Since there are big $$$ and effort to go to Exchange 2003 (which is about to be replaced anyways), IBM is positioned extremely well with the Domino 7 release and backward compatability messaging to open a lot of doors. These people have saved significant and real money for their companies over the past 4 or 5 years, but it's time to pay the piper.

   Embrace these poor souls, don't alienate them! Sell them on the real benefits of an investment in Domino, don't berate them for continuing to save their companies money. If you can't make the business case for Domino, then maybe Microsoft isn't the only one that people think is too expensive....

   It is really easy to sell the business people on open source and free because they don't know what it means. We all follow the path of least resistance....

1. 12  Gregg Eldred http://www.ns-tech.com/blog/geldred.nsf | 2/22/2006 12:45:12 PM

   @Ed, I appreciate the link. :-)

   @All others, this is a great discussion.

   @8, the Express product was one of the options, but as you know, it was "not free." :-)

   My update, in the "free" mail space: They are having issues with Outlook client (probably training issues - I could make a comment about how easy and intuitive Outlook is when you've been on Notes your whole life, but I won't), several users can't send messages to the internet (or to others within the company), and incoming mail is all HTML attachments. No one from the hosting company has returned their calls (so I am getting the calls). Only the CEO's mail is working properly.

1. 13  Ben Rose http://www.jaffacake.net | 2/22/2006 1:06:22 PM

   Many angles on which I could reply on this.

   In the 'email is dead' world, collaboration is king.

   If you're an IBM BP or similar trying to hang onto these customers then fight back. They want free, then give them something...for free.

   Give them a CRM system, a vacation booking system, an IT helpdesk system...anything. Yes, you normally charge good money for these, but without a customer you'll never be able to sell them.

   A customer with a server full of Notes based application is a customer for life, we all know nothing else can run them and there's no migration path.

   This is what they've called in sales/marketing for years a 'loss leader'.

1. 14  Jon Johnston http://bingo.cbsol.com | 2/22/2006 1:30:35 PM

   @10 - there is a difference between "not spending money" and being cheap. Sooner or later, the former must spend money (cost of doing business), while the latter never will, no matter the circumstance.

   @11 - Gregg.... same thing happened to our customer. Amazing how that works, eh?

   What is it about people that they think they're magically going to get good service for nothing? We all know that we get what we pay for, no matter what industry, what product, but is it the idea that we're always looking for "a deal" that gets us into these situations? ("We" being generic for everyone, not necessarily associated with this circumstance.)

   So, Gregg, you are billing them by the hour for this support, aren't you? If you aren't, how are they going to establish the concept that "free" isn't free?

1. 15  Bill Malchisky  | 2/22/2006 1:40:55 PM

   @12, Very good point. These have been mentioned by several presenters at BP Development Day at Lotusphere over the years. Very true.

   If customers whine/complain/consistently mention cost, they are looking for attention and really want a perceived value. Provide some free support calls, extra services, on offer to write-up as a success story--lots of options here. Just be certain to offer what would like (i.e. something they value) and you'll be fine.

   @11, Thanks for the update. Perhaps with all the calls you're getting, you can use to opportunity to subtley reminds them that their upgrading to Notes would have avoided this problem. :) If not, bill 'em for the calls.

1. 16  skip  | 2/22/2006 2:02:47 PM

   Given that most businesses would/should control their own email environment how much of a burden would it be on IBM to play host to the either less fortunate, or less willing businesses that feel they can get by with a "free" provider. IBM could host their email for a year (??) and if their internal IT can show them the benefits of ND as not only a modern secure email platform but also a robust application platform as well, they hopefully should see the error in their ways. If after a year they are not convinced they can be shown the door.

1. 17  Kevin Pettitt www.lotusguru.com | 2/22/2006 2:25:01 PM

   @5, @8, @9 - On pursuing (or not) the <100 seat market, I share David's frustration that there at least seems to be little focus from Lotus. Alan's mention of Express is probably (welcome) news to many, and I'm very heartened by Roberto's experiences in Europe.

   Clearly there is a value proposition to be made to organizations in this size range, but I think there are a few pieces missing from the overall marketing strategy. For instance:

   1. Advertising which directly combats Microsoft's ubiquitous ads showing businesses growing from an idea into a big company (the ones with all the white chalk drawings on the screen). Perhaps something that highlights all the major enterprise strengths of Domino and then points out that even (very) small businesses can use them.

   2. How to deal with "companies" that simply have no IT skills beyone plugging a router into the office DSL modem. In other words, there needs to be some recognition from Lotus that in many cases the best approach for these folks is to use hosting service like Prominic, Domino Developer Network, or Connectria, which can handle many of the technical issues raised in this discussion. I don't know how it works, but if a prospect calls Lotus, it would be helpful to that prospect to be referred to a hosting partner for further assistance.

   3. Play up more examples of these sorts of successful small installations - case studies and all that.

1. 18  Rob Ingram  | 2/22/2006 2:26:55 PM

   This customer may have jumped a little early. There has been some coverage of a recent announcement that AOL, and Yahoo want to charge 'postage' for sending of legit email. See 'AOL and Yahoo put price on e-mail'

   { Link }

   They describe it as an initiative to 'identify legitimate mail and cut down on junk e-mail'.

   Maybe, just maybe its more to do with the fact that they have to keep their email running including all the expensive anti spam and other infrastructure. These are commercial companies that have to make money somehow. Its not clear they keep on pouring money into ,messaging infrastructure with no revenue. Sooner or later mail will no longer be free - at least in my opinion.

1. 19  Ed Brill www.edbrill.com | 2/22/2006 2:28:37 PM

   @17 one of the beacon award winning case studies on lotus.com/success is College Bowl -- I think they have seven employees. We have plenty of stories about the small installations out there -- in fact, the small ones are easier to get as references, because they typically don't have PR people or lawyers that need to review public disclosure of their internal IT.

1. 20  Kevin Pettitt www.lotusguru.com | 2/22/2006 3:01:21 PM

   @19 - Glad to hear the material is there. Now we just need to let the little-guy market know they should come and take a look.

   My sense is that there is a huge population of these folks out there who don't even have Notes on their radar. I also know first-hand of several examples of small shops (e.g. the PR firm where my wife works) who know about Notes but long ago dismissed it as either too expensive (Alan has reminded me that's not the case), too complicated, or whatever. Yes, their perceptions are outdated, but they aren't getting the message that that is the case.

1. 21  Bernard Devlin  | 2/22/2006 4:00:51 PM

   Well after what happened to one of my exteranl email accounts a few months ago, I'm shocked to hear that any company would trust their important business email to an external body. I'd had an account with Netscape for about 8 years, and had used it mostly to store backup copies of emails that I really wanted to make sure were held externally, in case of some internal disaster. Whilst the anticipated possible Domino storage disaster never happened, Netscape recently updated their email interface (and quite nice the new interface is). However, in the process _all_ my email they had held for the last 8 years was lost. I wrote to them several times (both from that netscape account and externally) complaining about this. I never even got a reply. Of course the account was free, but that also means there is not much I can do about the data loss and the lack of support. And there is not even any contractual breach, as there was no contract as there is no consideration.

1. 22  Brian Benz http://www.softwaresoapbox.com | 2/22/2006 5:34:04 PM

   I posted a little of this on Gregg's site as well...

   IMHO, Hosted mail is fine for individuals (like me, I use Yahoo), not for organizations. Here's an example why, courtesy of Doc Searls:

   { Link }

   My favorite line:

   "....if our data lives on the network, what happens if Google, Yahoo and the like become the phone company?":

1. 23  david racicot  | 2/22/2006 9:29:48 PM

   @12. Greg. Never say die. Take a copy of this blog (paper or electronic) or point the CEO to it, and they should realize that the right thing for their organization to do is install R7. Hi Mr. CEO. Hope all us Loti can see you and your company back in Lotus land.

1. 24  Wild Bill http://www.billbuchan.com | 2/23/2006 2:16:44 AM

   [Note - this is not related to this individual customer or anyone related to this customer - of whom I have no knowlege with - but more my thoughts on customers with this same mindset. So no - this is a thinkpiece and not a flame, etc.. ]

   I'm doing a fair bit with a company called NDS8 in Scotland - they're SUSE linux experts, and also a Groupwise company. Cool guys.

   I may be taking a comment from one of the chaps slightly out of context but when I wasked - "why do you and your customers prefer Groupwise/Domino to open source solutions", he said "The calendar"....

   I guess what I'm trying to say here is that mail is mail. Seriously. Lets not get sooooo precious about someone outsourcing "Collaboration v1.0.".

   (This is a term I've just invented, analogous to the "Web 2.0" hype thats doing the rounds. Web 1.0 for instance, is slideware, HTML sites. Web 2.0 is highly interactive, fluid, etc. Think "Notes Application that we did on the client years ago" on a web browser).

   Collaboration v2.0 might be sharing more structured data - such as a corporate directory. Or more frequently, their calendar. This may be where Lotus Notes/Domino for instance starts to make a real difference.

   Collaboration v2.0.1 might be using some mobile mail infrastructure such as Crackberry.

   And the sweet spot - IMHO of course - is Collaboration v3.0 - where they can start sharing their business applications in a secure and robust manner. In the context of our solutions, we may be talking about some form of workflow enabled business process such as "bid" tracking, sales force automation, etc.

   Perhaps we should spend less time criticising these decisions by business people, and more time encouraging these business people to leverage existing technology (in our case, Domino) more, in order to bring *them* more business benefit.

   These "tight wallet" companies - I agree - are a nightmare to deal with - but only perhaps because we're not convincing them of the business benefits.

   To generalise - perhaps far too far this time - perhaps these wallets are locked down because the main decision makers just done believe the benefits ? (I know - a busines persion not believe a technology person ? Why ever not? :) )

   Perhaps we as technologists may be more focused on the cool tech, than making a difference to their business ? Perhaps, even, the main decision maker is not within your reach, and your positive statements are being filtered out by the "PHB" (Pointy-haired boss) layer ?

   We can drop the price of Domino to zero, and it still would not make a bit of difference to these companies. So are they "bad business" ? Well, if you find it difficult (and I'm sure we all do) to pursuade them in a cost-efficient manner to adopt the solutions you propose - then yes.

   Its bad for your business to play in a game you cannot win. (And by "win" I mean in a manner that still makes business sense)

   Its a thought. Not a solution, by any stretch of the imagination.

   One thing that Paul Mooney and I repeat in our "Worst Practices" presentation that its often *hard work* to screw up. To *really* screw up takes a good "run-up". Sometimes it a case of standing back and actually seeing what the underlying problem actually is ? I think the sport of Judo demonstrates this better than I can.

   Hope this helps,

   ---* Bill

1. 25  Adam Brown www.isw.net.au | 2/23/2006 3:27:35 AM

   I agree with @13. We use the approach of if the competition is kicking too many goals all you need to do is move the goal posts. When selling Notes/Domino we simply bundle something with the licensing fee. They compare it to Exchange/Free options and say "Well we don't get that Expense Claim system with the exchange offering" or "Gee that policies & procedures database is good. Can't get that with outlook." Typically the databases we are providing for free are not all that fancy and in many cases are just standard templates. This also then introduces the client to Lotus Notes is much more than just email and we typically get the question "Could I do this workflow process with Notes as well?". We then end up with a new Notes client that is interested in doing more development etc and off we go.

   If you are finding the competition tough in a specific area then just move the goal posts!

1. 26  Patrick Corey http://www.dangsite.com/blog | 2/23/2006 7:27:04 AM

   I feel for Greg, but I don't see value for the company keeping business with Lotus Software. Technically once the company stop renewing and a few years lapse, the really aren't a customer. There is no support at any discount. the customer would have to purchase the license for R6 or R7 -- which is like a new software purchase. The management sounds foolish because there are free e-mail solution in open source based on Linux/Unix.

   This article does make me think, Ed, when it was shared at Lotusphere that there are 124 million users from 60,000 customers, how is the number determined. Is it active customer licenses? Are companies such as this customer counted? At what point would customer on non-support versions not counted?

1. 27  Alan Lepofsky http://www.alanlepofsky.net | 2/23/2006 9:16:01 AM

   @25 your approach is exactly the one that I like to talk about. There are two things you can speak to a customer about... TCO and ROI. TCO has a limit, $0. You can't lower your cost anymore than that unless someone is sponsoring you to use their product! So the best case scenario for TCO (in some magical world) is $0, no licenses, no admin, no support costs, etc. On the other hand, Domino has no limit on the return on investment. The more you use it, the more you get for your money. You can use Domino for HelpDesk, Forums, Blogs, Wikis, CRM, Product Catalogs, TeamRooms, etc, etc, etc. With each solution the customer adds, the more they get for their Domino investment!

1. 28  Kevin Pettitt www.lotusguru.com | 2/23/2006 10:06:43 AM

   @24 - Bill touches on the problem of technical folks sometimes having a hard time talking to business folks, which brings up one of my pet issues: We need more "generalists" among the ranks of Lotus professionals.

   Many of the most talented Notes professionals that I've worked with over the years received a liberal arts education and worked in some non-technical field for a few years before having their "Notes epiphany" (myself included). Notes is almost unique in this sense, as most other technologies seem to demand more specialization, more formal technical training, etc.

   Notes is also unusual in that it is a development platform that typically exists on all the PCs in an organization, not just those in HR or Accounting (Peoplesoft, SAP, Oracle Financials, etc.). This makes it approachable to the same kind of "non-geeks" with the aptitude to build complex spreadsheets, for example. In my case, which is probably not unusual, embracing Notes came after recognizing how easily it could help solve real-world business problems that I was seeing every day.

   The distance between a recognized business need and its fulfillment can be amazingly short with Notes, but it helps greatly if there is at least one individual who is fluent in BOTH languages, "Business" and "Geek". The problem is that most of the folks who would thrive in this sort of role don't know it exists. My exposure to Notes was a "happy accident", not a result of any targetted recruiting effort by someone who knew what they were looking for.

   Mind you, I don't mean to diminish the contributions of all my supergeek friends in the Lotus community. There will always be a need to bring in more heavy-duty technical talent on more complex projects. I've also been struck by how business-savvy many incredibly-technical folks often are. What I'm saying is that to get to the point where an organization can think that big, you have to successfully communicate the value of Notes in language that decision makers understand, and in a way that breeds trust. Your typical non-technical exec with a distrust of geeks is simply more likely to respond favorably to someone he/she can relate to. We just need to find more of them.

1. 29  Dravid  | 2/23/2006 10:11:40 AM

   [27] - what about the websphere entitlement for domino customers. Not sure about its use/value, but it never gets talked about much?

1. 30  Ed Brill www.edbrill.com | 2/23/2006 10:22:56 AM

   @26 - Patrick, the 124 million number is licenses sold of Notes to end-customers. There's no way to necessarily know how many of those are "active" -- since, as you note, this customer used Notes R4.x licenses for many years without paying for annual maintenance/subscription. Microsoft has similar challenges in that their user number for Exchange would include customers who have purchased a "Core CAL" -- not necessarily deploying those Exchange CALs to users.

   That's why I've never been a huge fan of the "seats" number as a primary indicator in the market -- revenue, and the 11% year-to-year growth in 2005 for Notes/Domino, seems to be a more reliable indicator of the health of the Notes business.

   It would be nice for this customer to rejoin that number, and I hope they read this thread.

1. 31  Alan Lepofsky http://www.alanlepofsky.net | 2/23/2006 11:49:26 AM

   @29, yes the Websphere entitlement is an excellent additional value, as is the limited use entitlement to Sametime. Both are covered here: { Link } Also, Tivoli Analyzer is now included in Domino 7. { Link } Notes and Domino simply can't be beat.

1. 32  david racicot  | 2/23/2006 12:00:32 PM

   @26. I agree it would be good to get them to come back. Perhaps if Gregg does take this blog to them and they do come back, we (all of us bloggers) could become some kind of global win team :-) and this would be the first win.

1. 33  Max Childs  | 2/23/2006 2:17:56 PM

   @29 My experience working with clients tells me that technology will not sell itself. There is no doubts about Notes and Domino technology but what is more important for most of the clients are whether Notes and Domino fits with their overall IT strategy. My observation over the years is that Notes Domino is slowly moving to the side space in data center with no focus on it. You just can not focus on technical side on Notes and say it can not be beat. Today's clients have compliance issues, big installed SAP bases.. question for client becomes what should I do with Notes applications? and how do I centralize my data to control purposes Perception is that Notes Applications are hard to manage because they are distributed and even sitting on user's notebooks. Another perception is Notes has become IBM's stepchild now considering IBM has introduced IBM workplace.

1. 34  Kevin Pettitt www.lotusguru.com | 2/23/2006 2:48:00 PM

   @33 - It seems that the marketing challenge for Lotus/IBM is to figure out how to re-open the issue of Notes/Domino for the many IT buyers who don't realize their perceptions are outdated and wrong, and therefore simply dismiss it. "So you think you don't want Lotus Notes? Think again."

1. 35  Axel  | 2/23/2006 4:45:44 PM

   What will postman say who lost customers because of email?

   I have accepted that its a diversifying market.

   Lotus has its success because it can be used for a wide range of applications. But there lies also a danger. Apps started by more pragmatic people without too much theoretic background may become a burden, as they are getting bigger. Its no problem of Domino or Lotus, but the result of certain culture. Of course, not all Domino people are like that.

   From my pov, maybe lotus should put more effort to give a clearer profile of the strong points of the product. It absolutely rocks as a collaboration platform.

   Sametime integration has become more and more usefull for us workers out there in the offices.

   In other areas as web, wikis, mail, replication, etc. there certainly is a stronger competition which is good for our customers and ourselves as users, btw.

1. 36  Ian Scott  | 2/24/2006 5:03:02 AM

   @25 & @27. When I got started with Notes back in '93 that was the approach - if I read you right - that got it into the company I was then with. I "won" a copy of R3 in a purple box at a demo then learned to program it at home on a laptop and fashioned three databases (simple by the standards of today) that took the business by storm. Someone at Lotus gave me a bit of help with a macro and the final obstacle was overcome and the deal done. The business reckoned they had got email for free; they could see Notes was more than email and that they were buying in to a bigger thing. Ahh. Those were the days. Groupware. Communication. Collaboration. Coordination.

   I also recall there used to be a terrific IDC Report called "Lotus Notes: Agent Of Change -

   The Financial Impact Of Lotus Notes" (1997?). Granted it was commissioned by Lotus and it's authors kind of backed away from the ROI but the truth is that everytime I gave a copy to someone from the business they were scared of missing out on even a tenth of the ROI quoted there and went for it (the bit about a technology cogniscent workforce was a winner too). That kind of info works. I no longer have either a hard copy of it or the version in a Notes database but I'd love to read it again even although it's old. If anyone has a copy can they please post a link?

1. 37  Irv Schor  | 2/24/2006 11:48:26 AM

   Step right up, No Frills Company w/huge savings on email. Hope you're not public, as any SOX type investigation/legal matter might supoena those mail records and want them in 10 days. And by the way, they want the emails from two years ago between September and December, and they want to see an end of month for each. Whew, try getting that our of Google for free. Okay, maybe after the court imposed sanctions, and/or the complete loss in the lawsuit, a company might see how much free can be! To put it in today's terms, imagine how this would impact a little company such NTP.

1. 38  david racicot  | 2/24/2006 1:20:07 PM

   You know what would be really cool on this blog? If the CEO of said company joined in and gave us their take on it...