He had no idea, but then again...Microsoft wants to steal five million Notes customers

July 25 2008

One of the most interesting, but slightly uncomfortable, parts of presenting at the Lotus Top Gun training class in São Paulo this week was leading a competitive discussion with a very recently ex-Microsoft sales guy in the room.  While everything I present in that section is based on publicly-available documentation, you never know what the spin is going to be.  

Part of my agenda is to debunk truisms and FUD spread in the market by Microsoft.  I have a slide in the presentation that is based on my "Then and now, episode 2" blog entry from February.  The slide shows the same two graphics that are in the blog entry -- Accenture/Avanade's claim around when they migrated off Notes, and the reality of Accenture hiring Notes developers (and using hundreds of Notes applications) today.

When I finished presenting that slide, I looked at Luis and asked, how many times in your old job have you told customers that Accenture migrated from Notes to Microsoft?  His answer, many times.  When we spoke about this in more detail afterwards, he was incredulous.  He said that he had no idea that Accenture was still using Notes today, and that while at Microsoft, he was always told that Accenture was one of the best case studies for Notes to Microsoft migration.

I have said this before on the blog and elsewhere -- Microsoft is very good at training its field people and keeping them "on message".  From time to time, Microsoft employees have commented on topics here or posted items on their own.  They have often discovered over the years that the truth is at odds with what they say and have been told -- whether it's the statistical validity of a particular study, the current status of a migration story, or the number of customers in a particular list that are actually using Microsoft products.  What's interesting to me is that they have some ability to stick to their story, despite this being the era of open information and social networking -- nobody from their side seems to take a credibility hit when they are flat out wrong.

I wrote the above section of this blog entry on Thursday morning, but hadn't had a chance to post it yet.  In the meanwhile, Network World ran this story:

Microsoft is seeking to get five million Lotus Notes customers to make the switch to Microsoft's collaboration tools in its fiscal 2009 year, according to Kevin Turner, COO for the software giant.  ... "This past year we sold in 4.86 million seats of our collaboration solution -- SharePoint, Exchange and Office -- into IBM Lotus Notes accounts," Turner went on about Microsoft's success in the historical messaging and collaboration battle it has fought with IBM and Lotus.

"If you take the last two years, we have sold in eight million seats. This next year I have a goal for the [sales] field that is more than five million seats," he said.
This is very interesting and careful phraseology, which isn't entirely surprising coming from the COO.  Microsoft sold a bunch of their product into Lotus customers.  Even if the number is true, BFD.  They stuffed it in Enterprise Agreements, got customers to buy Office 2007 upgrades, and otherwise made deals "too good to refuse" to get these products in as shelfware.  

Microsoft's sales team is required to sell a balance of products in order to meet their performance objectives.  Even if they don't have any customers in their sales territory who want to buy Exchange, they have to find a way to sell it if they want to make the grade.  Is it any wonder that they then found a way to sell these products?  Mr. Turner, perhaps you noticed how the market reacted negatively to Microsoft's cost of sales in your fiscal 2008?  Perhaps the incentives put in place to "sell" these products weren't really worth it, after all?

This story from Network World gets more interesting when you put it in contrast with what Ballmer said a few weeks ago at their partner conference:
4.7 million seats of Lotus Notes have been Exchanged.  
Now that sounds more like Microsoft.  Boasting that they've migrated these users...whether true or not...is the classic Ballmer way.  In fact, they haven't "migrated" 4.7 million users in 2008, nor 3 million the year before.  Nobody at Microsoft is tracking actual deployment in these accounts, just the check box of whether they bought something.  And more importantly, they are claiming these huge numbers of migrations up against a nearly-four-year track record at IBM of revenue growth at Lotus.  My data shows that IBM increased the number of Notes customers on maintenance contracts during calendar 2007 by 10%.  Somehow, these numbers don't add up.  And from what I know, the reason is, Microsoft identifies a "Lotus Notes account" as anyone who ever bought any Notes -- like if there were 10 users in a department that bought Notes in 1994, that's a "Notes account".  Not that I'm accusing them of being deceptive, nor that this is the first time we've had a discussion like this.

I hesitate to make more noise out of any of these episodes of the past, because our story is solid and there's no need to be constantly and loudly defensive.  On the other hand, when the truth is out there, doesn't it deserve to be heard?

Ed Brill Rio De Janeiro, Brasil / AA1425 MIA-ORD Category:  Microsoft  Add/View Comments [75]

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  1. 1  Keith Brooks http://www.vanessabrooks.com | 7/25/2008 10:42:19 AM

    Posted my thoughts already { Link } that it is an unfair discussion adding in office when you consider 95% of all companies have office.

    But as you state it's nothing new from them.

  1. 2  Volker Weber http://vowe.net/about | 7/25/2008 11:06:55 AM

    <blockquote>In fact, they haven't "migrated" 4.7 million users in 2008, nor 3 million the year before.</blockquote>

    So how many have they migrated in reality?

  1. 3  Ed Brill http://www.edbrill.com | 7/25/2008 11:10:48 AM

    I can't know that, Volker, and in reality... nobody can. We don't require a customer to tell us when they stop using Notes (only if they stop paying maintenance) and Microsoft has sold Exchange licenses to some of these companies years in the past as shelfware, and thus no way to know whether/what/who has activated them.

    What I know is that my base of customers on maintenance has increased, not decreased.

    The only hint of a company that might really know how many migrated would be Binary Tree, but then again, Microsoft ships its own Notes to Exchange migration tool and there are other tools vendors.

  1. 4  Henry Ferlauto http://www.geniusinside.com | 7/25/2008 11:14:11 AM

    I think a big migration opportunity per se lies not with the Groupware (i.e. Domino vs. Exchange) but with the office suites.

    Microsoft has what? 97% of the office market? There is no place for them to go but down.

    With all of the permutations of Open Office, and especially with the IBM Lotus Symphony version there are very good odds of some organization publicly saying, "I have had enough with paying through the nose for word processing, spreadsheets and presentations; when 90% of my user base uses 10% of the functionality."

    If the Symphony team can enhance their product to "play nice" with Microsoft's infrastructure components just like the Sametime did; they've got some pretty good odds for some wins.

  1. 5  Vitor Pereira http://www.vitor-pereira.com | 7/25/2008 11:18:38 AM

    It's like I said before, pretty soon they will be announcing the total cumulative migration of 500 million Notes seats. Ain't that something?

    I think they're only fooling their own employees by now.

  1. 6  Gerardo Leal  | 7/25/2008 11:22:11 AM

    I see this from time to time: a costumer wanting to kick out all of their Notes Clients in favor of a "new and shiny" Outlook/Exchange infrastructure.

    Again and again one of our strongest arguments is that "getting rid of all those Notes apps is not easy".

    I saw that is not enough.

    We need to start delivering a more forceful message, one that clearly states that migration to MS Exchange is not the right thing to do, not because it's hard to completely get rid of us, but because NOTES/DOMINO DELIVERS A GREATER VALUE.

    For years we at IBM have known about it (Notes is more stable, better ROI, better security...) but it's time we get that same message to more costumers.

    And now that Notes 8 looks so damn cool, and end-users that love Outlook can finally fall in love with OUR interface, there is no better time. If on top of that, you add Symphony, which can save a company a zillion bucks on office licenses...

    We have some pretty big guns aginst or competitor. There is no better time to use them than now.

  1. 7  Jack Dausman http://www.leadershipbynumbers.com | 7/25/2008 11:36:13 AM

    Ed, I'm finding that when I bring up instances of companies that have migrated off of Exchange onto other platforms, it sort of opens up the entire discussion. It used to be that Microsoft could make an offer no one could refuse (including MS partner reimbursements). Sure, the customer will pay later, but it's the same cycle we've seen with the zero-interest housing loans.

    Now, the trends are different, and there really are lower-cost options. When I put these alternatives forward, the low-cost Exchange argument loses credence, and we get to compare real features and capabilities.

  1. 8  Volker Weber http://vowe.net/about | 7/25/2008 11:48:37 AM

    Ed, this argument is hard to win. If MS puts out a number, and you say the number is wrong, you probably need to put out a better number. I understand what you are saying. But I am afraid that is not going to stick.

    You are playing the same trick on your customers and partners with the 130 million Notes licenses sold, btw.

  1. 9  GotToStayAnonOnthis  | 7/25/2008 11:54:08 AM

    Sorry Ed, can't post my name for this, but I emailed you about trying to justify Notes over exchange about a year ago.

    There's no doubt they are trying hard to steal away Notes users to exchange 2007. I'm working on a conversion now for a company and from all objective perspectives it is a bad deal. MS tries to say how you will save money by converting, but the savings are not materializing.

    A few issues:

    1. The servers have to be way more powerful (we went from 4 GB to 32 GB on the mail servers

    2. management tools are rudimentary & slow (aside from powershell which is actually quite nice)

    3. mail storage requirements increased by about 10%

    4. import/export tools are buggy or limited.

    5. typeahead -feature never updates when an address changes (unless the user deletes it.)

    6. Performance - even with dramatically better hardware (# spindles, 64 bit os, 8x more RAM, double the processors), performance is still worse (opening & reading messages in noticably slower even in cache mode.)

    7. What the heck was MS thinking when they required you to have all group members in AD?? For those of you who have not seen this, you have to create a contact object for EVERY external user in the group. This seems to be a boneheaded idea to me...

    The only things that end up being clear benefits are PowerShell which for admin work is really, really nice and account/user id managment which is much easier under exchange.

  1. 10  Ed Brill http://www.edbrill.com | 7/25/2008 12:01:02 PM

    @8 I haven't claimed that the 130 (it's now 140 mm) licenses sold represents the active base. You won't see me write "140 million users". IBM does not disclose the active number of users for any of our software as far as I know... the only reason this number is at all on the radar is the historical "messaging seats wars".

    We have published numbers like 46,000 active companies using Lotus Notes and Domino today -- never seen that number from MS (which, I suspect, given their small/medium business footprint it would actually be larger). We published that the Notes/Domino business has grown in revenue in the quarterly earnings filings (though we don't break out per-product revenue, even at constant currency this growth is significant over the four years I have been in this job...hundreds of millions of dollars to the plus). We published that there are 850 developers at IBM working on Notes/Domino products...so you can guesstimate our development investment from that number. But the number you want won't be published in a raw numerical form, even though you have been asking for years. It just doesn't go out there. MS can't give you theirs, either. And I'm not sure it matters either (for either side), since you can run software without having to have an active maintenance/support contract.

  1. 11  Craig Wiseman http://www.Wiseman.La/cpw | 7/25/2008 12:12:27 PM

    Interesting points. I wonder how our IBM salesfriends' behaviour would change if they were required to sell, say 2 Notes/Domino licenses for every 5 portal/forms/websphere/etc. license?

  1. 12  Volker Weber http://vowe.net/about | 7/25/2008 12:31:38 PM

    Notice I have not asked you the number? I am just saying that the 130/140 million number is pretty meaningless, but used a lot to describe the Notes user base. Let's take a look at Wikipedia:

    { Link }

    "Lotus Notes is commonly deployed as an end-user email client in larger organizations, accounting for more than 135 million total users according to IBM's latest figures."

    We could say that Wikipedia is not always correct, but everybody could go ahead and change it, right?

  1. 13  Pedro Quaresma http://playroom3.wordpress.com | 7/25/2008 12:33:26 PM

    @5 Unfortunately, from developers to CIOs, IT people still believe those MS fairy tales...

  1. 14  Flemming Riis  | 7/25/2008 1:04:57 PM

    Numbers are easy to manipulate both ways.

    I know a few local sites here thats moving away from Domino and to Exchange+what else is needed and im sure that both sides will count the customer as theirs.

    next year they wont be paying anything to IBM but will for some time still be a customer again can be counted both places at once.

    Its marketing both sides will tell the story as they want it presentet.

  1. 15  Ian White http://www.computerweekly.com/blogs/IT-collaboration-technology-blog/ | 7/25/2008 1:30:58 PM

    FUD was to invented by you Ed but it was invented by IBM.

    This story will run and run and never come to a satisfactory conclusion, its a shame.

    'Novell claims 33% increase in install ed base, move from 3 to 4' !

    As a matter of interest which MS blogs are you posting the 'truth' on?

  1. 16  Ed Brill http://www.edbrill.com | 7/25/2008 1:57:54 PM

    @15 MS bloggers tend not to persist in trying to engage in this discussion. Peter de Haas has made valiant attempts over the years (www.peterdehaas.net), and for a short while in 2006, they had a migration tools blog on MSDN itself ("red bull"). The competitive team doesn't blog, some of the MS people who comment here hide behind personal non-MS e-mail addresses, and the rest are the mushrooms.

  1. 17  Charles Robinson http://www.cubert.net | 7/25/2008 2:05:43 PM

    @10 - Is that 850 number just Notes and Domino? I have been told it includes Quickr, Sametime, Symphony, Foundations, Protector and Atlantic.

  1. 18  Ed Brill http://www.edbrill.com | 7/25/2008 2:32:36 PM

    @17 it would include Symphony, Protector, and Atlantic, but not Quickr and Sametime... unsure about Foundations inclusion in it. I'd be surprised you heard anything about it otherwise, since it was me working with the dev managers who got approval to release the number. Any other source is "telephone game"

  1. 19  Charles Robinson http://www.cubert.net | 7/25/2008 4:00:40 PM

    To be fair the comment was generally about how people such as Mary Beth and yourself talk about how many developers are working on "Notes and Domino", but that is misleading. The "Notes and Domino development team" works on a lot more than just Notes and Domino. That was the point I was making, and I didn't intend to put words in anyone's mouth or misrepresent anything. :-)

  1. 20  Nathan T. Freeman http://nathan.lotus911.com | 7/25/2008 4:08:09 PM

    @12 - You are as free to change it as anyone. But since you seem to want to require someone else to do it, it's done.

    Please note: the citation that was referenced on that page was no longer reachable anyway.

    I can find lots of press stories that say "IBM claims 125 million users of Notes," (mostly around the ODF announcement in 2006) but I can find no press stories that say WHO at IBM claimed such a thing or WHERE. Nor do any of them have a citation.

    Clearly IT press sources are clueless when it comes to this sort of thing. Here's { Link } a publication from 2006 claiming that MSFT has 32% of the corporate messaging market with 390 million users while IBM only has 25% of that market. Of course, that means IBM has 304 million users.

    Even Radicati estimated a year ago that there were 101 million active users of Notes { Link } and that would grow to 112 million by 2011. (11 million users in 4 years?) Given Ed's statement of 10% growth of licenses on maintenance, there should have been over 10 million new users in the last year alone.

    Which means if you believe the estimates of the industry's most anti-Lotus analyst team in 2007, and Ed's telling the truth, then IBM has met the 4 year estimate in just a single 12 month period.

  1. 21  Nathan T. Freeman http://nathan.lotus911.com | 7/25/2008 4:09:24 PM

    @19 - Symphony is a subset of Notes. Atlantic is a subset of Notes.

  1. 22  Kevin Mort http://www.theglobalmind.com | 7/25/2008 4:25:37 PM

    The amazing thing is indeed how Nathan says that the press is so ignorant on any of this yet they continue to write as if everything Msft says is above question.

    Of course The Street hasn't been pleased with their results of late, while at the same time they're high on IBM.

    All Msft is doing is putting more spin into the market, using the normal dubious math to come up with a number and then trying to influence buyers based on that fiction.

  1. 23  Nathan T. Freeman http://nathan.lotus911.com | 7/25/2008 4:29:40 PM

    @22 - Another famous company in the computer industry that did that: AOL. They got caught, but only after they managed to pull off the biggest heist of market cap in history.

    Then again, if Jerry Yang would say "yes," Microsoft might be able to beat that.

  1. 24  Bernard  | 7/25/2008 4:36:53 PM

    @5, @13 worse still, I believe, is the journalists (online and print) who re-iterate the claims made by Microsoft. Microsoft benefits because they throw these ridiculous and outlandish figures into the air, and the journalists just catch them and repeat them. Like Nathan says, they're clueless. I'm sure MS PR department knows very well they can make whatever claims they like, and they will never be contested (unless the claims concern Vista - a product that is so shockingly bad it can't even extract files from zip archives).

  1. 25  Volker Weber http://vowe.net/about | 7/26/2008 1:47:17 AM

    Let's just stick to IBM:

    { Link }

    "The presentations illustrated a roadmap of innovations, products, services and Business Partner initiatives designed to make IBM Lotus Notes and Lotus Domino software, licensed to 140 million users, the desktop of the future."

    Anybody out there who does not believe this message is crafted to lead you to believe there are 140 million Notes users out there?

  1. 26  Bernard  | 7/26/2008 2:40:28 AM

    @25 Vowe, why just stick to IBM? It's not like Ed's post is an announcement of IBM numbers: it's a post pointing out how MS maintain their PR spin on the numbers. Maybe you see yourself as a journalist and find the criticism of journalists unpalatable. But anyway, this is not your blog, so I don't really see that you have the right to decide what is on-topic or off-topic. In fact, you're starting to sound like a MS shill. For the record, do you receive remuneration/gifts from MS?

    The statement you quote says "licensed to 140 million users". Why is that not just a statement of fact? Providing IBM don't count a Notes 7 license that is updated to Notes 8 as 2 licenses, then I don't see it as more than a statement of fact.

    Ed are the IBM figures are cumulative, or are they (as near as possible) unique licenses?

  1. 27  Nathan T. Freeman http://nathan.lotus911.com | 7/26/2008 3:59:10 AM

    @25 - lmao. Okay, you found the smoking gun from IBM Hong Kong. Someone there said 140 million users.

    Hopefully Ed will track down who that was.

    And Bernard, Ed's clarified that number. 140 million is the number of new individual Notes licenses that have been issued over the lifetime of the product. It's a pretty meaningless number and shouldn't be used by IBM. Indeed, Vowe's citation of it from IBM HK is the first time I've ever seen them use it in any way other than "There have been 140 million Notes licenses sold in the history of the product."

  1. 28  Henning Heinz  | 7/26/2008 4:22:50 AM

    @9 If the experience with Exchange is so bad why can't you go back? If you are brave enough you can even keep Outlook (not 2007 though) but run Domino on your servers.

    It is a bit pity that one sometimes can post anonymously if the content fits but maybe this one is too good to let it go.

    Afaik the gap between the 140 Mio and the current passport users seems to be huge. Isn't this the main target group for migrations? You cannot count them but the fact that the maintained seats are growing alone does not prove Microsoft wrong.

  1. 29  Vlad  | 7/26/2008 5:30:22 AM

    Maybe it is not so easy to get rid of all existing notes applications, but if you look for a Lotus Notes job you will see few (and that is admin+devel) and a lot for Sharepoint. My belief is that Lotus Notes applications will be migrate over to Sharepoint sooner or later. There are companies that have Sharepoint even if they are on Lotus Notes email and have Lotus Notes application. I also know two companies that have migrated to Outlook but know none that migrated to Lotus.

    I have seen that slides where the cost of Lotus Notes is compared with the cost of Sharepoint and it seems that the cost of Lotus Notes is less than of Sharepoint. If we forget that most companies need a relational database and suite this could be true. How many companies use DB2 and/or something else than Microsoft Office?

    Lotus Notes email is also hated by too many people and among these are people who have a word when it is about to choose what solution would be choose.

    A few days ago I was browsing the Lotus Notes certification website. It seems that the # of certified people has gone down dramatically.

    All that I said above could be interpreted in many ways, but lets not forget that Novell is a thing of past and this is about to happen with Lotus Notes too...

    Sure, Lotus Notes 8 is nice and if it is to ask me it is nicer than Outlook 2007 but it could be too late. Lets hope that there is still a chance...

  1. 30  Henning Heinz  | 7/26/2008 6:18:00 AM

    I could think of many good reasons to move away from Domino but only of little to move from Domino to Sharepoint.

    The fact that Sharepoint gets a traction even in Notes shops is imho that Domino hardly ever completely replaced network shares.

    I would never count Notes and Domino out. Microsoft does many mistakes nowadays and their development has already stalled in many areas.

  1. 31  Volker Weber http://vowe.net/about | 7/26/2008 8:35:34 AM

    Bernard, I think we have a misunderstanding. When I said "stick to IBM" I meant in contrast to "Wikipedia". I see all vendors throwing out outrageous numbers to claim their "leadership". It's not just Microsoft.

    And it don't "find the criticism of journalists unpalatable". I know this business. As in every other business, there are good people and some not so good people. Which worries me to no end when I have to go see a doctor.

  1. 32  Volker Weber http://vowe.net/about | 7/26/2008 8:40:41 AM

    Nathan, the 140 million users is not limited to IBM. { Link }

  1. 33  Ed Brill http://www.edbrill.com | 7/26/2008 8:48:14 AM

    @26 it's the number of unique licenses that have been sold. Both vendors in this area have one issue with that model - Microsoft doesn't require software assurance and IBM only requires one year of Passport Advantage maintenance. As such, customers that go "off maintenance" at some point may find it cheaper to just buy a new license versus ongoing maintenance. To discourage that re-buy on the IBM side, we have a "maintenance after license/reinstatement" process. Microsoft has no similar thing, so they virtually ensure that certain profile customers (esp. SMB) buy multiple licenses over the lifespan of the product.

    There are other issues in that on the Microsoft side there are many Exchange licenses in Enterprise Agreements as shelfware; during the "seats wars" in the 90s, IBM was also more aggressive about selling licenses in bundles.

  1. 34  Bernard  | 7/26/2008 10:11:29 AM

    @29, I think it's hard to disagree that Notes has probably had a lower profile in the last 5 years than at any time in the past 15 years. Notwithstanding that it's still one of the most remarkable products available. I'm sure we all have our ideas as to what needs to change to reverse this situation, and Ed has heard it all before. But IBM are probably content with the revenue growth that Ed is rightly proud of. So, I doubt if we are going to see things change. Also, FWIW, the users of an organization I am involved with are still using Groupwise, and seem to be pretty happy with it.

    @33 Does "the number of unique licenses that have been sold" mean that 1 license that is maintained through passport advantage will always count as just 1 license? In which case 1 license = 1 user license. Even if a company stops using Notes, the fact that they still have the licenses doesn't mean they won't return to using Notes at some point in the future and re-use those licenses. Apart from doing annual surveys of customers to see if all the user licenses are in use (which is laughable), I don't see what else IBM can do but report how many unique client licenses were bought (assuming my interpretation re maintenance is correct). I don't think that's meaningless.

    'To discourage that re-buy on the IBM side, we have a "maintenance after license/reinstatement" process'. Do you mean that if a company lets their passport advantage maintenance lapse, they can re-join at the same cost as if they hadn't lapsed? If that's so, then it's news to me. Frankly, Domino Express passport advantage maintenance is already the best-value maintenance subscription I'm aware of. But if I've understood you correctly, it's an even better deal than I thought.

  1. 35  Nathan T. Freeman http://nathan.lotus911.com | 7/26/2008 10:48:25 AM

    @34 - "Do you mean that if a company lets their passport advantage maintenance lapse, they can re-join at the same cost as if they hadn't lapsed?"

    No. That is not the case.

    @32 - How do you think I found the links I already posted?

    But I'll accept the correction. I didn't think IBM used the number directly. I was wrong. I didn't think to make it an ibm.com specific search { Link }

    Most of them say "140 million licenses sold" but { Link } is egregious with a specific "140 million users." Particularly since it was about the redesign of the interface, which would only apply to users on current maintenance.

  1. 36  Ed Brill http://www.edbrill.com | 7/26/2008 5:10:17 PM

    @34 One license maintained will always count as just one license. If they let maintenance lapse, there is a "reinstatement" price which is cheaper than a new license, but more expensive than the annual maintenance price.

  1. 37  Vlad  | 7/26/2008 8:26:50 PM

    Ed, maybe I am too generous, but if it were by me I would give a discount to the client that start to use Lotus Notes again. Lets not forget Microsoft's lesson: most of the time a product will open the door for another one...

    It could make sense to promote using iNotes instead of the fat Lotus Notes client for some users that do not need it. Also if DAMO could be modified to work directly with a notes database and not with a pst it would be great. When I used to work with DAMO I was having frequent problems with the pst file (in special with the old one with 2GB limit).

    I am also worried about Ray Ozzie... if he would make only a half for Sharepoint from what he did for Lotus Notes it would be devastating... lets not forget that not many things have happened in Notes since he left if we exclude ver 8. IBM should have been bought Groove and bring back Ray not Microsoft...

  1. 38  Ed Brill http://www.edbrill.com | 7/26/2008 9:03:01 PM

    @37 I don't understand your point about Ray. I respect Ray and have enjoyed interacting with him over the years, but he has been at Microsoft for over three years there is little to show for that. There was no strategic nor technical fit for IBM to buy Groove, and Ray had already left once, so why? Microsoft was Groove's primary VC and it made sense for them to fold before they completely lost the bet. As for not much happening in Notes since he left, you have to be kidding me. Ray's last release was R4.

    We promote iNotes plenty and are looking at more web-based-mail offerings (through things like Bluehouse and Foundations).

  1. 39  Julian Woodward http://blog.woowar.com | 7/27/2008 12:25:12 AM

    @38 I'm with you on the Ray thing. When Groove first came out there was a general intake of breath in the Lotus world, and then ... not much happened, and quite slowly.

    Microsoft invested in Groove, then bought the company, then promoted him to CTO, then made him Gates' successor as Chief Software Architect: once again there was a "better watch this" feeling ... and still, not much has happened.

    Groove itself, one feels, is now a dead-end product. It is only available as part of the super-duper MSOffice version, and is definitely a niche interest. Bits of Groove technology appear to have resurfaced in the Microsoft Live Mesh platform/product, but Groove itself seems destined for death-by-maintenance-mode.

    Ozzie is still a ticking timebomb in the Notes world, because he could come up with something that really hurts, and he's probably not sitting twiddling his thumbs. On the other hand, his ability to deliver anything since Notes itself is questionable, and being CTO of Microsoft is a world removed from the entrepreneurial environments in which he's had previous successes.

    PS Ray's blog, which now seems to have been taken down, was about as lively and engaging as Mike Rhodin's was ;-)

  1. 40  David Dickey  | 7/27/2008 8:42:34 AM

    Until recently, I worked with a large multinational that uses Notes heavily for mail and applications. They announced this week they were replacing Notes with Exchange. This followed an announcement some months previously that Sharepoint was going to be the "collaboration platform of the future".

    (what's that writing on the wall over there)

    The mail decision had been gossiped about for weeks, but to a person, everyone involved thought it would just be too expensive for an organization of this size (120,000 users).

    Some of the interesting trivia that came out of the announcement meeting (whether FUD or not):

    1) They believed that Lotus had lost a good chunk of it's market share while maintaining profits. Their conclusion: it must cost existing customers more.

    2) The loss of market share (they used these words) made them question the viability of Lotus / IBM as an vendor.

    The net result seems to indicate that they wanted Microsoft in at any cost. Part of that cost seems to be losing about 95% of their North American contract work force (myself included).

  1. 41  Ed Brill http://www.edbrill.com | 7/27/2008 9:15:27 AM

    @40, points #1 and #2 are straight out of the MS playbook. Only one flawed market share *survey* says we've lost a "good chunk of market share"... Gartner Dataquest and IDC both say our share has been in the 35-45% range for the last several years. And as I've said in this very thread, we grew the number of users on maintenance by 10% between 1/1/07 and 1/1/08...with new customer wins as large as 300,000 users (indicated in our quarterly earnings report for Q2 08). So, it's not "cost[ing] existing customers more" that is driving the profitability.

    If you'd like to mail me offline and tell me which company this is, I would certainly appreciate it. I can't think of more than one company that falls into this category, but in case I wasn't aware of another one, it would be good to know.

  1. 42  reynout  | 7/27/2008 11:20:51 AM

    same story about Coca Cola.

    we have Notes for the thousands of people working for the brewery, the company itself ,HQ, is running Exchange. And what do I hear all around me: Microsoft telling they "own" Coca Cola. So that's another story. Maybe IBM should brag a bit more and not just by Ed's blog.

  1. 43  Nathan T. Freeman http://nathan.lotus911.com | 7/27/2008 12:47:04 PM

    @42 - "the company itself ,HQ, is running Exchange"

    Actually, their migration is still in progress. And it's obviously only for mail. They still have hundreds of Notes applications in use.

  1. 44  Henning Heinz  | 7/27/2008 1:21:58 PM

    Do you really believe that a company that switched its HQ mail to Exchange has a bright future for Lotus Notes?

    From my opinion it is no fun to work for a company that switched mail over to Exchange. For Domino this often means a shift from strategic to legacy. But I understand, it's just a flesh wound!.

  1. 45  Ed Brill http://www.edbrill.com | 7/27/2008 1:50:57 PM

    @42/43 Coca-Cola Enterprises, the bottler based in the US, is the ones who have been publicly referenced as moving the factory workers, truck drivers, etc. to a hosted MS e-mail solution. The Coca-Cola Company is not migrating, and was recently a public reference for IBM in a Lotusphere 2008 press release.

  1. 46  Nathan T. Freeman http://nathan.lotus911.com | 7/27/2008 2:03:47 PM

    @44 - Not claiming it's just a flesh wound. Just observing that claims of conversion may be exaggerated. Just as they are with Accenture.

  1. 47  Henry Bestritsky  | 7/27/2008 4:15:47 PM

    Nathan,

    MSFT themselves admit what you said about Accenture. You are still under the assumption that Notes is still considered a viable messaging/collaboration platform for the next 5 years. IBM has done very little to prove that point. IMHO it no longer matters what MSFT does, companies are moving not because Exchange is better, but because the perception is that Notes is dying. If you think your ship is sinking, what would you do?

    Unfortunately for Notes, due to the economic downturn companies will be forced to consolidate and economize. They will fall for the sweetheart deals MSFT (and shortly Google) will be giving them.

    Microsoft has been brilliant in positioning SharePoint as the solution for Notes when we all know it's not. IBM tried to do that with WorkPlace and failed. Now we see the fallout.

  1. 48  Philip Storry http://www.not-so-rapid.com | 7/27/2008 4:31:26 PM

    Henry @ 47

    "If you think your ship is sinking, what would you do?"

    Send someone down below to find out if there's water there?

    That's much easier than looking around for a nearby spare ship, having to plan a rapid transfer of all my passangers and cargo whilst still at sea, and minor things like making sure my crew knows how to maintain and sail another ship.

    Simply put, I'm not about to go planning to ferry my entire ship's contents via liferafts just because someone thinks they saw water down below. It might just be an overflowing bath, after all.

    Still, I see your point. But your analogy shows how stupid the practice is, and I can't help wonder if the analogy shouldn't be given to more people - just to help them understand what someone's trying to sell them!

  1. 49  Erik Brooks  | 7/27/2008 7:23:16 PM

    @48 - I agree, but...

    That "nearby spare ship" is knocking on the door in many cases. You don't need to spend much time looking for it.

    And if I already have some level of familiarity with the spare ship's product line and a business partner ready to throw me people to help sail it I'd feel much more comfortable.

    Now, if the people that built my ship were screaming "NO, THE SHIP ISN'T SINKING" I might pause to look at things myself.

  1. 50  Ian Scott  | 7/27/2008 8:54:32 PM

    Despite what appears to be a rosy looking future for Notes at my place of employment there are things happening way outside of my ability to influence which might become the thin end of a wedge. I have to be pretty vague here since it is a highly political matter but one of these is the supplier of a technology solution who is trying to get us to deploy an Exchange server so as to make their 'solution' work. Domino could do it just as well but.....we'll have to wait and see what happens. Another is the likelihood of MS Project/Portfolio server being deployed and with it Sharepoint.

    Fortunately, very few of the Notes applications we have in production are 'standard template' type applications (eg. Discussion/Document Library/Team Rooms). The majority are very bespoke applications designed to meet a very specific business need.

    Consequently, even if MS gets an Exchange or Sharepoint foothold here they won't or shouldn't threaten the existing Notes application base nor should they threaten the trajectory or volume of Notes development requests.

    I might be wrong but I doubt very much if Sharepoint on the back of Portfolio Server would ever amount to more than FileServer 2.0. Exchange might be a different matter but we wouldn't be able to cluster it and if Outlook got deployed via it those helpful little doclinks in Notes generated emails wouldn't work (I know Genii can sell us something to help with that): Exchange and/or Sharepoint can't replace the bespoke Notes applications I am building and the business is increasingly demanding.

    I have no doubt some of our Notes applications could be built with other tools but not in the days or weeks these Notes applications are being delivered in. The value to the business is the speed and thus low cost of delivery and I don't believe that value is going to go away. Moreover, in an economic downturn I believe that value proposition is more pronounced.

    If we were to move to Outlook 80 business critical Notes applications would break and while I was getting them to work with Outlook I wouldn't be building new Notes applications. Then we'd have to spend years and probably much more than my salary rebuilding applications so as to get rid of the Note client. I just can't see the business tolerating or countenancing that.

    So, even if we buy Exchange and Sharepoint I have no doubt that Lotus Notes isn't leaving here. MS would surely attempt to spin it otherwise and attempt to claim great success in making an inroad into a Notes shop. Honestly, part of me would like them to try because we might not like it!

  1. 51  NeilT  | 7/28/2008 3:50:39 AM

    Whist the thread of this is all about "MS talks BS to get customers to consider migrating", I think there are some subliminal messages out there which have been completely missed in this.

    I've been working with a SP Portal to coordinate and manage the documents flying around my project. I also am trying to use an embedded spreadsheet to control document status and flow. And I don't want to hear about how "easy it is in Notes/Domino" because I already know but we don't have it so that is not a conversation starter.

    So what's my impression?

    SharePoint out of the box Suxs in a big way.

    OK all good so far? Well not really. In my discussions with the Infosys guys ontise here, I could buy a bargain basement block of apps from them customised to my company for peanuts. When I ask them if they know about Notes they say "Oh that legacy email thing which looks like crap?".

    Perceptions.

    OK so to Notes and Domino. Even I could produce something better and more functional in a day than I'm working with in SP and I haven't written any real user side Notes code since 95.

    But that is not the point. I've simply stopped looking for Notes/Domino jobs in Europe. They don't exist and haven't for 2 years or more now. OK someone I've worked for may want me back, but I'm not holding my breath or even looking.

    So given that Notes developers are comparatively expensive and the market for them is nowhere to be seen and Notes simply does very little out of the box, the argument for NOT going SharePoint is a defensive one. SP is seen as moving forward, Notes/Domino is seen as being stuck in the past (new client or not, that is the perception).

    So why was the Apple iPhone deal such a big deal?

    Well let's put it this way. Apple is on a high, it has real IP that people want and want it now. They are moving it into the business sphere. Publicly they ridicule Microsoft yet they Partner with MS as the primary launch collaboration for putting the iPhone into businesses.

    Now I know it's to do with the well developed Activesync platform and the fact that E2k3 has had push mail from day 1. I also know it's not likely to work well, but I also know that 3rd party developers will really make it work.

    The CEO/CIO sees a product in decline, other CEO’s/CIO's in other companies that they talk to are saying "Hey we can get the 10% of functionality in SP that 90% of our users need for peanuts".

    Then MS comes online and simply confirms what the CEO/CIO perception is and that is all the justification they need.

    Back in 2000 when we analysed the applications in use in ABN amro, they had 39,000 or so. Of which some 38,000 were based on the discussion template.

    It is a simple and topical decision to move your discussion based apps to SP, move you development efforts to outsourced offshore contracts and ringfence the dinosaur apps so that they can slowly die.

    It doesn't have to make sense or be financially viable forever, just for the next 2 years or so.

    In the long run the only people who can change this perception, drive the awareness and migration efforts of the customers, is IBM. Simple marketing techniques like 2 for the price on 1 maintenance if you go to 8. Waiving the premium on coming back onto support if they upgrade to 8. There are so many ways to tempt customers to come back to the Maintenance fold and deploy the new code base that it’s not funny.

    Let me reiterate a story I was told about Swedish public rail. It was expensive, poorly served and not well used. They decided a radical change was needed. They cut the price of the tickets by 66%. In the next year they recorded a 100% rise in revenue and also a profit balance sheet.

    IBM has spent a huge chunk of money building a new client and pushing it through its usual channels. Now it needs to start thinking about how it gets customers to upgrade and deploy it. That means thinking outside the blue box IBM Lotus Software is stuck in.

    Because if it doesn’t start thinking outside that box, then all that investment in development time and marketing will be completely wasted.

  1. 52  Ed Lee  | 7/28/2008 4:35:29 AM

    NeilT @ 51

    "I've simply stopped looking for Notes/Domino jobs in Europe. They don't exist and haven't for 2 years..."

    This seems an absolutley ridicoulous thing to say. I've been contracting in the UK for the last 8 years as a Lotus Notes developer and, touch wood, have not been out of work since I started. Perhaps I am flying off the handle here. If you could elaborate a little on your statement and explain what type of work you do and how you actually find work then I might be able understand where you are coming from.

  1. 53  NeilT  | 7/28/2008 5:22:54 AM

    For Notes/Domino I do PM work, Architectural or Migration specific (upgrade/migration to/from Exchange and Exchange connectivity), whichever is available.

    I'm British which means I don't count the UK as Europe.... :-) Try refining your search.

    You will then find a very different picture. I have contracted in Notes/Domino since then end of 93 (or early 94 I really don't remember). In the last 3 years I have worked two of my contracts from direct contacts and the last year has been non Notes.

    If huge numbers of customers were looking to do radical shifts to ND8 then, theoretically, my skillset should ping the jobs detector pretty hard.

    I see nothing. That tells me more than anything that can ever be said in marketing claims and does not lead me to have any confidence that I will ever work in Notes/Domino again.

    So if you don't mind I'll stick to my rediculous opinion as it is valid in the sphere that I work in.

    Also if you think I should move to all the jobs I've seen over the last 3 years for Notes->Exchange migrations, you will find that they are all focused around high degrees of Exchange knowledge and "some experience" in Notes/Domino. Which speaks volumes for the quality of said migrations and the understanding of the inherent problems.

  1. 54  Ed Lee  | 7/28/2008 7:10:47 AM

    NeilT @ 53

    Thanks for the clarification. I can see why you might think work is drying up giving the type of work you do.

  1. 55  Nathan T. Freeman http://nathan.lotus911.com | 7/28/2008 7:58:37 AM

    NeilT - "Notes jobs don't exist in Europe"

    NeilT - "I do PM work for Exchange migrations"

    Ummmm, Neil, I hate to tell you but, you aren't in the Notes industry. Thanks for playing, though. Have a nice day.

    @47 - Henry, stick with the models and miniskirts kthx.

  1. 56  Ed Brill http://www.edbrill.com | 7/28/2008 8:23:59 AM

    @51 "Because if it doesn’t start thinking outside that box, then all that investment in development time and marketing will be completely wasted."

    You seem to be implying in your comparison to Swedish public rail that Notes isn't profitable, is in decline, etc and that as such, IBM needs to do something "outside the box" to change all that. Perhaps you aren't aware that IBM has reported revenue growth for Notes/Domino for over three years running on a quarter-to-quarter basis. I agree that there is more that can be done to further increase the market demand and penetration for Notes in 2008, but your logic starts from a false premise. We don't need 2-for-1 specials (and in fact would find it hard to get organizational support for such a thing) when the business is solid.

  1. 57  NeilT  | 7/28/2008 8:43:56 AM

    @55 Nathan, I didn't say that but you have twisted it. I do PM/Technical work for Notes which include migrations with Exchange. The majority of that is Exchange to Notes and the Notes->Exchange I have done is for cross company inter-operation during transition phase.

    But your statement about not being in the Notes industry is correct. I've just negotiated my second Oracle migration contract. Why? Because in 3 years I've seen one job in Notes/Domino which I would have taken.

    @56 Ed. Our positions are different. Healthy growth and a healthy product for you comes in terms of revenue and product wins. A healthy product for me means work and a living.

    You will perhaps understand that from my perspective it’s broken. But from yours it isn’t. Hence the reference to generating the kind of work which will keep me in a job. I fully understand that from your perspective it isn’t broken. Time will tell who’s perspective is correct.

    I sincerely hope that your measure works for the business. However I'm not the only long term Notes/Domino Professional who is now out of the market because of a lack of opportunity to earn. Out of the market does not mean out of a job. It also doesn’t mean I don’t care. I have a certain comfort level with Notes/Domino that I have never had with any other product. It is a shame to lose that even though it has been a love/hate relationship.

  1. 58  Michael de Haas  | 7/28/2008 8:55:39 AM

    @51 Cannot talk for all of Europe, but in France I am getting back into Domino Admin (Ouis, yess!!) as the job market in on the up in the last year. Agreed 3 years ago, I decided to pursue a change in country with a change in career, as the Notes market appeared dead. Fortunately, this has changed, certainly the last 6 months. On the single employment site that I use, a search on broad keywords gets over 100 responses for France as a whole. If I use tighter keywords, limit this to Paris and surrounds, I get 18 hits on any week. (I have not even bothered with the monster type sites). Various companies have confirmed that the demand for Domino resources is higher than the supply. So, I am taking advantage of the reverse, needless to say, I am ecstatic, and I am back :-) A general pessimistic Lotus view seems to pervade, but that goes with the European/French culture.

  1. 59  Pedro Quaresma http://playroom3.wordpress.com | 7/28/2008 11:05:01 AM

    @58 Ahem... care to share the name of your search sites? ;-)

    My searches aren't as successful, unfortunately

  1. 60  NeilT  | 7/28/2008 12:18:45 PM

    @58 Granted I only use international job search sites. I may have a home in France and have worked in Germany for 7 years, but I'm language challenged.

    Also I'm not looking for Admin. I'm looking for Upgrades, Migrations or redesigns.

    Different world really.

  1. 61  Henry Bestritsky  | 7/28/2008 12:38:39 PM

    @55 Nathan,

    Thanks for the advice. I think I will paint my hair yellow next time so the models will find me even more attractive. Any chance I could a real reaction out you instead of an automatic snarky response. I understand that you work for Lotus911 and if Notes goes away, your livelihood is at stake, but I am sure you can find within yourself an impartial thoughtful remark.

  1. 62  Ed Brill http://www.edbrill.com | 7/28/2008 12:44:41 PM

    Can someone who speaks Dutch tell me what is being said about this blog entry at

    { Link }

    Babelfish has been the major suck since it became a yahoo.com site.

  1. 63  Pedro Quaresma http://playroom3.wordpress.com | 7/28/2008 3:12:31 PM

    @62 Tried translate.google.com ? The results don't seem to be too bad: "Microsoft opens hunt for Lotus Notes users"

    It actually seems to show a positive perspective on your (IBM's) side

  1. 64  Bernard  | 7/28/2008 4:36:52 PM

    It's almost 20 years since I last spoke Dutch, but the google translation more or less gets it (even if it does read a little robotic).

  1. 65  Nathan T. Freeman http://nathan.lotus911.com | 7/28/2008 7:15:27 PM

    @61 - No chance whatsoever.

  1. 66  Charles Robinson http://www.cubert.net | 7/28/2008 8:23:45 PM

    The sparring between NeilT and others is very interesting to me. I have been doing non-Lotus work for the last 15 or so months because there are no Notes jobs in my local market. There is exactly ONE shop using Notes and it's the place I quit. IBM can claim growth as much as they like but until I see it happening where I live it's as much a myth as Windows servers that crash daily. I have never seen either one personally.

    @50 - "Exchange might be a different matter but we wouldn't be able to cluster it..."

    Why not?

  1. 67  Nathan T. Freeman http://nathan.lotus911.com | 7/28/2008 9:59:40 PM

    @66 - You're not exactly living a hotbed of the IT industry, Charles, even if it is your town. :-)

  1. 68  Ian Scott  | 7/29/2008 1:20:51 AM

    @66 - To be clearer what I meant is that I wouldn't be able to get it to cluster sweetly straight out of the box as per Domino; I don't want to have to spend extra time and money on the matter. Does comment #9 here [{ Link } no longer apply?

  1. 69  AndyJ http://websitejones.net | 7/29/2008 1:50:21 AM

    Here is a nice position for one of you pessimists who can't find jobs :-)... and its a blue chip FROM exchange TO Notes

    Position: Lotus Notes Migration/Architect Consultant

    Location: Belgium

    Rate: Market Rates

    Skills: For a key SWG Services project, we need an senior Exchange to

    Notes migration consultant. One of our Major Blue Chip clients will be

    migrating to Notes. We need to run a series of workshops (US and

    Europe) with this customers' key architects and IT managers to decide

    on the target architecture and planning of how to go from the current

    environment to the to be situation. The Resource will be expected to

    participate in and facilitate these workshops. This person must have

    extended and...

    Type: Contract

    Start Date: ASAP & Or 4 Weeks Notice

    Duration: 5 months

    Advertiser: Global Resource

    Business Type: Employment Business

    Contact: Kris Kistnassamy

    Phone: +44 175 3 6 87777

    Fax: +44 175 3 6 87878

    Email: mailto:Kris.Kistnassamy.8DE6D.6BA74@mail.jobserve.com

  1. 70  Jan Van Puyvelde  | 7/29/2008 6:58:00 AM

    @62: I agree with 63; discussion is mainly positive for N/D.

  1. 71  Michael de Haas  | 7/29/2008 8:42:18 AM

    @59, I used www.lesjeudi.fr. @60 Point taken - I saw one posting in your work area, in Normandy, as a 6 month interim contract. Language is barrier to entry, but attitude generally wins over the French - even if after a few tries.

  1. 72  Charles Robinson http://www.cubert.net | 7/29/2008 10:36:33 AM

    @67 - That's a point I'll gladly concede. IT jobs of any type are hard to come by here unless you're willing to do government contracts or .Net development. My point is that like NeilT, the picture isn't rosy for Lotus where I live. I know I'm in a very low priority market, but geez... nearly 4 years of sustained growth and absolutely *nothing* locally? I might as well be living in Honea Path or Due West. ;-)

    @68 - I didn't say it was easy, I took your statement to mean you didn't think you could cluster it at all. Exchange clustering is difficult but it is possible. :-)

  1. 73  Cheyney Rushing http://www.healthylittleones.com | 7/29/2008 12:25:23 PM

    @72 - Could it be that years of sustained growth without a corresponding increase in contract/consultant jobs says something about the ease of install and maintenance of that product? Whilst a huge demand for people to install and maintain another product doesn't necessarily speak well for the other product?

    Just sayin'. . . the numbers game with the online help wanted ads may not be the indicator you think it is.

  1. 74  Erik Brooks  | 7/29/2008 6:08:15 PM

    @73 - I think you've got a point.

    Are you guys looking for Notes *admin* jobs, or Notes *developer* jobs?

    .Net dev positions are probably going to dwarf Notes dev positions for quite awhile.

    MS has better dev tools in some areas (e.g. a class brows--*COUGH COUGH*) and can build better UIs quicker and faster. 8.5 should help dramatically in that regard, but that's how things are today.

    SMB penetration is also likely a huge factor here. Microsoft has much, much better SMB penetration than IBM (though hopefully not for long).

    As an example:

    500 shops of 20 people needing a dev each = 500 jobs.

    5 shops of 2000 people needing 10 devs each = 50 jobs.

  1. 75  Charles Robinson http://www.cubert.net | 7/29/2008 9:42:52 PM

    @73/74 - I've dragged this out long enough. I can say with certainty that the growth being experienced in other places is not showing up here. There are no Notes jobs where I live, and I mean that quite literally. And please don't think I'm complaining because I'm not (for once). :-)