Ed Brill

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1. 1  Duffbert http://www.twduff.com | 1/4/2006 10:33:58 AM

   LOL... And she wonders why she gets little respect from some areas of the IT community?

1. 2  Chris Whisonant http://cwhisonant.blogspot.com | 1/4/2006 10:43:38 AM

   That is great! She predicted an increase of 8 million mailboxes but instead saw a decrease of 7 million!! I'll have to keep this in mind if someone brings up this study...

1. 3  Wild Bill http://www.billbuchan.com | 1/4/2006 11:32:18 AM

   Wonder if the IT industry should have a "razzies" style award for the worst performing analyst of the year ?

   I'd vote for that.

   ---* Bill

1. 4  Richard Schwartz http://www.rhs.com/poweroftheschwartz | 1/4/2006 12:15:58 PM

   @2 Put another way, the predicted increase in Microsoft seat count was off by a factor of -187.5% ;-)

1. 5  Gregg Eldred http://www.ns-tech.com/blog/geldred.nsf | 1/4/2006 12:55:34 PM

   I wish I could see her face (or one of her minions') when they Google this and find that Ed actually applauds this new message. I don't think that this was what she was hoping for. But, hey, it is press! :-)

1. 6  Rob McDonagh www.CaptainOblivious.com | 1/4/2006 1:12:44 PM

   @5 - Nah, never happen. In her universe, business blogs are a fad that died last year, remember? So there IS no edbrill.com where she lives...

   *snicker*

1. 7  Duffbert http://www.twduff.com | 1/4/2006 1:20:23 PM

   Actually, this is one of those things that should be blogged in order to get picked up by Google. The short-term memory of the IT press and readers will not remember any of the facts from six months ago. All they'll remember is that Radicati said that Notes was behind Exchange, and both reports confirmed that.

   Details? Bah! I don' need no steekin' details!

1. 8  david racicot  | 1/4/2006 4:56:59 PM

   You know I think this is no laughing matter. You have this "analyst" publishing numbers in July saying Notes (88 million), Exchange (126 million) = 38 million difference , and then 6 months later it's a 23 million difference. So last Summer/Fall how many IT execs saw this as a sign and chose poorly? And what are the real numbers? I'd bet Notes is really ahead (180 million seats or more right)? And yes you get lemmings like Nancy coming up with titles like "Microsoft still leads in email, instead of "Microsoft supposed lead in email is slipping" ... maybe our friend John at messaging pipeline will help with that one ... John are you there? Could you set the record straight on Radicati? Frankly I think they needed the $2500 a report to make year end and so had to roll out some kind of bogus study.

1. 9  Ed Brill www.edbrill.com | 1/4/2006 5:38:12 PM

   OK, so a few comments

   @8 - John Dickinson moved on from Messaging Pipeline. I enjoyed working with him in that role. Also, IBM has never claimed 180 million -- I can't disclose final 2005 numbers yet, but the last reported public numbers were 61,000 customers (discrete organizations) and 120 million users.

   At any rate, I do understand that these various reports have an impact. I'm just not sure that any of them are accurate, and that's why I'm surprised to see anyone pay attention to them. For now, either Radicati's numbers weren't right in July's predictions, or we totally blew out their projections in terms of Notes/Domino growth and narrowed the gap.

1. 10  david racicot  | 1/5/2006 9:18:15 AM

   { Link }

   ..."The annual review of the numbers backed him up. Lotus Notes has about 180 million seats worldwide, and the total is up 5 million in the past year, according to Goyal. IBM Lotus Instant Messaging (formerly Sametime) has doubled its installed base. And IBM Workplace is gaining in both users (now about 2 million users for the enterprise version, IBM Workplace Collaboration Services) and in attention from business partners with 125 partners working to fill the pipeline of applications for IBM Workplace. ..."

1. 11  Chris Linfoot http://chris-linfoot.net | 1/5/2006 10:12:56 AM

   Given Microsoft's alleged lead in email, Mr Gates' recent admission that IBM is his big competitor is all the more interesting.

   { Link }

1. 12  Axel  | 1/5/2006 10:16:53 AM

   The analysts are selling rationales for decision takers to invest their 100 Mio anual IT budget in platform b exclusive or platform a.

   And as

   1) complex human and organizational factors

   2) forecasting future momentum of the platform

   are involved in the analystists offering a rationale comparative meassurement of the effectiveness of some platforms for a concrete & complex organization, its allways a bit like snake-oil selling no matter how smart the guys elaborating the study.

   On the other hand theres huge incentive for platform vendors to get some control over the content of the study.

   Any rationale thinking individuum in this industry knows that. Nevertheless it'll never change, because a lot of decisions aren't taken on a rationale basis.

   In this setting a change for the better is highly improbable.

1. 13  Sean Burgess http://www.phigsaidwhat.com | 1/5/2006 11:11:21 AM

   I'm not sure which is harder, believing anything RadiCockeye has to say or deciphering anything Axel ever writes. In any event, it's good to know that some things never change.

   Sean---

1. 14  Axel  | 1/5/2006 4:45:16 PM

   @Sean: Sometimes it needs time to convince people. I agree that I should use more comas or make smaller sentences.

   Here's short version:

   1. Analystists do have an impact on decision takers.

   2. The investment decision for a platform or a vendor can never be objective, because too many aspects has to be taken into account.

   3. We'll ever have those analysts papers with a huge tendency in favour of their biggest customer, because incentives to abandom objectivity are simply too strong for them. Its part of our life.

1. 15  Charles Robinson  | 1/5/2006 5:22:41 PM

   Maybe I'm in the minority because so-called expert analysts don't matter at all to me or the people signing the checks. They care about measurable performance, not jumping on a "me too" bandwagon. We want to differentiate ourselves, not be identical to them.

1. 16  Axel  | 1/5/2006 6:30:22 PM

   Analysts provide the big picture.

   You just can't messure performance, when there are too many factors involved and the issue you tackle gets too big.

   And as platforms gets more complex, more integrated and on the same time more similar, its

   difficult to take the right decision.

   For some shops Microsoft works better, for others Lotus/J2EE. Depends heavily on the *people* who are doing the *work* and on the *work* to be *done*.

   Such analyst reports work, because for a lot of people simplifying advice is more welcomed as the complexity of a decision grows.

   The message of the report says: Microsoft is used more for mailing solution. Thats simply an effective, easy to digest pro Microsoft argument. It does not matter if the numbers are wrong or right. Because a lot of people, have no motivation in questioning the numbers.

   I agree that Radicati reports appear more hilarious than others.

   I agree with Charles that one should concentrate on his own stuff. Its a more attack, less defense position, anyway.

   One needs to change human nature to make such reports less effective and thats impossible.

1. 17  Nathan T. Freeman  | 1/6/2006 2:28:16 AM

   @15 - Yes, you are in a very small minority. The rest of us envy you.

1. 18  Dag Kvello  | 1/6/2006 7:53:39 AM

   Well, If You coun't all the private installations of Lotus Notes as a POP3/IMAP client I have done, the number should be adjusted up a couple of millions :-)

   I've tossed out "Outbreak Express" and "Outbreak Enterprise" and replaced it with Lotus Notes on so many "home"-user pc's that I've lost count.

1. 19  david racicot  | 1/6/2006 9:47:55 AM

   @15. I've done several, and watched several, executive reports recommending Notes over Exchange get disregarded because of management paying attention only to what these analysts say. So, the damage this misinformation causes cannot be ignored. A lot of orgs want to be part of the "status quo" and so the reports have an effect in that respect. Of course in 2006, with Notes hitting the 200 million seat mark ;-)...

1. 20  Charles Robinson  | 1/6/2006 10:15:32 AM

   @16-19 - For us the decision to use Notes/Domino was based largely on the fact our largest supplier uses it. When we decided to implement our own e-mail and collaboration infrastructure (in 1998) we considered using Exchange but the horror stories drove us away. At the time there really weren't any viable options other than Exchange and Domino, so we ended up with Domino by default.

   Seven years and a whole lot of experience later we are questioning whether it is the right platform for us long term. For where we are and where we're going the IBM/Lotus vision, which we admittedly don't understand, doesn't seem to fit. That is my primary reason for going to Lotusphere -- to try to make some sense of the IBM/Lotus direction and determine whether Notes and Domino and/or Workplace are the best choice for us.

   To tie this back to the original message and my comments @15, our decision is based on us evaluating our own needs and surveying the marketplace to see who can meet them. While we read analyst reports and sponsored case studies they are being used for reference only and are not playing any role in the decision making process.

1. 21  david racicot  | 1/6/2006 4:35:39 PM

   @15. I forgot to comment that there are many examples of companies using Notes that allow them to "differentiate" themselves, because it allows them to be leaner and more adaptive, etc.

   @20. Lotus direction ... It's been around for over a decade and it's going to be around for another. It gets better every release. It takes less Admins it's more stable, it's easy to upgrade, and you can build just about anything with it. Not sure why you'd question it. Better to spend time and money moving forward using it (because the business needs IT to build apps for them yesterday), than those "other" companies that say, freeze doing any new work until they decide whether they're using the right product (while the business uses paper), then spend bags of money and person years of time migrating to a platform that cannot do half of what Notes does. And at the end of it you're now where you were 5 years ago. Okay that's a bit of a rant based on a really stupid company in Winnipeg.

1. 22  Ed Brill www.edbrill.com | 1/7/2006 12:56:13 PM

   I figured out the "180 million" thing -- it was actually announced by Ambuj (according to my copy of the transcript) as "118 million" -- but I could see how someone listening might have heard it as 180 instead of 118. But the number then was 118 million ... and as of Q3 2005, was reported by IBM as 120 million.

1. 23  George Bing  | 3/10/2006 10:17:39 AM

   they are hired guns, pay them and they will a report for you, I think they used to have some credibility but their user numbers are so completely off...not just the Lotus and Microsoft thing, nothing seems to add up in properly in any of their reports.

   Might be interesting to know how how their "analysts" are compensated, i.e. what are their incentives?