Let’s revisit that LinkedIn question..

August 15 2007

While I was on vacation last week, Alan gave some visibility to a "what is the future of Notes" discussion on LinkedIn.  A few days later, it's worth taking another look at the end-result of that question and subsequent discussion.

There's a typical two-camp dichotomy to the responses posted on LinkedIn.  There are many, many responses in support of Notes and its future.  There are dissenters who are in the "end is near" camp, though they are in two buckets as well -- 1) one-line flame trolls, and 2) Microsoft employees.

When I read the positive responses, what struck me the most was the diversity of the backgrounds of the people who commented.  Unlike many of these online debates, it's not like a posse of edbrill.com (and other blog) readers jumped in with a fanboy mindset.  True, many of you posted, and I certainly appreciate that.  But it's not just "rah rah".  The overall tone, and substantiation, of the pro-Notes comments is based in business trends, technology trends, and real-world comparisons.  As another plus, a number of the positive comments come from names I've never heard, from all over the world.  That seems to be a strong validation of the Lotus strategy.  Anyone looking to support Notes-related decisions can point to this discussion and feel like there's a broad range of support for the product going forward, in a variety of industries, around the world.

The negative responses are striking in their contrast.  There are half a dozen people who think it's cute or funny to post "what? there's a future?" kinds of comments.  I am sure they realize that this just makes them look foolish, in a venue that is associated with their own individual name brands.  In fact, it's probably unsurprising that most of these one line zingers are posted by independent consultants.

Then there are the Microsoft comments.  There was no challenge in the original question, nor in most of the comments, that asked for a perspective versus Microsoft, but that didn't stop the spin patrol.  Cliff Reeves echoed some logic from his own weblog that the number of job postings in the UK market for Notes/Domino vs. Exchange+SharePoint is somehow a marker for the entire software ecosystem.  This is the very same market where ComputerWeekly just highlighted Notes and Domino as "Hot Skills".  I think there are a myriad of ways of looking at job postings, and they are one, but not the only, indicator of an ecosystem.  Since Exchange and SharePoint have new releases out in the last few months, perhaps it makes sense that there are some new jobs related to them out there.  On the other hand, you can see other indicators of more jobs for Lotus Notes than for Microsoft Exchange, such as on indeed.com.
Image:Let’s revisit that LinkedIn question..

But the pure spin award goes to Jim Bernardo, who even brought that spin here to comment #24 in Alan's prior posting about the linkedin question.  Now, for background, here is what Bernardo wrote in comments here on April 23, 2007:

Whenever I'm asked questions about the direction for Notes, or what I think about where IBM is taking Notes, Ed, my answer is ALWAYS "You should get your information about IBM's product plans from IBM...you shouldn't ask me," and that's the answer that I think most ex-Lotus folks here will give when asked.  When I'm asked why I left, I'm honest about it, and make it clear that my reasons were just that, MY reasons... We would never try to answer the "what's left" question, since, as you point out, we're not in a position to know.  
Yet Jim's posting on LinkedIn doesn't hesitate to specualate on the people, the product plans, and the strategy.

On the people, Jim says,
"the vast majority of the people who had the gray matter around Lotus Notes...the people who built that product...left. They left not because they didn't want to work at IBM, but because IBM didn't want to continue Notes."
Presumably, this is meant to say that those who are building the product today don't have any "gray matter" around Notes.  There's several problems with that statement.  First, there are still (and again) people working on Notes today who were there at the beginning.  Many of us who work on Notes today have done so for 10+ years.  It shouldn't matter, though; there are more people working on Notes/Domino today than any prior release, and they have an impressive amount of combined "gray matter".  That is all that matters, and I am quite certain that there are long-time Microsoft products that no longer have the people who built the product working on them still today.

On the product plans, Jim says,
"Notes is a fully depreciated asset inside of IBM, and not the most significant driver of IBM's profitability."
Hmm.  True or not, why is this relevant?  And how would someone outside of IBM be an authority for that data?

Jim also seems to think that
Notes 8 represents an effort by IBM to do what they could not do with their adventure in the wilderness called Workplace...and that is to bind Notes customers to WebSphere, DB2, and Tivoli. ... IBM Software's biggest assets, and stickiest technologies, are those built around the WebSphere family of products...believing otherwise is naive at best.
It's a great spin, but not particularly connected to reality.  Notes/Domino 8 don't require any technology from any other brand across IBM software.  They are separate product lines.  There are integration opportunities and entitlements, but, unlike the Microsoft one-size-fits-all approach, there are no hard-and-fast ties.  Choice and flexibility are the key to the Notes/Domino story, not forced migrations, new hardware, and single architecture solutions.

Last, both Jim and Tony Ollivier seem to feel that if IBM isn't building new products tied into Domino, it must mean Domino isn't "strategic".  The reality is that new products are indeed being built with open options -- use any directory (we happen to have one from Tivoli, but it's really an LDAP story), use any database (we happen to have one from DB2, but it's really a SQL story), use a variety of application development tools for Eclipse-based clients.  These products and capabilities can be integrated with Notes and Domino, but don't require them.  Why is that flexibility a bad thing?  Why would tying other IBM products to proprietary models of the past be the way to show "strategic" intent?  Isn't it more obvious to see "strategic" intent based on the direction forward of the product in question?   Notes/Domino 8 speaks for itself, and the next version will have even more investment across-the-board, including moving forward on the Domino application development roadmap.

Bottom line: The vast majority of the reasoned, eloquent responses on LinkedIn resonate as clear endorsement of the future of Notes/Domino.  Readers are advised to apply the correct filters, and get their information about IBM's product plans for IBM and its customers.

Ed Brill Highland Park, IL USA Category:  Lotus  Add/View Comments [71]

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  1. 1  Cliff Reeves http://cliffreeves.typepad.com | 8/15/2007 12:30:04 PM

    Ed, I think looking at Indeed.com was an excellent idea.

    I did what I thought was a fair search there.

    (IBM OR Lotus) AND (Notes OR Domino) yielded 33,479 jobs

    (MS OR Microsoft OR MSFT) AND (Exchange OR WSS OR SPS OR Sharepoint) yielded 25,618 jobs.

    This is a dramatically different picture from the UK site. The numbers are much closer and it shows Notes as ahead. That's a bit counter-intuitive (perhaps thjat's just my bias) but it's a credible data point nonetheless. I'll look into this some more and I'll post my results, whichever way they come out.

    Your point about "echoed some faulty logic" is unnecessary and it's inaccurate. You cited indeed.com as a source so a more balanced point might have been "there are other data sources that show a different answer."

    BTW, do you have any idea why we'd see such widely divergent results from what appear to be two credible sources?

  1. 2  David Bell  | 8/15/2007 12:39:23 PM

    If we're so bound to Tivoli, why is work going on in Domino.Next to support AD natively ?

    See { Link }

    Why does Lotus Connections support AD as the LDAP directory and not Domino yet ? Perhaps because we have customers who don't have Domino but want Connections and we're not forcing them to have to get one to have the other ? Hmmm, fancy that; I realize that is a foreign concept to JB and the MS team.

    Comes down to listening to customers and trying to provide products to meet their needs, not force their needs to fit into what you want to provide.

  1. 3  Ed Brill http://www.edbrill.com | 8/15/2007 1:02:09 PM

    OK, I'll apologize for using the word "faulty". It's a different way of looking at data, but "it's just data".

    I have my guesses as to why it's different, but I'm not enough of an indeed.com power user to be sure.

  1. 4  Nathan T. Freeman http://nathan.lotus911.com | 8/15/2007 1:10:33 PM

    Obviously I think the Lotus story is a good one, Ed, but...

    "use any database (we happen to have one from DB2, but it's really a SQL story)"

    I don't think you can really say that's true.

  1. 5  Ed Brill http://www.edbrill.com | 8/15/2007 1:17:43 PM

    It's a comment about new products like Connections, Nathan, which can work with DB2 or Oracle 10.

  1. 6  Nathan T. Freeman http://nathan.lotus911.com | 8/15/2007 1:21:35 PM

    It works with Oracle 10? I hadn't realized. I withdraw my comment in that case.

  1. 7  Ed Brill http://www.edbrill.com | 8/15/2007 1:25:57 PM

    It does indeed, see { Link }

  1. 8  Charles Robinson http://cubert-codepoet.blogspot.com | 8/15/2007 2:11:02 PM

    The idea that Connections offers wide open choices of databases or directories... "It's a great spin, but not particularly connected to reality." :-D

    I fully understand that Microsoft doesn't offer any choice at all, and I truly get what you meant, but it's misleading to say "use any database" and "use any directory" for Connections when that is not the case. It is statements like this that make people confused.

  1. 9  Ed Maloney  | 8/15/2007 3:00:35 PM

    The Linkedin thread was mostly the same old holy wars rhetoric. I was surprised by the number of comments from people who didn't know that there is a web mail client, or that there is a native HTTP server. Unfortunaltely I find that this is often the case - people haven't been paying attention to Notes/Domino the past few years, but still offer negative opinions.

  1. 10  Kevin Pettitt http://www.lotusguru.com | 8/15/2007 3:59:16 PM

    @1/@3 - A few people, myself included but before Cliff's posting, made the point that it simply takes more people to build apps the MS way vs the Domino way. In my case, I was decrying the greater political influence inherent in larger teams that is a function of their size and not necessarily their value or effectiveness. As I wrote:

    "Once you hire a 10-person .NET/SQL team, it's hard to "unhire" them if it turns out the 2 Notes developers you've had all along can build the same App much faster."

    Assuming my point is valid (it is *only* based on personal/anecdotal experience), this would of course also help explain the larger number of MS-oriented job postings, which from my perspective only reinforce my point. Fortunately others did make this connection directly.

    Cliff then takes on this logic in his LinkedIn clarification:

    "Radicati just did a TCO study (funded by IBM, as a matter of fact) that showed Exchange was between 8% and 22% more costly to manage. Accepting, for a moment, that IBM-funded answer, that difference is dwarfed by the jobs data which reaches 15:1 (that's a a 1400% difference in jobs) between Exchange and Notes."

    So my question to whomever is whether this Radicati study is relevant to this conversation if it only compares Domino to Exchange (presumably because it is focused solely on email), and not to the full range of MS products required to support application development that Domino does all by itself. If the study deals just with Exchange (apples) while Cliff's job listing research included a broader range of MS products (oranges)...well, you get the idea.

  1. 11  Kevin Mort  | 8/15/2007 4:14:40 PM

    @9 - What I also notice is the fact that there is always some joker who has to post a link to the lotusnotessucks website in these discussions.

    It is absolutely amazing how folks seem to think not looking at a product for years means they can comment on it like they just used it yesterday.

    Unfortunately there are managers and C level folks who read and believe some of that rhetoric.

  1. 12  Ed Brill http://www.edbrill.com | 8/15/2007 4:29:25 PM

    @10 there was no Radicati study...there was a Ferris study of Exchange 2003 vs. Domino 7. It wasn't widely distributed and is no longer published, mainly because both vendors have new versions out.

    The key, though, as you say, is that it looked at messaging only. Domino is a much larger kettle of fish.

  1. 13  Darren http://www.dadams.co.uk | 8/15/2007 4:40:03 PM

    @12 - even when they only look at messaging it's never like-for-like. For example, I haven't seen a TCO study that recognises the Notes / Domino PKI and looks at what it would cost to deploy with Exchange.

  1. 14  Cliff Reeves http://cliffreeves.typepad.com | 8/15/2007 4:53:53 PM

    @10) and @12)

    Regarding Apples and Oranges, I made two points:

    1) IBM sponsored a TCO study by Ferris Research (I referred later ro it as Radicati -- my error). It's on IBM's website. { Link } It shows marginal TCO differences between Exchange and Domino.

    2) It would require massive TCO differences between Sharepoint-Domino to explain the differences in job postings on the UK website.

    The point is there is no apples:apples overall TCO comparison, and I didn't make an apples-to-oranges comparison.

    It's reasonable to question the jobs data, of course, which Ed did.

  1. 15  Ed Brill http://www.edbrill.com | 8/15/2007 4:56:07 PM

    @14 the report at that link is the ND7 TCO study, not a comparative study with Exchange. As I indicated, it is no longer published, at our request, because both vendors have new versions out. I haven't spent a lot of time analyzing it as a result.

  1. 16  Nathan T. Freeman http://nathan.lotus911.com | 8/15/2007 5:53:59 PM

    @8 - the "use any directory" is pretty reasonable. Yes, Sun ONE and Domino LDAP aren't supported until 1.0.2 of Connections, out by year-end, but you can do it today -- you just have to tweak your LDAP schema. Tivoli, Domino, Sun and ActiveDir... that's a pretty good cross-section. Sure, you could add Novell and probably some Red Hat LDAP solution or something, but 4 different directories in version 1 is pretty darned open.

    Now databases... that's a different story. I look forward to having a wider array of choices than 2 on that front.

  1. 17  John Smart http://www.greyduck.com | 8/15/2007 9:16:14 PM

    Whoah whoah WHOAH. Let me get this straight...

    1) You wrote regarding a series of Microsoft events "My understanding is that the presenters at these events have often been ex-Lotus employees. They go quite far in emphasizing how many of them there are at Microsoft, all the way from the top (Ray Ozzie) down. They say that there's been no similar movement from Microsoft to Lotus. They imply that there's nobody left (or at least nobody talented left) at Lotus. That's pretty personal and snarky."

    2) Jim Bernardo, a key speaker at these events responded on your very blog with a high-road denial and agreed that such practices aren't right, saying "As for the broader issue you raise, we just don't do what you describe."

    3) HE DID IT??? AGAIN?!?!?!?

    Ed, I allowed to say "shying lack of sit" on your blog?

  1. 18  John Smart http://www.greyduck.com | 8/15/2007 9:18:26 PM

    grrr.. I hate typo's. The last sentence above should be "Ed, _am_ I allowed to say..."

  1. 19  Andrew Pollack http://www.thenorth.com/apblog | 8/15/2007 10:50:08 PM

    There's no question at all that virtually every play Microsoft makes, and virtually all the plays they've made for years, are designed so that no matter which of their technologies you like, it will drive you to upgrade the license for every other technology.

    I know a major company who's Microsoft Rep swore to them if they picked Exchange/Outlook they would not be required to upgrade to a new server OS for the next version. While technically true, they did anyway since the new version required 64 bit processing. They were not pleased.

    Compare this to IBM with Lotus Domino. Have an AIX machine? Ok, that works. Microsoft Windows Server? Ok. Sun? Shine on! Like Linux? No worries. iSeries? that too. Want a server that runs on your xbox? Ask Daniel. He clustered one with some iSeries boxes.

    Here's the thing -- if you buy Domino, that is ALL YOU HAVE TO BUY. Just Domino. Run it on a free operating system if you want. View it from desktops using free software. Whatever man.

  1. 20  Tony ollivier  | 8/16/2007 1:15:55 AM

    jeez.. ya don't read a blog for 12 hours and look what happens

    my answer to the linked in question was really asking another question.

    { Link }

    Why was Lotus Connections built on WAS/Db2 vs Domino? I know from experience that those capabilities could have been built on Domino - even if it was a combination NSF apps and Java servlet thing like Sametime.

    Back to the strategic question. if IBM was bringing out a new kind of application monitoring program or a DB2 reporting services, I wouldn't expect Domino to be the base infrastructure.

    But in the groupware/collaboration space, if Notes and Domino are indeed strategic - then Connections would be a collection of Domino apps - not a websphere application.

    and oh @19 - Domino isn't the only thing you have to buy. Now with the launch of Notes 8, if you want a Connections server to show your Activities - better sharpen your WAS /Db2 Deployment skills.

    { Link }

  1. 21  Peter de Haas http://www.peterdehaas.net | 8/16/2007 3:02:55 AM

    @12,

    Ed, The study had disappeared but is back online for some months now. Dispareance was not a 'conspiracy from either side' but due to a change in Ferris' content mangement system.

    1 email to David Ferris was enough to get it back online.

    { Link }

    Timing of the report was unfortunate, as it compares ND7 against Exchange 2003 (and not Exchange 2007 which at that time was / is the most recent version).

    I guess we are now all waiting for the ND8 vs Exchange 2007 report ;-)

    Having said that, comparing "just" email is not the context either side prefers and is difficult to isolate ...

  1. 22  Wild Bill http://www.billbuchan.com | 8/16/2007 4:20:53 AM

    I've been tracking Domino jobs on Jobserve for a number of years now.

    The comparison of available jobs on the job boards is not a straight comparison. I've found that most companies exchange administrators are also their network administrators - so the jobtitle is often misleading.

    Despite exchange being a very simple beast (in terms of difficulty - on par with cc:Mail!), its quite unreliable, so there tends to be more admins. After all, *someone* has to babysit those exchange server database rebuilds all the time. On the plus side, since its so hard to write apps to run on top of exchange/sharepoint, there's little chance of a third party app causing deployment or operational difficulties.

    Marketwise, unless your a published author, the rates are quite low - just above "junior programmer" level IMHO.

    Domino - for the last 24 months, has been recovering from the "domino is dead" meme that IBM ran in 2001 (and have thankfully stopped), and that MS is still attempting to push. I'm now seeing 20+ jobs per day (in the contract market) being advertised, and more importantly being called by agencies at least four times a week for senior positions.

    From the last paragraph, I conclude that a lot more people are now investing or reinvesting in Notes, and there are less highly skilled people arent around in the market to service this - either by attrition (I know a number of people who went to websphere, and one who became a plumber), promotion or retiremet (Domino folks are older).

    I also know that companies who offer products in both arenas tend to hire domino consultants as its a more fully featured product. So companies like Blackberry who were not in the Uk market 5 or so years ago are consuming resources here also.

    In terms of Business partners here in the UK, 2001 saw a number of smaller but important partners switch or die. I'm now seeing a resurgence in the BP supplier chain - but the disconnect between the customers, IBM and BP's mean that most customers dont know of the existence of Business partners. It'd be nice to fix this.

    (I'm also seeing a number of BP's who publically disavowed Notes return to the fold, which is highly amusing.

    So. I firmly believe that the Domino skills are in short supply at the moment. Whether that can be used as an indicator of "preference" over a simple but unreliable mail system with a lot of job overlap with Active directory is pushing the word "spin" a little too far.

    ---* Bill

  1. 23  Axel  | 8/16/2007 6:13:29 AM

    Some historian should compare the debates about stratecial IT products with the alchimistic debates how to create gold in 17th centuries Europe. I expect astounding parallels.

  1. 24  Jim Casale  | 8/16/2007 7:07:05 AM

    @22 I have been studying Exchange 2007 for a possible defensive position where I work. I agree it is unreliable from past experience but I am not sure you can say it is simple. Maybe it's just that I know Domino more, but I find just trying to get simple things like OWA to work is a major production. I have to make sure the server is in a Windows Domain, make sure DNS is working, install IIS, install .NET, prepare the forest (for gods sake I am no forest ranger!), create all sorts of things to be able to access email from the web. The best I have been able to do is login from Firefox but not be able to send or read mail and not even be able to login with Internet Explorer. From what I am seeing in my experience this is one reason why you need more manpower to run Exchange for email only than for Domino for email and apps.

  1. 25  Flemming Riis http://ignore.fr | 8/16/2007 7:13:55 AM

    -but I find just trying to get simple things like OWA to work is a major production.

    err right this is a joke right ?.

  1. 26  Jim Casale  | 8/16/2007 7:32:40 AM

    @25 No it is not a joke. It seems much more of a hassle to get it to work than to get Domino Web Access to work.

  1. 27  Flemming Riis http://ignore.fr | 8/16/2007 7:42:23 AM

    -@25 No it is not a joke. It seems much more of a hassle to get it to work than to get Domino Web Access to work.

    well it takes less than 2 hours from a fresh windows install if you just need something to look at for testing.

  1. 28  Rob Ingram http://www.dominoblog.com | 8/16/2007 7:59:44 AM

    @ Tony - facts please! Lets clarify the HAVE and the WANT in your last sentence.

    You do not HAVE to use Activities with Notes and therefore you do not HAVE to use anything else but Domino. Similarly you do no HAVE to use Sametime in Notes, but you can. Its all about giving customers choices for what collaborative capabilities THEY WANT to deploy.

    Lotus Domino Product Manager (and by the way I am one of the pieces of grey matter that returned to Lotus)

  1. 29  Ian Connor http://ianconnor.blogspot.com | 8/16/2007 8:01:29 AM

    I also responded to that questions and decided to keep it positive as most people did. I think it was clear to anyone reading that "Jim" was not really adding anything useful to the question.

  1. 30  Jim Casale  | 8/16/2007 8:09:01 AM

    @27 Does that 2 hours include setting up Windows for installing Exchange since Exchange needs more than TCPIP to run? I find it hard to believe that you can get Exchange up and running in less then two hours with all the prerequisites needed to run Exchange. If anyone wants to jump in on this based on their experience....

  1. 31  Nathan T. Freeman http://nathan.lotus911.com | 8/16/2007 8:21:18 AM

    @20 - "I know from experience that those capabilities could have been built on Domino - even if it was a combination NSF apps and Java servlet thing like Sametime."

    I'm not going to bother listing my credentials. Google me if my qualifications are in doubt.

    Profiles, Blogs and Discussions are easily accomplished on Domino. Indeed, they largely have been on that platform already.

    Activities COULD be done on Domino alone, but in an organization of 100K, you're going to have to do some hackjobs to get it to scale.

    Dogear? Social bookmarking & content tag clouds for large organizations? No, you need a terabyte RDBMS for that. Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow -- but soon and for the rest of your life.

    Could the middleware to Dogear be Domino? Sure. For all you know, it might someday be. But there's no question that you have to put tag clouds out on an RDBMS. Even *I* agree with that.

  1. 32  Nathan T. Freeman http://nathan.lotus911.com | 8/16/2007 8:23:32 AM

    @27 - Going from a functioning Windows machine to Domino DWA: 20 minutes. While I'm eating lunch.

  1. 33  Flemming Riis http://ignore.fr | 8/16/2007 8:27:40 AM

    -@27 Does that 2 hours include setting up Windows

    2 hours from a windows2003 install. 2½ if you need to update it first.

    this is without regards to design but get a server up and running , so off course designing something for production takes more time than throwing water from a bucket

    but cant really see why setup time matter since its a one off.

    but if you need to goof around and dont have the time or dont want to throw stuff into AD , there is a VHD for exchange free available

  1. 34  Flemming Riis http://ignore.fr | 8/16/2007 8:29:48 AM

    -@27 - Going from a functioning Windows machine to Domino DWA: 20 minutes. While I'm eating lunch.

    Sure i never said Exchange was faster , nothing prevents you from doing the same with Exchange so just take a slighty longer lunch break :)

  1. 35  Jim Casale  | 8/16/2007 8:38:26 AM

    @32 Agreed on that 20 minutes. I slipped in a Domino 7 upgrade on a 6.5 server when we upgraded hardware and it added an extra 20 minutes to the upgrade time. Users didn't know and still don't know they are accessing a 7 server except for the fact that is much faster then before.

  1. 36  Charles Robinson http://cubert-codepoet.blogspot.com | 8/16/2007 9:02:08 AM

    @20 - Most of Activities and Connections could have been built on Domino. IBM/Lotus chose not to. That doesn't make Notes or Domino any less relevant or less strategic, it just means there is a different set of goals for deploying those pieces of functionality. I may not agree with the reasons, but they have been discussed publicly and I don't necessarily see it as a slap to Domino.

    In light of your stance about Domino not being strategic since it's not the backend for everything Lotus, how do you defend Exchange not using SQL Server? Does that mean SQL Server isn't strategic, or is Exchange the second-rate one in the equation? And what about Office VBA not being moved to .Net? Is Office development not strategic to Microsoft?

  1. 37  Nathan T. Freeman http://nathan.lotus911.com | 8/16/2007 9:28:54 AM

    @34 - And I'm not saying that 2 hours is a lousy setup time. Just pointing out that for a Domino administrator, the expectation is that it takes longer to set up the OS than it does the messaging server running on top of it.

    Lotus has actually shot themselves in the foot with that at this point. Domino and Sametime are SO EASY to install that when I hear "it will take two weeks to install Connections" I'm choking on my coffee.

  1. 38  David DeWell http://workdomosphere.blogspot.com | 8/16/2007 11:57:46 AM

    I am actually chuckling at most of this thread.

    @ALL - I scanned through the threads but I may not have read everything. Quite honestly, it seems to be the same posturing we all do when these questions come out. The discourse, albeit interesting and informative, just goes to show that everyone has an opinion on this subject. Very much like the PC vs Mac arguements of old.

    That being said, Nathan Freeman has an excellent point. Domino is substantially easier to install and for small to medium sized businesses is most likely a better choice across the board than Websphere(X) or Exchange.

    Another point - There are more Exchange positions, because it takes more people to administer. That also goes to show that it takes less Domino Administrators AND Developers than it does Exchange administrators to support their respective platforms. This just says that Exchange allows for the whole "consultant ideology" that says, if the system stays somewhat broken, we will always have a job.

    Ok - So bottom line, as long as there are overly-elaborate installations and setups for these systems, Domino will always be around. Just remember, KISS (Keep It Simple, Stupid (or Silly)). Although I enjoy making more money by charging a customer or my company a weeks worth of time setting something up, it is much more cost-effective getting Domino up and running. And... dare I mention Outlook Forms or Windows Workflow Foundation?

  1. 39  Tony ollivier  | 8/16/2007 12:12:24 PM

    @36 Much of the value of Domino is the ease of installation. One CD, 15 mins and a extra hot Latte will get the server up and going.

    Much of the retoric on this Blog is how much simpler, better, faster, get's your clothes whiter and brighter, Domino is over anything from Microsoft ( or anything else for that matter)

    That advantage goes away when the customer has to spend two weeks getting Connections running - See @37

    @31 -Nathan - No issue on your qualifications.. But my point is that IBM has chosen to develop the "NextGen" applications on Websphere/DB2 and not re-architect Domino to do it instead.

    "Activities COULD be done on Domino alone, but in an organization of 100K, you're going to have to do some hackjobs to get it to scale."

    that's my point.

  1. 40  Andrew Pollack http://www.thenorth.com/apblog | 8/16/2007 12:24:43 PM

    @19 -- so if you have DOMINO and you WANT Connections, you have to buy more stuff. Ok.

    And if you have Exchange and you want to....have Exchange...you better sharpen your 64 bit windows pencil, and your sql server pencil, and your office 2007 pencil, --- and, if you want say anything close to parity with Domino and notes as a platform for applications and collaboration, you'd better also buy Sharepoint, visual studio (shall we talk about the training costs of a qualified vs.net developer?) and virtually all your other microsoft products -- better sharpen all the pencils you've hever bought.

    I think to run something comperable to a Domino & Notes infrastructure in MS Technologies, you'll need to buy and keep up to date pretty much every single product Microsoft sells with the possible (and I'd have to check) exception of Flight Simulator.

  1. 41  Ed Brill http://www.edbrill.com | 8/16/2007 12:27:58 PM

    @39 Tony, you seem to have missed Charles questions in addressing his comments @36. :)

  1. 42  Tony ollivier  | 8/16/2007 12:42:33 PM

    @40.. funny how this question was the future of Lotus Notes and it always gets around to the future of Microsoft products..

    Andrew.. I've never said that an MS infrastructure can be installed from one CD . However neither can Connections.

    and BTW { Link }

    :)

  1. 43  David DeWell http://workdomosphere.blogspot.com | 8/16/2007 12:48:03 PM

    @42 - Yeah??? Well well, Workplace is bestester than Flight Simulator!

    (j/k)

  1. 44  Andrew Pollack http://www.thenorth.com/apblog | 8/16/2007 12:53:20 PM

    @42 -- One CD? I could care less how many plastic disks it takes. My concern is that you can't install it from one wallet. Hell, I'm not sure how anyone can afford it on one accounts payable system.

    I don't get the job about Flight Sim X SP1, sorry.

  1. 45  Tony ollivier  | 8/16/2007 1:00:49 PM

    this is starting to get fun..but I'm going to have to go back to work sometime soon.

    I guess I should ask a similar question on linked in about Exchange and Sharepoint :)

    @36 - I'm not talking about the backend.. I'm talking about the Application server. Where the business logic and overall interaction sits.

    I have no problem with IBM building different things on different platforms (NSF vs DB2) or (Domino vs WAS) -

    As you pointed out, Microsoft has several Backends/frontends for various things. Sharepoint/SQL, Exchange/Jet, .Net / Biztalk etc etc.

    but as IBM goes down the same path with multiple environments needed to create a modern up to date infrastructure, much of the benefits of the Domino only environment get compromised.

  1. 46  Mike VandeVelde  | 8/16/2007 1:59:27 PM

    "Activities COULD be done on Domino alone, but in an organization of 100K, you're going to have to do some hackjobs to get it to scale. Dogear? Social bookmarking & content tag clouds for large organizations? No, you need a terabyte RDBMS for that. Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow -- but soon and for the rest of your life. Could the middleware to Dogear be Domino? Sure. For all you know, it might someday be. But there's no question that you have to put tag clouds out on an RDBMS. Even *I* agree with that."

    So why bother to KISS for the SMB? :-(

    Tony has a point, IBM is moving away from the "yeah you can do that with Notes too". But Domino isn't becoming any less than it ever was. Nothing is being taken away. Domino is still way simpler, stabler, and more feature rich that that jumble of stuff you need from MS for an even comparison. If that becomes less of a valid argument over time, well that's the decision that IBM makes. I'd like to see more new stuff come out to run natively in a Domino only environment, but if not I've still got the Domino I know and love. Plus the ability to tightly integrate it with other very useful systems. The end result is still a good thing for the end user.

  1. 47  Cliff Reeves http://cliffreeves.typepad.com | 8/16/2007 2:21:07 PM

    Ed,

    I posted to reflect the input from indeed.com

    { Link }

    Summary:

    I did a bunch of searches to try and catch the relevant positions, exclude the incorrect ones and not double count. Contact me if you want the specific searches. The results were:

    * Notes plus Domino: 34, 424

    * Exchange plus Sharepoint: 30,153

    I am confident that this is close -- within 20%. The indeed.com (mostly US positions) showed Notes slightly ahead, which is mildly counter-intuitive. To be fair, though, the UK results were surprisingly skewed against Notes.

    So, what does this tell us? My observations (using the principle of least complexity):

    * I do believe job postings (and particularly trends over time) reflect platform vitality (i.e. jobs increase with platform share and growth).

    * The UK data is well structured and there's no evidence of a systematic bias against Lotus or pro Microsoft. It probably reflects the UK market accurately.

    * The indeed.com data is less precise but it's not so imprecise as to be useless. I'd have to conclude that in the US, the platform story is much closer.

  1. 48  Andrew Pollack http://www.thenorth.com/apblog | 8/16/2007 3:31:32 PM

    is that job postings with broad searches do not reflect the manpower requirements for the job at all.

    I have a client -- a household name financial firm. They have roughly 16000 end users. The use Notes for mail and Notes Client Applications for a lot of collaboration. They also use Windows XP with Microsoft Office for that kind of standard desktop work.

    They are locked down tight. All workstations are identical to a very high degree. SMS is used to roll out changes, and even USB ports are disabled or at least disallowed.

    They have less than 20 people in the Notes team. They have 300 people in the "Microsoft" support team.

    What can those 300 people be doing? Its not mail. It can't be much desktop config if its all locked down. Why does it take so many people?

    Who knows why. Maybe they're hand holding spreadsheet formula programming. It could be perfectly valid. My only point is that if this company were to turn over say 10% as a nice round number of its I.T. staff, they'd need to put out job requests for 2 Notes people and 30 microsoft ones.

    Does that reflect a less vibrant Notes community or does it reflect an insanely high cost of ownership on the Microsoft side.

    We don't know. It may reflect nothing more than that particular company using technology in their particular way.

    The measure wouldn't be very helpful to anyone though.

  1. 49  Andrew Pollack http://www.thenorth.com/apblog | 8/16/2007 3:41:18 PM

    Is that when we look at a Notes/Domino version 7 and below ISV arena, we have a very hard limit on what an ISV can do. The User Interface is essentially locked so no matter what an ISV creates it is very hard to make it distinctive and flashy. That means its hard to sell for a high dollar value.

    Contrast that with ISVs building in Visual Studio. While it may be really hard and expensive to build replicating, scaleable, secure, collaborative applications in VS.NET -- its not the front end tools that lack. The back end is the limitation. The front end is going to look REALLY slick with just the slightest bit of effort. That's what Visual Studio is good for. I've been building vs.net 2005 apps talking to Domino servers with web services and its compelling as all heck.

    Now comes the Notes 8 client framework. ISVs will quickly find (are quickly finding) that all those barriers to creating a slick UI have been removed. For them, its like taking the gloves off. Now, its going to be a few months before the development tools for everyday "in house" developers to rapid prototype and build that kind of flashy app are really available; but in the mean time the ISV community for the Notes product is set to explode in growth.

    Keep in mind, the last Lotusphere shows have seen ever increasing show-floor sales and activity. There are already more ISVs then ever and now the capabilities being afforded will let them create applications better able to showcase their own value in nice fancy wrappings.

    There have traditional been fewer Notes ISVs but those out there have been of very high value overall. The vs.NET ISV community on the other hand is so over weighted with absolutely horrible applications that look great until you try to use them that it has become very hard to find the good ones in amongst the garbage. I know, I've looked.

    Want to see the viability of these platforms? Watch the growth on the ISV sector, not the job postings.

  1. 50  Ed Brill http://www.edbrill.com | 8/16/2007 4:12:13 PM

    @47 Cliff, I appreciate you taking additional time to look at this and include some other booleans that I had not considered.

    I think we're in a new era of competition. Forrester just issued a report on IBM or Microsoft -- or both? (or neither) which had some great quotes examining the two strategies. It's great that we're both in the game.

    Now all I'd like to see is your colleague own up to the other quotes in this thread that need some answers.

  1. 51  Cliff Reeves http://cliffreeves.typepad.com | 8/16/2007 5:50:55 PM

    @48) Andrew, several people have repeated the point that Exchange or Sharepoint are so inefficient (or complex or unreliable) compared to Notes that the market for Exchange or Sharepoint will always exceed that for Notes. That's not a sustainable argument for two reasons:

    1) There is no objective data that shows a significant TCO difference, even in the narrow area of messaging.

    2) The only way to explain a long-term significant cost difference between products which compete successfully in roughly the same space is that most customers are irrational over the long term. That doesn't make any sense.

    We know, of course, that certain applications can be developed much faster in Notes than any other platform. Almost any platform has its unique strengths and I'm not disparaging Notes at ll.

    However, it's illogical to suggest that explains a massive disparity in jobs. "oh, look at all those dumb customers! They're just using the wrong tool and look how much it's costing them!"

    It's usually more accurate (and effective) to assume your customers are as smart as you are, maybe smarter.

  1. 52  Andrew Pollack http://www.thenorth.com/apblog | 8/16/2007 11:02:59 PM

    First, the overall TCO question. It takes many fewer people to run a Domino based environment, but it leaves you needing people to also run your file share network, printer network, etc.

    The Domino play is one that plays well if you want to control which tools you use for which services. If IBM can make the case that iSeries or AIX based machines are better value than Linux then they'll sell them. If not they wont. If DB2 is better than MYSQL (of course it is) than they'll sell it -- EVEN if you picked linux to run it on. Etc.

    The Microsoft play is good if your plan is to drink the cool-aid entirely. It only makes sense if you're willing to go all the way on all of it. Active Directory, W2k3 servers for file share, Exchange, SQL, IIS, sharepoint, One-Note, Bob, and Flight Sim.

    IMCO, one of the biggest blunders in microsoft's storied past was a few years ago when they (you) tried to change the policies on upgrade discounts to require them to be completed within a few months of the new product rolling out. I know many CIO types who who looked at their budget and realized that you would effectively have been in control of a huge percent of it. The policy didn't last -- Microsoft backed off almost entirely, but a lot of damage was done because it was the first time many of them realized just how tied together all of it is.

  1. 53  Cliff Reeves http://cliffreeves.typepad.com | 8/17/2007 2:17:50 PM

    @52) Andrew, you have strayed from the original point, and I hope I am following you well.

    I think you are asserting that Microsoft is about tying things together (products, upgrades, etc) and IBM is about independent products and choice.

    I think you're on a good point, but I do see it differently.

    Microsoft believes at its core that integrating its products strongly around one set of subsystems (like file system, directory, PKI, rights management, workflow, etc) provides a better user experience and value. That's a strategy that does deliver a good user experience (single sign-on and pervasive presence are two examples) but it has side-effects, such as encouraging in-step upgrades, and effectively (although not technically) limiting alternatives. The mitigate this, Microsoft puts a huge emphasis on interop, but that's either ignored or seen as too little, too late.

    Although I worked at IBM for 30 years, I won't try to characterise IBM's strategy. I'll point out a few disadvantages of not following an integrated strategy, though. Notes includes a unique development paradigm (powerful but idiosyncratic), a unique directory, a unique PKI, and a unique database not shared with any of the Tivoli, DB2 or Websphere family. I'm not being critical. This is a strategy of integration within a product rather than integration across a product line. It's also an artifact of multi-platform support. In addition, IBM is clearly working to strengthen that integration across the product lines, with Websphere and DB2.

    It's reasonable to ask also: if IBM had a single OS with significant share (like Windows) would they still have a multi-platform approach? If they had a set of successful desktop apps, would they support OpenOffice? There's no way to be sure, but I'd be willing to place a bet.

    It's important to recognize that each company is doing what it thinks delivers the best value based on the assets each has.

    It's equally important, when evaluating or criticsing each strategy, that both firms do operate at an extremely high level of technical excellence and business ethics.

    I know it's popular to claim that's not so. The good news is that the bigots aren't that bright. They are easy to spot because their rhetoric is consistently emotional, snide, and rambling.

  1. 54  Ed Brill http://www.edbrill.com | 8/17/2007 2:31:44 PM

    Cliff, if you are going to talk about business ethics, in this particular thread, I am curious what your perspective on Jim Bernardo's "my answer is ALWAYS 'You should get your information about IBM's product plans from IBM'" versus his comments on LinkedIn and in the prior thread on this blog.

    Jim has been quick to deny many of my past comments about MS business practices, yet he's been absent from here when it's been clear he's in conflict with his own policies. Comments like #17 are specifically a reaction to that, and show why some "claim that's not so."

  1. 55  Cliff Reeves http://cliffreeves.typepad.com | 8/17/2007 7:36:47 PM

    @54) Ed, I don't think Jim's comments need a defence or, for that matter, merit a personal attack.

    It's telling that you pointed out comment #17.

    I do think that the unpleasant content in comment #17, and leaving it in place, says a lot more than either the writer, or you, realise.

  1. 56  Ed Brill http://www.edbrill.com | 8/17/2007 9:24:12 PM

    @56 Cliff, I don't delete comments here unless they are anonymous or profane. This one was just stating the truth, moreso than you probably know.

    And I, and many of the readers I've heard from, know -exactly- what leaving it in place means, especially when Jim can't bother to explain himself, anymore than when he criticized me for identifying the Italian language or when he denied the actions at the migration seminar in the first place.

  1. 57  Charles Robinson http://cubert-codepoet.blogspot.com | 8/17/2007 10:14:36 PM

    @55 - There was an opinion expressed about Jim, but Jim's a big boy and I think he can defend himself. I'm not sure that you really have a point in participating in these discussion. A far as I can tell you just seem to like the attention you get when you stir the pot. After watching the same antics for the past year it's gotten rather stale. Freshen up your act, add some new material. I've seen all this before.

  1. 58  Cliff Reeves  | 8/19/2007 4:05:28 AM

    I should have been clearer:

    "The good news is that the bigots aren't that bright. They are easy to spot because their rhetoric is consistently emotional, snide, personal, and rambling."

    Suggestion: opinions are fine, but back them up and use the facts when you have them. The minute you get personal, it's clear you have little but emotion to stand on.

  1. 59  John Smart http://www.greyduck.com | 8/23/2007 11:27:01 AM

    @55 - By taking issue with 17 it's as if you believe 17 was a flaming personal attack because I disagreed with his opinions. Cliff, I agree with your sentiment that too many times the Lotus/Microsoft thing seems like a holy war and devolves into flames. However, 17 had no devolution, I was not confused. It had nothing to do with neither the arguments nor Microsoft. My attack was personal at the outset. It had to do solely with Jim Bernardo.

    I am often in the role salesperson/representative for my company. As such my integrity is nearly everything. It's at least 4/5ths of the pie. The same is true with Jim Bernardo, except the metaphorical pie in question is an order of magnitude bigger because of his position.

    I know Jim's "loss of gray matter" argument _was_ presented at a tech briefing. I know Jim was there. I know Jim then denied that Microsoft uses that argument. I know he then did it again. I doubt LinkedIn was the only time. I would love to read his explanation if he had one, I would love to think better of him, but the alternative… that he felt he was telling the truth when

    - he said it (or to give him a highest benefit of doubt, at least was a present co-representative at the time), AND

    - when he denied it, AND

    - when he said it again

    … I feel that’s even more scary in its implications.

    If I'm wrong, and it is articulated why, I want to know it, and will feel a responsibility to admit I was wrong if I agree.

    I also think Jim should feel the same. Do you?

  1. 60  Cliff Reeves http://cliffreeves.typepad.com | 8/23/2007 1:25:41 PM

    John, thank you for taking the trouble to reply. There are three points here, I think:

    1) Who said wwhat, and did they contradict themselves?

    2) Is it ever reasonable to insult someone online?

    3) Was the attack merited at all or was it a distraction? I.e. Did they say anything wrong?

    Here's my take (and reasoning)on each of these points:

    1) Who said what .... I really haven't followed the accusations/denials discussion in detail, so I have no information on (or interest in) that debate. I don't know and I don't care.

    2) Reasonableness .... if you see a contradiction in what Jim said and what he didn't say (and if you think that is worth debating) then go ahead and point it out. Ed already did that.

    How you say it, I guess, is your choice. As I pointed out, I believe that personal attacks reflect far more on the character of the attacker than the person they are attacking

    3) Was this all a distraction from the real point ... What's more interesting I think, is the underlying assumption that it's somehow unfair to discuss a significant migration of talent. I think if you do it based on facts, and impersonally, it is fair. It's both public and impersonal to point out that key leaders (and I don't mean peripheral contributors) to Notes/Domino have left the company.

    This is a partial list from memory:

    1) The four founders: Ozzie, Halvorsen, Kawell, Beckhart

    2) Pivotal Iris tech leaders: Ken Moore, Bob Congdon, Charlie Kauffman

    3) Sametime and Domino inventor and leader: Paul Haverstock

    4) Quickplace architect Miguel Estrada

    That doesn't diminish the folks who stayed, and says nothing about those who have joined since.

    It is reasonable to observe, though, that no company can lose this many people who are absolutely central to its innovation core and not suffer both a loss of leadership and a loss of market confidence. It may be temporary but it's unavoidable.

    It's also relevant (for the same reasons) to point out that many of these folks are now at Microsoft.

    So, no matter what the facts of the "he said; he didn't say" debate, the facts about loss of talent are unarguable, they are public, they are fair game for discussion in any forum, and this personal attack is just a way to obfuscate that point.

  1. 61  Ed Brill http://www.edbrill.com | 8/23/2007 2:56:55 PM

    Cliff, I'd argue with "no company can lose this many people who are absolutely central to its innovation core and not suffer both a loss of leadership and a loss of market confidence. It may be temporary but it's unavoidable."

    Even in the blogging era, it is not very common for individual developer names to be widely known outside the company. For Lotus, one journalist back then seemed to make sport of announcing departures, but never arrivals.

    I agree that transitions can introduce churn, though I disagree that a loss of market confidence necessarily follows. CEOs can leave companies and have the stock price go up -- leaders aren't always a positive influence on their organizations.

    Considering that Microsoft is the largest software company in the world, I guess it is no surprise that many ex-IBM software people have gone to Microsoft. I do always think it interesting to consider the number that went directly to Microsoft versus those that went somewhere else first, and/or were acquired.

  1. 62  Charles Robinson http://cubert-codepoet.blogspot.com | 8/23/2007 4:03:59 PM

    @60 - None of the founders of Microsoft are still actively involved in the company. To your way of thinking this must mean that it is doomed.

  1. 63  Cliff Reeves http://cliffreeves.typepad.com | 8/23/2007 4:53:50 PM

    @60) Thanks for responding, Charles. I think your analogy has only three flaws: scale, specificity, and timing. Unfortunately, those flaws are fatal when the original point was based on scale, specific names and timing :-),

    In case that's not clear:

    1&2) Microsoft is ~50x the size of Lotus from a revenue perspective, so your argument might have been better made had you named, off the top of your head, about 400 people in pivotal positions who have left.

    2) These folks left Lotus in a narrow window of time between 1996 and 2001. You should analogize that, also.

    To be construictive, here are some more effective tacks you might have taken:

    1) Point out that this is old news. I agree it is. Which is why I am amazed that it has raised so much ire here. Just acknowledge it, dismiss it as no longer relevant, and move on.

    2) Identify areas where MSFT has had some recent, significant and clustered departures (ie do some homework)

    @61) Hi, Ed. While I guess it's an assertion that loss of people is cause for a lack of market confidence, it seems that in the degree it happened at Lotus, it's tough to argue otherwise. Lotus went through a very shaky period starting with some key defections to Groove in 1997, additional defections in 2001-2003, and suffered the Websphere-Notes confusion in 2002-2004. It may not be provable that the revenue declines were connected to either event, but it seems a reasonable hypothesis, so no-one should be attacked for suggesting it.

    WRT the people now at Microsoft, the key point is that MSFT has gathered some great talent. How they got there is not the point I was making.

  1. 64  John Smart http://www.greyduck.com | 8/23/2007 5:17:42 PM

    @60 – Well put, Cliff.

    In response:

    1) fine.

    2)You have a great point here. To me, the best contributions to discussions include new facts and/or new reasoning. 17 admittedly contributed neither. My response was, boiled down, "What?? ARGH!!!"

    On the other hand, "color contributions" (personal feelings, jokes, 'me too') contribute as well, maybe not to the substance but to the community around the substance. The "I agree", "wow" or "ARGH!!!" posts are arguably worthy parts of the discussion.

    The tone was too strong. I am sorry about that. It accurately said what I meant and I don’t think professionalism should get in the way of communication, but I apologize for the tone because it detracts from discussion. If I had it to do over again, I’d have changed that last line to “Am I understanding this correctly?” and left it at that.

    Questioning one's integrity also casts a strong tone, no matter how lightly worded, and I don't go there lightly. To repeat 54: 'Jim has been quick to deny many of my past comments about MS business practices, yet he's been absent from here when it's been clear he's in conflict with his own policies. Comments like #17 are specifically a reaction to that, and show why some "claim that's not so."'

    3) Again you are confusing my issue with your issue. Your issue is, as I understand it, that the 'gray matter' argument is fair game. My issue with Jim is that Jim’s smooth say-deny-say behavior brings his integrity into question. That is not a distraction at all, it is an aspect of Ed's original blog post. It is also not one I'd call on you, Cliff, to defend... although I am curious to know your take on it.

  1. 65  Ed Brill http://www.edbrill.com | 8/23/2007 7:18:18 PM

    @63 I'm sure Charles could have come up with a smaller segment of the Microsoft entity to compare to, such as the Exchange organization. And then we would look at Keith McCall, Gordon Mangione, or others who have left over a very small timeframe, or at least moved to different jobs within MS.

    Also I don't believe there's anything in my comment #61 that is attacking you. I was challenging your position, that's all. I agree with you that the Notes-WebSphere confusion had a negative impact, and I mentioned that in launching Notes 8 last week. However, we've had nearly three years of solid growth, and gained market share. I'm pretty confident that we're past all that, and there's more than enough "gray matter" to go around now.

  1. 66  Cliff Reeves http://cliffreeves.typepad.com | 8/23/2007 9:02:06 PM

    @64) Thank you, John, for a gracious and thoughtful reply.

    You are right. I did dodge answering your question. I didn't want to get roped into making a personal judgment over a topic that should never have been contentious in the first place.

    @65) Ed, an Exchange comparison woudl be reasonable. However, to match the Lotus situation, you'd need to come up with about a dozen people in key positions (you named only one) in a similar time span. I don't think there is such a dramatic list. BTW, the one key person you did name -- Gord Mangione -- stayed at Microsoft long after his spell at Exchange. Keep trying, though :-)

    I didn't feel attacked in item 61, btw. Also, I agree the bad years being discussed are long over. It's only going to be fun bringing them up if it annoys you :-)

  1. 67  Alan Lepofsky http://www.alanlepofsky.net | 8/23/2007 10:11:51 PM

    I don't know which side of the argument this supports, but in my 14 years of working with Lotus products, and 100s of customer visits, briefings, press interviews, conference sessions, etc... I have never once been asked a question about any specific name from development or marketing or sales, etc. I've never seen this as a topic of interest from a customer.

  1. 68  Charles Robinson http://cubert-codepoet.blogspot.com | 8/24/2007 8:36:46 AM

    @67 - That was sort of my point, actually. :) I don't know "off the top of [my] head, about 400 people in pivotal positions who have left [Microsoft]." Because I don't care. Microsoft, IBM, Lotus, Google, Yahoo, and few million other companies are innovating at a rapid pace. Just because the names of the people involved aren't widely known doesn't mean anything at all.

  1. 69  Wayne Weinheimer  | 8/24/2007 1:53:04 PM

    I agree with @68. Both MS and IBM are large enough that some people leaving should not make a difference, nor cause me to stop purchasing their software. If I bought a product from a 3 person shop and their top 2 people left then I may be concerned.

    For any company or department, sometimes a changing of the guard is for the best, it can revitalize a stagnant environment.

    To point out that some players have jumped the fence to play with the other team is borderline childish, leave it on the schoolyard. I’m surprise it didn’t end with – Nyah! Nyah!

  1. 70  Cliff Reeves http://cliffreeves.typepad.com | 8/27/2007 4:43:02 AM

    @69) "... surprise it didn’t end with – Nyah! Nyah!"

    In this thread, I think posts 8, 17, 19, 57 would qualify.

    Wayne, I agree this is old news. It's only coming up now in terms of posts 54 and 59

  1. 71  Wayne Weinheimer  | 8/27/2007 9:50:22 AM

    @70 - my comment was directed more at post 60, but I would agree with your listing of 17.