Microsoft: "Presenting intelligent opportunities" based on flawed, irrelevant website polls

March 1 2006

Via Tom Duff, this one is irritating enough that I lost sleep over it.

Image:Microsoft: "Presenting intelligent opportunities" based on flawed, irrelevant website polls
Microsoft has announced a new roadshow for partners: "TS2 -- Competitive Tools and Resources Event Series".  Why am I pissed?  Because the seminar copy says this:

Today's organizations that own Lotus Domino or Novell Netware have reached a "fork in the road" in the future of their collaboration platform. According to the Radicati Group, "Only 21% of the Lotus Domino customers surveyed are planning to deploy IBM Workplace."
Now it appears that I've not previously commented on this survey on the blog, though I did cover it in my "Boss Loves Microsoft: Where does that leave Lotus?" presentation.  Several bloggers, including Christopher Byrne, dissected it at the time it was announced, in May, 2005.  What's wrong with it?

- Only 32 respondents.  Notes/Domino has an installed customer base of over 61,000 organizations.  32/61,000 = Not exactly a representative sample.
- Survey participants were chosen from visitors to the analyst's website.  Not exactly a random sample.
- Anyone could fill out the survey -- there appears to have been no validation of who participated.
- Old.  The survey was conducted a year ago.  Things move fast in IT.
- "IBM Workplace" is a brand and product family, and it includes Lotus Notes!  So the thought is flawed at the outset.

So Microsoft is really citing results of a website poll, not a rigorous market study.  And even though this poll was so thoroughly debunked ten months ago, and the analyst firm cited has seen questions over methodology in the past, Microsoft continues to cite the poll without blinking.  How ethical is that?

It does show how good Microsoft is at staying "on message".  I've always been impressed by this.  Once they have a factoid, it just gets repeated and repeated and repeated.  Nobody questions it, they just use it.

Antony and the rest of us are working on a few things for the Lotus "Fighting FUD" blog.  I'll add this to the list.

Ed Brill Highland Park, IL USA Category:  Microsoft  Add/View Comments [21]

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  1. 1  Lyset  | 3/1/2006 7:49:00 AM

    Another example that I can use in my discussion about moving to Exchange... (you can imagine that I'm not pleased about moving to Exchange... ;-)

    I hope you will sleep tonight...

  1. 2  Roberto Boccadoro  | 3/1/2006 8:17:30 AM

    Ed we should set up a seminar "Microsoft is lying to you and we can prove it". Using 3rd parties as they do with Radicati; the only difference is that we could have Paul Mooney and Chris Byrne, that are only slightly more trustworthy than Radicati :-) Let someone not IBM explain to customer how much MS is lying to them, this would be more credible than a report based on 0.052% of the population. Now, being Italian I am beginning to feel embarassed ..... :-)

  1. 3  Wild Bill http://www.billbuchan.com | 3/1/2006 8:49:42 AM

    I think for about four weeks since Lotusphere, MS has probably tried harder than it ever has not to lie to the industry, and not to lie to its customers.

    Its sad that MS has decided to revert to its "any PR in a storm" tactics. Ahh well. The gloves are off, eh ?

    I wonder what happened to Red Bull. Werent they supposed to deliver by end-Feb ?

    ---* Bill

  1. 4  Dravid  | 3/1/2006 9:30:26 AM

    No point in loosing sleep over this Ed.

    MS will bring up more of these from time to time - sign of desperation; so you should rather sleep well and work on the FUD responder.

  1. 5  Gregg Eldred http://www.ns-tech.com/blog/geldred.nsf | 3/1/2006 10:41:50 AM

    @3 - I think that they are preparing the foundation for a new run at the Notes/Domino market:

    { Link }

  1. 6  Dravid  | 3/1/2006 11:17:50 AM

    [5] I have seen similar stuff earlier and it appears to me that they think a lot of notes applications are either based on templates/ unused/fit gor archival.

    They expect reduction in the numbers of apps to be migrated after Phase 1? I am not sure if that 50% refers to the number of apps as well.

    After phase 2 & 3 it gets reduced further - oh yes they are right, only few apps can actually get migrated like discussion, team room etc and the rest of them would need to be reengineered (custom built). Remember, when it's mail we could call it migration but when its apps we call it reengineering!!

  1. 7  Paul Robichaux http://www.e2ksecurity.com | 3/1/2006 12:17:25 PM

    @3: see { Link }

  1. 8  Carl Tyler http://www.iminstant.com | 3/1/2006 2:44:31 PM

    Ignoring the survey for one second, could you possibly accept that most IBM Customers, even ones that attended Lotusphere, still don't understand the difference between Workplace the brand and Workplace the product/s?

    "IBM Workplace" is a brand and product family, and it includes Lotus Notes!

    You may get this, but the whole product and brand having the same name is flawed. Seriously I don't understand it, and I probably give it much more time than most to try and figure it out.

    As for the research being quoted, well the polls on my website get more hits :-)

  1. 9  Ed Brill www.edbrill.com | 3/1/2006 2:49:30 PM

    Carl, I've never disputed that there is lingering confusion...and certainly it is in Microsoft's interest to continue to create or amplify that confusion.

    Not sure I agree with "most", though.

    But thanks for keeping me honest... always more work to do.

  1. 10  Andy Steven  | 3/1/2006 3:11:24 PM

    We all know MS is full of bull. But the average punter believes what they say. That is the challenge for Lotus getting to those punters..

  1. 11  Michael Bourak  | 3/1/2006 3:54:28 PM

    @Paul : Installed the "new" version and got a prompt for requirements (I've not .net 1.1 on my pc) that says : "requires .net 1.1 etc...and Lotus Notes 5.16 or later"

    5.16, is that the codename for the most unknown version of Notes ? or the ultimate fixpack released to ultragold customers ?

    For sure I'll test your tool but if you don't even know the requierements of the applications you migrate, I doubt you can do any magic stuff at all...

  1. 12  Laurette Rynne http://www.lauretterynne.com | 3/1/2006 7:08:25 PM

    I think the "fighting FUD" site is great, and the commentary in the blogosphere about these issues is excellent. My concern is that most CIOs, CEOs etc don't necessarily read the blogs. We still need to find a way to get the message out there to people who aren't listening online - this is what MSFT is REALLY good at - information by osmosis. Not sure how Lotus can compete, but that's the challenge as I see it

  1. 13  Bill Geimer  | 3/1/2006 9:25:26 PM

    @9 - I finally (mostly) get the message about IBM Workplace, the longevity of Notes/Domino. But I can still see too much room for confusion in the message. Its clearing up, but a bit too slowly. While I agree that the Eclipse/Hannover portal and the Workplace Client portal are both 1) the right place to go and 2) essenially the same to the enduser - a far better mail and collaboration platform that they have today with small, low hurdle, evolutionary learning curve, I am not sure that slides talking about the Notes thrust, the WAS thrust and the New customer thrust are quite as clear to some, well, to me.

    But I don't know how to say it better, or in a simple, direct, market(ing)able way. To me its just:

    MICROSOFT IS WRONG. PERIOD.

    Notes / Domino is not going away.

    IBM Websphere Portal and Workplace Managed Clients are not going away.

    Its about choice. Its about evolution to a better user experience. Its about maximizing the productivity of the individual, and about minimizing the TCO at the same time. It about putting more information in front of the decision makers, either way you go.

  1. 14  Alan Lepofsky http://www.alanlepofsky.net/ | 3/1/2006 10:17:29 PM

    @13 Peter O'Kelly seems to agree with you...

    The Future of Notes is...Notes { Link }

    The Future of Domino is...Domino { Link }

    and he has a really good take on "Workplace" { Link }

  1. 15  Charles Robinson  | 3/2/2006 12:41:01 AM

    @8 - I'm with you, I gave up making sense of the Workplace/Portal/Websphere mish mash.

    @9 - We've had this conversation already. I get the big picture but I don't have a clear vision of the specifics. I'm hoping that becomes clearer as Hannover goes into beta, Sametime 7.5 is released and more documentation is made available.

  1. 16  Richard Schwartz http://www.yellowisthenewblack.com | 3/2/2006 12:49:26 AM

    Microsoft speaks with a forked tongue.

  1. 17  Randall Shimizu  | 3/2/2006 3:38:07 AM

    The real misnomer is Microsoft's suggestion that Lotus customers are forced to migrate from Notes.....

    The unfortunate thing however is that if a lie is told often enough people begin to believe it. This is just another reason why IBM needs to benchmark it's marketing and commit the resources necessary to compete against MS Ed.

  1. 18  Ed Brill www.edbrill.com | 3/2/2006 6:23:43 AM

    @15 @8 etc. My colleague Roberto Boccadoro has picked up your gauntlet. And he is most definitely NOT in marketing.

    See his post at { Link }

  1. 19  Rick  | 3/2/2006 7:19:33 AM

    @18 - Thanks Ed, that goes a bit further towards explaining it.

    And sorry if this is a bit off-topic, but WHY would they(IBM) choose such a muddled naming convention for their products/product line?

  1. 20  Ed Brill www.edbrill.com | 3/2/2006 7:32:50 AM

    @19 Wow is that a question. :-)

    There is a lot of history to how we got here. If there weren't existing products in market, one could see a scenario where all Workplace PRODUCTS would be branded Workplace ____ . we have existing products like WebSphere Portal and Lotus Notes and Lotus Domino. If they were brand new they might be Workplace _____ . But instead their existing brands are carried forward, because of tremendous equity and recognition as market leaders.

  1. 21  Richard Sampson www.hadsl.com | 3/2/2006 9:05:49 AM

    Ed,

    psephologists know this kind of opinion poll as a "Voodoo Poll"

    { Link }

    The outstanding Anthony Wells ({ Link } used to have a particularly good analysis of just how fundamentally flawed this kind of polling is on his old blog, but I can't find any link to it on his new blog (he was headhunted & joined the UK pollsters YouGov).

    No analyst worth their salt could credibly claim that this sort of poll is in any way representative or reliable, but sadly marketing departments often have no such reticence.

    Fortunately any marketing message based upon such a poll leaves itself open to being discredited, but equally unfortunately the old adage "s*** sticks" also applies.