Notes 8 launch event dates?

March 17 2007

Volker has a short entry at vowe.net featuring the announcement of the Notes/Domino 8 launch event in Germany, taking place on 24 October.  He asks a reasonable question -- if the launch event is in October, when is the product launching?

Well, I can't answer that yet.  The announced ship date is "mid-2007".  The launch events that have been scheduled already, though, are later than most would consider "mid-year".  Simple reason -- summertime IT events draw relatively few participants in both North America and in Europe.  So, Germany is 24 October, Milan is 8 October,   No, I don't know all 200+ launch event dates yet...I was surprised to learn that many have been set already.  But don't infer too much from October event dates -- just keep providing all that quality beta feedback, and we'll get the product out the door as soon as it is ready.

Ed Brill | Tel Aviv, Israel Category:  Notes and Domino 8  Add/View Comments [20]

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  1. 1  Peter Wilson  | 3/17/2007 5:31:32 PM

    Personally I don't believe everyone NEEDS the product in the middle of the year just because that was your original estimate. Companies would rather the product be released when it's READY. So if that means a couple more months, then so be it. Heck, look how long Vista took to release compared to it's estimates.

    Are more robust release will allow more customers to deploy 8.0 rather than waiting for 8.0.1

    Pete

  1. 2  Ed Brill http://www.edbrill.com | 3/17/2007 6:14:50 PM

    Raises an interesting question, Pete -- does the traditional software superstition that prevents organizations from deploying a "dot zero" release still apply? My impression is that a .0 could be dead solid perfect, but some companies by policy will still wait for a .0.1.

    The plan for 8.0.1 is to be about six months after 8.0, with a few new features but mainly to ensure the ND8 release is widely deployable.

  1. 3  Dave Armstrong http://www.reviewthenet.com/synnik/daveblog.nsf | 3/17/2007 6:32:10 PM

    For us, it is not the superstition that stop us from deploying .0 -- it is QA and change management. We don't even start planning an upgrade until it is released, and by the time the planning is done and testing is complete, .1 is out so we may as well throw in another week of testing and go with .1

  1. 4  Charles Robinson http://cubert-codepoet.blogspot.com | 3/17/2007 7:04:25 PM

    It's more testing and training that affect our rollout schedule than any perceived quality issue with .0 releases. As Dave said, by the time we have done our testing and gotten our training materials together the .01 release it out already.

    I will say that my testing of Notes 8 beta has gone very, very badly and that experience will greatly affect our adoption of Notes 8, regardless of the point release. I read John Head's rules and am taking them to heart, hence the silence regarding my issues. :)

  1. 5  Hynek Kobelka http://www.pylonware.com | 3/17/2007 7:08:13 PM

    No one uses a x.0 release is still true.(And according to me also a reasonable opinion.)

    Dave is absolutely right with this. Every large company has to do an evaluation of the added value, which a new version will deliver to them. Then they have to test the new version and all of their existing applications and eventually plan the deployment. This usually takes some months, and by then the x.0.1 version is already very near. (An other "delay" can occur it they need to test less common language versions. These get published up to 3 month after each release.)

    However even that only a few companies will use a x.0 version, it is the most important one, because it the one which gets tested. And not to forget that many developers start (already with the beta) to update their own products to match the design and use the added functions of the new version. That way once the customers migrate at last, they are already finished with development.

    And by the way i would also suggest that if necessary, you rather take some more time to make the new version perfect then releasing it on time. Right now i would say that every part of Notes 8, which has been redesigned , looks awesome. The problems only lies in the parts which were not changed at all (replicator page, journal, search bar)

    Or look here:

    { Link }

    { Link }

  1. 6  Andy Wang  | 3/17/2007 10:16:57 PM

    Working for a company that is 20% Mac (mostly in management and R&D), we will never move on a major .0 release since Notes/Mac support seems to always arrive at .1

    I can't wait til the day IBM achieve release date parity for all its platforms...which seems much more feasible under the Eclipse development model.

  1. 7  David Bell  | 3/18/2007 12:22:56 AM

    @6 - as far as I understand it, the reason for the Mac client GA delay is *because* of deficiency in the Eclipse framework on the Mac

  1. 8  David Bell  | 3/18/2007 12:24:05 AM

    Actually that could have been for the Sametime 7.5 client on Mac, but since Notes 8 is based on the same framework, I suspect it is also related.

  1. 9  Ed Brill http://www.edbrill.com | 3/18/2007 12:31:01 AM

    @4 your second 'graph concerns me greatly, especially because there hasn't been that kind of negative feedback in the beta forum or elsewhere. If you'd prefer to share offlie, regardless of the "rules", I'm interested.

  1. 10  Andy Wang  | 3/18/2007 1:01:47 AM

    @7 Not according to Apple ;) { Link }

    Then again, the reason DWA doesn't support Safari is because of deficiency of DOM support within Safari.

  1. 11  Volker Weber http://vowe.net/about | 3/18/2007 3:34:44 AM

    If "the rules" suppress negative feedback, this beta test is doomed.

  1. 12  Flemming Riis  | 3/18/2007 4:33:55 AM

    The problem with .0 released is that hardly anyone but the vendor is ready with 3rd party applications.

    Backup/Anvivirus is almost always a pain due to vendors not supporting it at release time.

  1. 13  Darren http://www.dadams.co.uk | 3/18/2007 6:11:06 AM

    @6 - it would be nice to have all platform releases with feature parity at one time. But remember that not all software vendors (one in particular) offer such a full range of platform choices - it adds complexity and you can't always expect everything at once regardless of the commitment. Just remember who's trying to be the good guys.

  1. 14  Ed Brill http://www.edbrill.com | 3/18/2007 7:58:02 AM

    @11 I agree

  1. 15  Richard Schwartz http://www.rhs.com/poweroftheschwartz | 3/18/2007 8:34:58 AM

    Come on... Isn't anyone going to say "the code is more what you'd call guidelines than actual rules" ;-)

  1. 16  John Head http://www.johndavidhead.com | 3/18/2007 11:49:39 AM

    @4 - Charles, wow ... if you feel that my post is surpressing your reporting of feedback, then the wrong impression was gotten from what I wrote. That was in no way the intent. If you don't like something, by all means post it.

    My intent with that post was just to give people some prespective. Stuff isn't done yet. That is why its called beta. And some stuff, which isnt a bug, that people want wont make 8.0. and we can accept that and keep testing or people can get worked up and focus on the wrong things. I think everyone is better served if we spend out time testing existing applications to make sure there isnt any bugs vs arguing around colors in the new calendar.

    Personally, I would love to read your feedback Charles. I am using 8 as my primary client, and while still rough around the edges, is so much better than 7. If you don't feel that way, then post away.

  1. 17  Henning Heinz  | 3/18/2007 4:39:08 PM

    I am quite surprised about the feedback so far. I have not been able to get this to run with acceptable performance on several machines.

    Notes 8 looks nice (although for me it sometimes is too much blue) but after a few minutes of eye candy I have to go back to classic to do real work (and the classic looks way too much .. classic).

    Although I have read John Heads advise I have my doubts that the final release is going to solve this. It is a pity that the current "rules" in some way assume that this is going to be fixed by magic in a couple of weeks.

    Having said all that, Mary Beth Ravens blog is a fantastic approach on how to develop (better) proprietary software.

  1. 18  Richard Moy http://www.dominointerface.com | 3/18/2007 7:23:54 PM

    My current review of Notes 8 Beta have been both positive and negative. I understand that it is a beta so I do overlook some of the issues. However, there are a number of features I do not like and have posted my comments. I was disappointed to see that there was not significant interface changes in the Basic version.

    Some of the companies that we working with are still struggling to get to version 6.5 or 7 from Notes 4.6 and Notes 5. Companies just do not migrate as fast as IBM would like. They may have downloaded or purchased the product, but the process of migrating is a long and time consuming process that requires significant planning and testing. As IBM finally promotes Notes more and more as an application platform, the process will take longer with more applications and mash ups to test and test.

  1. 19  Ed Brill http://www.edbrill.com | 3/18/2007 8:08:49 PM

    Richard,

    To be direct, the basic configuration is not where the investment in Notes 8 sits. Notes 8 is about moving to the Eclipse/Expeditor platform, with all the benefits -- including better tools for usability -- that such a move conveys. The basic configuration is an accomodation for lower-end hardware and slower moving organizations. It's one that most customers have reacted positively to -- it provides another tool or option in a gradual upgrade approach.

    If all we were doing was building a new user interface for Notes, experience has shown that would be a counter-driver for upgrades. Customers would be concerned at all the effort required to upgrade just to get a prettier interface. This is part of the challenge that Microsoft faces with Office 2007, and why companies aren't rushing out to upgrade. So we put the vast majority of our work into creating value for upgrading to Notes 8 -- Eclipse platform, composite applications, productivity editors, sidebar and plug-in architecture. Those are the benefits to organizations that will drive the upgrade, while the better user interface is what will help "sell" it within the organization.

    Honestly, our installed base surveys show that the percentage of customers in the overall market today still on 4.6 or R5 is <5% -- maybe even smaller like 2% or 3%. Further, many such customers have indicated that they will never upgrade. Should software be designed for this small segment or for the vast majority that at least upgraded to 6.x?

  1. 20  Charles Robinson http://cubert-codepoet.blogspot.com | 3/18/2007 8:25:57 PM

    Ed, I posted one problem on the forum { Link } and a few other people chimed in with the same issue, but there was no other response. I've been e-mailed a bit about that one, too, but nobody seems to have a solution.

    John, I agree with your guidelines and I'm not offended by them in the least. I don't have the time to do an appropriate amount of troubleshooting or analysis of the problems I'm having so I'd rather not report them. For now all I can say is neither the Standard or Basic client will load on any of the five test machines I've tried to install it on. That isn't particularly helpful to anybody, and once I have something to report I will.

    My point to Ed was that because of the problems I've had with Notes 8 Beta 2 I will be doing a lot more testing than I have of any prior release. That's going to slow down my adoption.