Notes/Domino 8.5: Upgrade and save

September 14 2009

Lotus marketing has put together a letter that is being sent to Notes/Domino customers to highlight the benefits of deploying Notes/Domino 8.5...an excerpt:

If your company has not yet upgraded to IBM Lotus Notes and Domino 8.5 software, here are compelling reasons why it is the right time to upgrade now. IBM has announced two new pricing and financing offers to simplify your financial management by taking advantage of a predictable payment stream for ease of budgeting, while preserving cash for other high yield investments. Eligible customers can take advantage of one of the following new Lock in Savings with Lotus Software pricing offers:

* 15% discount off the entitled prices for new licenses of selected IBM Lotus® or IBM WebSphere® Portal offerings with financing as low as 0%
* 10% off the renewal price for two years of Software Subscription and Support, or 15% off the renewal price for three years of Software Subscription and Support

Dedicated to the success of your IBM Lotus and Domino upgrade, IBM Software Services for Lotus (ISSL) is ready to help you with an unparalleled combination of expert technical services  and an innovative Notes upgrade offering. The upgrade offering is built on best practices to ensure your business harnesses the full extent of benefits.  It includes:

* Lotus Notes and Domino 8.5 upgrade engagement
* IBM Software Accelerated Value program
* Multimedia Library for Lotus Notes 8.x

Consider some of the benefits delivered to you with Lotus Notes and Domino 8.5 software:
* Reduce your total cost of ownership by up to 30% with innovative features that minimize storage, memory, and I/O requirements and increase employee productivity. ...
* Potential savings of  $300 USD per user from those using Microsoft Office software with the no-charge IBM Lotus Symphony office productivity tools.
* Leadership in Cloud Computing.  IBM offers market leading off-premise (cloud) email and collaboration solutions that are delivered by secure and trusted IBM data centers.
I think it's the right message at the right time.  Financial benefits both in budget dollars and in cost dollars -- that is clearly an attention-getter.  Now I'm asking marketing to add a reference to the Applicable TCO studies that show how much more cost-effective Notes/Domino is than the competition -- a trifecta of cost, expense, and value.  Win.

Ed Brill | Highland Park, IL USA Category:  Notes and Domino 8.5  Add/View Comments [11]

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  1. 1  Tripp Black http://www.mindwatering.com | 9/14/2009 2:01:13 PM

    Hi Ed,

    I know what the "Software Accelerated Value" program as I looked it up on developerWorks.

    However, the annoucement is market speak which says little unless you also provide a link so the phrase can be decifered:

    { Link }

    Also, I have seen some of the Multimedia Library, I think that it is one of those components that should have a LE (limited edition) that comes with the Standard Client (in sidebar) with a couple teasers to illustrate how cool they really are. Yes, it should be a check box in the install on whether to include it, just like the other sidebar apps.

    Just my 2 cents.

    Thanks!

    Tripp

  1. 2  David H  | 9/14/2009 3:44:55 PM

    Sweet. Now if you can get people to choose software based strictly on cost, expense, and value. That would make the magic. You're probably getting tired of me talking about this, but rarely are decisions of this nature made based on rational, objective reasons, like cost, expense, and value. It's all about how they *feel* about the decision. Check out the book "Influence, The Psychology of Persuasion" by Robert B. Cialdini. An amazing eye-opener on the topic. I guarantee it will change your perspective on marketing.

    On another note, while commuting to work this morning, I heard an ad on the local radio for WebEx. I was thinking how great it would be to hear an ad for Lotus Sametime Unyte on the radio here in Seattle, maybe even throw in the part about how so many Outlook customers use Sametime and how well it works with MS Office. Notes is great, but no one seems to know but Lotus admins and developers.

  1. 3  Nick Halliwell http://www.comware.net | 9/14/2009 9:05:05 PM

    Ed,

    What is not said is where this is applicable, is it just the USA or is it world wide, information like this would be helpful?

    I also have to agree with the 1st part of David's post, I think these offers make little difference to any companies purchasing. During the last 25% offer, I talked to many prospects they said all very nice, but they just were not ready to buy even with a special offer.

    In my view, special offers work in supermarkets but do not work with business them selves.

    Nick

  1. 4  Ed Brill http://www.edbrill.com | 9/14/2009 9:24:34 PM

    @1 the multi-media library is more advanced than the learning plug-in. The learning plug-in is available at no charge; multimedia library is a per-user cost. The learning plug-in can be found via { Link } (all-around good resource); search my blog for multimedia library info.

    @2 until you can pay for Sametime Unyte with a credit card, there's not much point to similar kinds of advertising. That is coming in the future, not soon enough I suppose.

    @3 the upgrade and save offers are worldwide. The channel announcement went out on August 11.

  1. 5  Dave Harris http://www.wavysworld.com | 9/15/2009 1:15:40 AM

    @Ed re @2,

    An interesting article here { Link } about the whole Lotus brand & portfolio, including availability (and the the comments aren't filled with the usual "Notes sucks" trolls, for a pleasant change)

  1. 6  Fredrik Malmborg  | 9/15/2009 1:58:10 AM

    Hi Ed,

    I do not know about rest of the world, but in Sweden many customers with Notes/Domino ended their maintenance when with version 6.5. Theese companies could be worth getting an extra kick back on the train.

    Would be wonderful if I could tell them "IBM Lotus lets you resume your maintenance as you never paused it"

    And yes many of them have been "told" to run Exchange. But they still have Domino running with applications because, guess what, it was too expensive/complicated to migrate.

    Why not give them some loving back from IBM Lotus.

  1. 7  Ed Brill http://www.edbrill.com | 9/15/2009 6:38:50 AM

    @6 we ran a 25% off promotion on reinstatement during Q2 and early Q3 2009. That got the price closer to the "as you never paused it" level. I can't say it was a huge success from that perspective, though we did get some nice results overall. If license cost alone is the barrier to upgrading, I'm sure my IBM sales colleagues would be happy to get involved. Usually in the situations you describe, it's political. (See comment #34 on the TCO posting from the other day: { Link } )

  1. 8  Vitor Pereira http://www.vitor-pereira.com | 9/19/2009 4:21:55 AM

    Make sure it is translated to Japanese, please!

  1. 9  Russ Henson  | 10/1/2009 3:57:25 PM

    Has anyone else run into an issue upgrading from lotus notes 7.0.3 to 8.5 where .DLL and/or .OCX files of other programs get registration issues? If there is a known fix for this, I would appreciate the information. Thanks.

  1. 10  tom http://www.codepress.net/b | 10/1/2009 4:46:42 PM

    Russ,

    Do you mean your custom apps (like .NET/COM dlls) are no longer working when accessed by Domino?

    When we moved from R6.5 to R8, I tore my hair out because Lotus switched the expected configuration path from (programfile).config to (programfile).exe.config.

  1. 11  Robert Ptaszynski http://www.novaliance.com | 10/26/2010 3:09:03 AM

    Hi Ed

    In your post 4 you say : @3 the upgrade and save offers are worldwide. The channel announcement went out on August 11.

    Can you please give me the link to this announcement as I don't find anything in France.

    Thanks