The Foundations announcement

November 11 2010

Tons of questions and blog posts in the last few days about the Lotus Foundations end of marketing that appeared in IBM channel marketing materials earlier this week.  So, I don't own Foundations and am not part of the team that does (IBM Smart Business) thus I am blogging simply from generally available information... am in an internal discussion to try to get more, but this should help set some things straight.

An important quote from the announcement:

IBM is not withdrawing the equivalent products from non-Passport Advantage ordering, such as Original Equipment Manufacturer/Application Specific License agreements.  Lotus Foundations Value Added Resellers in the US and Canada can continue to order these products via the Lotus Foundations Order Desk.
So Foundations isn't dead/RIP/buried as is stated on some of the blogs in the past few days...it is simply no longer being marketed through Passport Advantage, which is after all a software volume licensing program.

The broader thrust behind the announcement is IBM's Smart Business solutions.  This team is building and delivering new software appliance solutions targeted at mid-market (<1000 employee) organizations.  Unlike Lotus Foundations (and another effort, the IBM Smart Cube), the new software appliance solutions will be available in a self-contained environment which can run on any hardware (not specific hardware), virtual machines, or the IBM Cloud.  The new Smart Business strategy was announced in Boston on October 21, as reported by CRN:
Dan Cerutti, general manager of IBM Smart Business, provided details of the new portfolio of packaged offerings during executive breakout sessions at the CRN conference.
The "Solutions for Smart Business" include pre-integrated applications and infrastructure software, such as database software and backup and recovery tools. Some are currently available as software-only bundles or packaged as appliances with IBM servers, with versions for Dell and Hewlett-Packard hardware in development.

Early next year IBM will offer the packages through its cloud computing services and, later in 2011, as virtual images.

The packages will be sold exclusively through the channel to midmarket businesses, priced on a per-seat, per-month basis. Cerutti said a key goal of the bundles is to help channel partners shorten the sales cycle.

One package, IBM Virtual Desktop for Smart Business, was jointly developed with Virtual Bridges, a virtualization technology company in Austin, Texas. Other packages include IBM Docs for Smart Business, a document management system; IBM Service Management for Smart Business, which incorporates Tivoli systems management software; and IBM Application Manager for Smart Business. Other packages are in development.
So, it's a transition.  It appears that it could have been better-managed, especially amongst the Lotus community that has been the engine for Lotus Foundations since the Nitix acquisition.

I saw a bunch of blog posts on planetlotus about this during the week, but as I am at the Irish Lotus User Group I haven't had a chance to capture all of the threads.  If you have links for me, please post them as comments.

Ed Brill | Highland Park, IL USA Category:  Lotus  Add/View Comments [33]

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  1. 1  Daniele Grillo http://www.dominopoint.it | 11/11/2010 8:43:47 AM

    Tnx you Ed for this blog.

    But for Business Partner outside US and Canada?

    How we can renew and sell?

  1. 2  Stuart McIntyre http://blog.collaborationmatters.com | 11/11/2010 9:00:20 AM

    'It appears that it could have been better-managed'

    I'd say that is a massive massive understatement. Not sure where the Foundations team have been this past fortnight, but they have not said a word on discussion threads on blogs, twitter or on LinkedIn { Link }

    On occasions, Lotus seems very very keen to 'get the word out' via the community about positive stories, I just wish the rest of the team were so willing to deal with the less positive ones (and I exclude you from this Ed, I know you face up to the negative stories too).

  1. 3  Richard Moy http://www.dominointerface.com | 11/11/2010 9:18:17 AM

    These discussion have been going on for a couple of weeks. It would have been nice if someone at IBM Smart Business respond to the partner request for information. Though Lotus Foundation is not dead I am confused on how Lotus Foundations fits into the IBM Smart Business since it seems to be geared towards the mid-market. It sounds like the small business solutions is being merged in with the mid-market solutions. Hopefully, IBM can more effectively communicate this to the partners.

  1. 4  Marc Garciah http://www.kelros.com | 11/11/2010 9:20:21 AM

    I believe that the announcement kills the Lotus Foundations server, which with the Lotus Foundations Start software (which included Lotus Notes Domino by default) made up the Lotus Foundations solution for small and medium sized organisations. The original Nitix solution was based on the hardware and the software working in absolute harmony to provide autonomics and self healing as well as intelligent backup. Without the hardware and with the new Lotus Foundations Start software appliance not including Lotus Notes Domino by default this is now a lost RTM for Lotus in the SMB market place...

  1. 5  Roland Reddekop http://www.bleedyellow.com/blogs/sanitycheck | 11/11/2010 10:13:39 AM

    Regarding a comment above that the Appliance or special IBM hardware is necessary for Foundations to succeed, this has not been my experience. For what its worth, I have only deployed Lotus Foundations with non-IBM hardware (white box and DELL) and all is well. We use standard third-party USB2 or eSata external drives for backup (3 at each site). Recovery is a snap, albeit we don't just push a button as you would with the specialty hardware. I had a system go down due to hardware failure and replaced it with a completely different box and was back up and running as soon as the files copied over from the backup. It was the easiest complete hardware swap I've ever experienced. Moving to VM appliances not tied to specific hardware seems to be a good strategy for IBM IMHO.

  1. 6  John Stockbridge http://Www.Brookstone.com.au | 11/11/2010 10:19:02 AM

    We spent a considerable amount of time and resources trying to move our virtual office software to Workplace. Never get caught like that again we thought.

    Along came smart business solutions, what a terrific idea we thought and IBM is right behind it this time. Sucked in again.

    We have seriously learned our lesson now and will stick with Domino where we continue to sell solutions.

  1. 7  Richard Moy http://www.dominointerface.com | 11/11/2010 10:23:26 AM

    @4

    When did they remove Domino from Lotus Foundations Start?

  1. 8  Steve  | 11/11/2010 10:47:54 AM

    A quote from an IBM presenter (can't remember his name) sticks in my head when these sorts of things come up. I was attending an event that was showcasing the new features of version 8.0.1, someone in the crowd asked, why isn't IBM marketing this? The response was, "If IBM was to market sushi, they would advertise it as cold dead fish." I think the same holds true today, the announcements, planning, and marketing materials just always seem to fall short of what the product can actually do or what IBM is intending for them to do.

  1. 9  Nathan T. Freeman http://ntf.gbs.com | 11/11/2010 12:00:08 PM

    Thanks for getting some explicit information out in an environment of rampant speculation.

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  1. 11  William D. Vasu http://www.cyberacc.com | 11/11/2010 10:49:58 PM

    As an IBM Business Partner our company has focused heavily since Lotusphere 2010 on bringing to market the ShoreTel Unified Communications for Lotus Foundations solution. We bought into the concept because it resonated strongly with our corporate background and experience. So did more than two dozen other partners who collectively trained 75 people with ShoreTel and ScanSource. They signed up for 27 $5000+ demo kits. We invested better than 12 man months in preparation. We have recruited several strategic partners. We had just made our first presentation to an extremely enthusiastic customer who is a trend setter in his industry. We were disappointed and felt blindsided when we received the appliance hardware discontinuation announcement with no advance notice, no marketing migration cover, and no clear definition of either product substitution or product direction. But we could deal with that. We were devastated when two days later ShoreTel announced to us that IBM's radical shift had caught them so off guard and would cost them so much to recover from that they were stopping the product immediately. From the first encounter, the people at ShoreTel and their company have been a first class operation to work with. The product was a perfect complement to the already ideal Foundations platform for SMB's. Their excellent marketing material focused as much or more on the Foundations feature/benefit story as on their own product. We and they invested heavily in trusting IBM at their word on their renewed support for the low end of the SMB market. IBM, if you really expect your partners to continue to trust the new marketing ideas to be presented at Lotusphere 2011, 2012... then you need to include us much more fully and deeply before making these sorts of major shifts in product direction. We are taking innovative steps to find ways to move forward with our potential customers and strategic partners in spite of the changes. But why did if need to be this disruptive?

  1. 12  Eric Mack http://www.EricMackOnline.com | 11/11/2010 11:06:30 PM

    @11. Same experience here, I'm sorry to say. It could have been handled so much better for customers and partners alike.

  1. 13  Christian Tillmanns http://www.informica.ch | 11/11/2010 11:41:08 PM

    Dear Nathan

    So much for rampant speculation.

    I DO NOT SPECULATE. I askes IBM some specific questions.

    They did not came up with answers that would prove that LF is still alive.

    Will write about that later.

    Cheers to that

  1. 14  Nathan T. Freeman http://ntf.gbs.com | 11/12/2010 1:20:19 AM

    @13 Dear Christian, I have no idea what information you have access to. Every statement I've seen regarding this matter is based on one release stating that the software is withdrawn from the Passport Advantage site. Does that mean that IBM is terminating the product? I have no idea. Do I trust anyone's assessment of that result outside of IBM's? No. Do I trust IBM's assessment of that result? Not really. At least, not any single statement about it.

    You might have asked the most specific questions ever conceived by a human, but since I don't know what they are, and I don't have first hand knowledge of the replies, they are what we call in the US: hearsay.

    I must admit, I'm confused on the concept that someone must prove that LF is alive. This is a little like me claiming that someone must prove that YOU are alive. Your being alive is established by you standing before me. What someone must prove is that you are NOT alive for the issue to be debatable.

    Again, I have no idea what IBM's real position on Foundations is. Even with Ed's reply here, I'm not sure what the outcome means. But what I do know is that I don't really care about anyone else's evaluation of the limited information is -- without a direct statement from an executive that controls funding, no one has any standing in this conversation. Absent compelling evidence, Foundations is just one more product that IBM does a crappy job of selling in an otherwise fertile market, even if they meet their unambitious goals as defined by upper management.

  1. 15  Daniele Grillo http://www.dominopoint.it | 11/12/2010 2:46:38 AM

    I find this situation absurd and illogical....

    It absurde that a business partner does not have a clear vision (roamap)of the vendor's solution.

    Many (including myself) have invested heavily in the solution Foundations.

    Personally my Company from February 2010 to ask for information to IBM on their road-map ... without response!

    Is possible that IBM don't have a clear roadmap on the future of the product?

    Why IBM has acquired Nitix?

    What happened to Ozzie Papic?

    I'm confused...and I wait an official reply from IBM.

  1. 16  Henning Heinz  | 11/12/2010 3:14:18 AM

    I'll second Nathan's comment.

    "Even with Ed's reply here, I'm not sure what the outcome means."

  1. 17  Lisa Duke http://www.simplified-tech.com | 11/12/2010 6:42:04 AM

    When IBM comes out with a new product, partners have to be very cautious. Most of the true Lotus partners do not just put up vague presentations and take orders - if they decide to sell something they tear into it and know it better inside and out than IBM does. Our clients expect that level of expertise from us, and it's the only advantage we have in a market where clients can place orders on CDW's website or get three bids and take the lowest one.

    When a new product launches and it's on stage at Lotusphere or in a press release, we have to do the damage control with the clients. We are the ones spending time researching products because IBM doesn't communicate the basic information we need to sell them. Is this a real product (as we were all made to believe when it was demoed on stage) or is it an ISSL asset and therefore unavailable to our SMB clients, like Sametime Unified Telephony and Sametime 3D? Is it priced in a way that means it is completely unsellable to our clients, like Quickr Extranet ($35,000, no Express pricing) or Mashups ($45,000, no Express pricing)? Is the product affordable, but the Websphere it sits on top of so hardware and services intensive that our clients can't afford the installation services? Does it really do what IBM says it does? Is it so sensitive that our clients will be upset with the ongoing attention it needs to stay up and running?

    If IBM would tell us what's going on, stick with a message, and actually fix the things that are broken, you'd have a lot more uptake with the partners when something new comes out - like Lotus Live.

  1. 18  Michael Sobczak  | 11/12/2010 7:39:38 AM

    @17 Dead on about IBM Mashups. You can add Lotus Connections to the list of cool products currently without SMB pricing. ROI does not exist in a vacuum. The product can do everything including cooking your breakfast in the morning, but if its just too expensive, no 1-50 person company will ever buy it.

  1. 19  Julian Woodward  | 11/12/2010 8:09:11 AM

    What I read into Ed's announcement here, and his discussion at ILUG, is as follows.

    Is IBM killing Foundations: strictly speaking, no, the technology that IBM acquired will continue to live on in some form.

    Is Foundations going to continue to be a standalone product line that business partners can sell: no, it will be rolled into Smart Business in some way that IBM has so far been unwilling or unable to communicate.

    Without a shadow of doubt, IBM has breached the trust of its Foundations partners and customers very badly. That's not Ed's fault, because (for better or worse: as it turns out, worse) he doesn't 'own' the Foundations offering.

    I stepped away from Foundations over a year ago. I would love to say that's because I have some genius insight into the market, but actually it's mainly because I was too busy and didn't see IBM investing properly in marketing it in any meaningful sense so why the hell should I bother?

  1. 20  Henning Heinz  | 11/12/2010 8:48:49 AM

    @Michael, I think if you accept the cloud as a valid option in some way Lotus Connections has SMB licensing (LotusLive). For internal use pricing is more or less SMB friendly except Extranet licensing.

  1. 21  Marc Garcia http://www.kelros.com | 11/12/2010 9:04:34 AM

    @7

    Richard, I am not sure where I heard this, but I am sure that the new Lotus Foundations Start software appliance will not include Lotus Notes Domino...LND will be available as a separate Application purchase. I believe the reasoning is that LF Start will be the operating environment of the appliance and if you only want to add the Tivoli Helpdesk appliance on top of it, then you would not want LND as well!

    And given that AV/AS and Sametime were all additional cost options for LF Start, it was getting too expensive for small SMBs anyway!

  1. 22  Richard Moy http://www.dominointerface.com | 11/12/2010 12:02:05 PM

    @21

    Marc, then Lotus Foundations does not provide any added value compared to other solutions. But it maybe academic since Lotus Foundations if it exist or not it no longer fulfills our target audience, small businesses. We invested a significant amount of money and time into this product. Could have done something better with the money and time. At least we did not fall into the Workplace fiasco.

  1. 23  Kevin Pettitt http://www.lotusguru.com | 11/12/2010 2:45:33 PM

    @14 Nathan

    "Every statement I've seen regarding this matter is based on one release stating that the software is withdrawn from the Passport Advantage site."

    That and the non-response response from IBM to an apparently large number of queries. Saying nothing at all actually says quite a lot sometimes.

  1. 24  Andy Steven http://www.uptime100.com.au | 11/12/2010 3:11:27 PM

    IBM need to go and show it to people. Here in little old Adelaide, South Australia, I'd bet my house IBM didn't approach any local resellers to show them the program.

    And don't give me this rubbish Lotus is doing great, it's not, it's doing absolutely terribly.

  1. 25  Nathan T. Freeman http://ntf.gbs.com | 11/12/2010 11:58:35 PM

    "... to an apparently large number of queries..." How is the number of queries apparent? I asked 4 different people at IBM, but I can't think of any way that anyone else would know that.

    There were 5 blog posts that surfaced on PL. I'd hardly call that a large number.

    To be clear, I think this situation was handled terribly, and the lack of communication of intent was irresponsible and stupid. But the response in the community was also baseless, rampant speculation based on vague information. That's not exactly atypical of the venue, but it's nevertheless disappointing.

    Just because IBM does something totally amateur doesn't mean we should respond in kind. It would be really great if the community proved itself smarter and more mature than the IBM PR machine. That would be something to be proud of.

  1. 26  Ben Poole http://benpoole.com | 11/13/2010 7:08:33 AM

    Nathan, you asked 4 different people at IBM about this. Now just imagine for a second that other people around the world could—and did—the same thing (and some of those people weren't even on PL!)

  1. 27  Bilal Jaffery http://www.bilal.ca | 11/17/2010 3:41:18 PM

    I am irking to reply but unfortunately, I am no longer part of the same group either. I do know that everyone on the team is still here. I know number of you have already approached me and I had nothing worthy to tell you.

    I know Foundations has already made it into other platforms. (IE, Tivoli Foundations) and now the Smart Business platform.

    I'll try to find time with some of the key players next week and see if I can find something useful for you.

    Best,

    Bilal

  1. 28  Daniele Grillo http://www.matrixcomputers.it | 11/24/2010 2:28:54 PM

    Hi to all.

    Ed please have you any update for the future of foundations outside US?

    Have you read this: { Link }

    Nothing from IBM Smart Business chanel communicate with the BP for clarify the position?

  1. 29  Lisa Duke http://www.simplified-tech.com | 12/2/2010 9:46:30 AM

    Ed, if a customer wanted to buy the "undead" Foundations, any idea how that is done?

  1. 30  Nazeer Aval  | 12/12/2010 2:44:30 AM

    @17 - I agree with Lisa here

    Things really did not go well for Foundations ever since Nitix acquisition. Hope IBM Smart team will really do some smart move next year!

  1. 31  Lisa Duke http://www.simplified-tech.com | 2/12/2011 10:24:34 AM

    Apparently there was an explanation given on the Linked In group for Foundations - which I found out about yesterday. I'll take partial responsibility for not looking for the group. Hopefully the right person inside IBM takes partial responsibility for not looking for me, as a partner who wrote a $2,000 check to be a part of the Foundations partner program.

    I'm accepting this as an answer and moving on, but I hope there are some lessons learned from the experience within the channels group so we don't get surprises like this in the future.

    I'm posting the answer here in case there are other partners like me who are wasting time on this project - hopefully it will save everyone some effort.

    ___________________________________________________

    "More Information from IBM on Lotus Foundations

    I would like to make this community aware of announcements regarding Lotus Foundations made late last year. They were posted elsewhere but we apparently neglected to highlight them in this forum. Enzo Frati did add some information in this forum in November, so I refer you to his comments. I will try and clarify what we announced on October 26, 2010 and November 9, 2010.

    The Lotus Foundations hardware appliance is no longer available for new orders. The Lotus Foundations software products will be removed from Passport Advantage and will not be available for new orders after February 8, 2011. We will continue to make Foundations software available for partners in North America with the Lotus Foundations VAR agreement in place. Of course we will continue to provide support for existing customers through the end-of-service date for their support contracts.

    IBM received substantial feedback pointing out that the Foundations specialized hardware was attractive, but limiting and often not worth the premium price. Likewise, although the Foundations Linux operating system was attractive, the focus of small and mid-size organizations is on solutions, not core technologies. IBM has shifted focus to complete solutions that include the operating system and middleware capabilities of Foundations and run on a wide range of Intel based servers.

    Our solutions will be branded Solutions for Smart Business. You can find out more about them at { Link }

    More details on what I described above are available on the Foundations Portal (https://www.lotusfoundations.com/partner) or in the two IBM US Announcement Letters below:

    - For Lotus Foundations Appliance ({ Link })

    - For Lotus Foundations software products ({ Link })

    Several members of the Smart Business team will be at Lotusphere. We will be happy to discuss this topic further with you there. "

  1. 32  Julian Woodward http://blog.woowar.com | 2/20/2011 1:01:23 PM

    There were two Smart Business sessions scheduled for Lotusphere, both of which were cancelled. Sadly it seems there is a heavy case of arse-elbow-confusion-syndrome going on and, whatever the eventual outcome, it would be a brave decision indeed to commit, either as partner or customer, to any of the "Smart Business incorporating bits of technology formerly known as Lotus Foundations formerly known as Nitix" stuff any time soon.*

    * I make LotusLive an exception to that. It's a different offering, from a different team that does appear to know what it's doing.