Ed Brill

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1. 1  Volker Weber http://vowe.net/about | 4/18/2007 1:09:00 PM

   Do you really have to ask whether we agree with Charles and Philip?

1. 2  Ed Brill http://www.edbrill.com | 4/18/2007 1:36:31 PM

   OK, maybe i should ask, "what would you do differently", or "here are some examples of successes", or "here's what I'd want IBM to think about"

1. 3  Russ Mayes http://therightnotes.wordpress.com | 4/18/2007 1:58:55 PM

   I don't know exactly what IBM's definition of SMB is, but I work for a large law firm (which means it isn't a very large company, though certainly not "small" either). A Lotus sales rep told our CIO that IBM "wasn't interested" in the legal market. As a result, we are in the midst of a program to switch mail to Outlook/Exchange. Notes/Domino will stay around for now for workflow applications, but Sametime is almost certainly gone and Quickplace is on thin ice. Right now, there is virtually no chance for expansion, which I find depressing because I think some of the new products coming out are exciting. I don't know if what the rep said was true or not. If it is, though, I'd like IBM to think about the legal market, its needs, and how IBM can get other software makers to integrate with its products better.

1. 4  Ed Brill http://www.edbrill.com | 4/18/2007 2:02:37 PM

   What the rep said wasn't true, and I HIGHLY doubt that one of our reps would say something like that. An IBM rep would be reprimanded for saying anything of the sort. Perhaps it was projected upon him/her?

1. 5  Daniel Lieber http://www.iiui.com | 4/18/2007 2:05:19 PM

   Charles and Philip have great points; IBM Software solutions are nearly always designed for extremely large scale and complexity. The beauty of the Domino product and supplemental products is in their inherent simplicity to own, use, manage, and utilize. When we designed IIUI Records Manager Express for Domino, we targeted the SMB users' needs for simplicity and the software is proverbially racing off of the shelves (it's sold electronically, so there are really no shelves for it to sit on). The key to success with the best solutions is in the total value of the offering, which includes the user interface, pricing, functionality, support, and integration (often in that order).

   Many large organizations are licensing SMB based products as they are taking a COTS approach to solutions, often deploying departmentally-based products. There are obviously exceptions to this, but I have seen the current trend toward SMB-oriented COTS instead of enterprise-class software when the options are both available. This is one of the reasons historically Domino sold so well and is why SharePoint is being evaluated in so many organizations.

   IMHO, the Lotus brand is best positioned to sell to SMB customers; the other Software brands are more aligned from a mind-share perspective with enterprise class solutions.

   Within the Lotus portfolio, the products that are successful today are being used largely in workgroups, not the enterprise at once. The tools are often made available for the enterprise, but are often rolled out and sold one department at a time.

   Just my 2 cents!

1. 6  Karen Demerly  | 4/18/2007 2:19:21 PM

   It seems pretty clear, just from what Charles and Philip offered up.

   Here's what I'd want IBM to think about: We aren't going to buy Websphere Portal, ever. It seems like Lotus isn't all that compelling if you aren't interested in building this huge infrastructure (of IBM products). (shrug)

   You said it already: "To be successful in SMB, IBM Lotus needs to get (back to) simple product architectures and deployments, simplified and cost-effective pricing, and integration."

1. 7  Russ Mayes http://therightnotes.wordpress.com | 4/18/2007 2:19:35 PM

   I wasn't there, Ed, so I can't be sure. My CIO was pretty peeved after that meeting, though, so the rep certainly didn't leave him feeling like it was a market IBM cared about.

1. 8  Nathan T. Freeman http://nathan.lotus911.com | 4/18/2007 2:31:28 PM

   @7 - Russ, if someone really said that (and I really don't believe they did) get the name from your CIO. Any statement that strong, he should remember who said it. And if he can't remember, then there ya go -- it didn't happen.

   "Not interested in the legal market." You really think that a vendor would actually SAY that? Or do you think it's far more likely that such a claim was used to justify a migration that had some other motivation?

1. 9  Pierre Lalonde http://kiwi.ca | 4/18/2007 2:33:23 PM

   Large company are divided in small units. And as you all know, many departments work in solo, developping their own applications. So can we say that large corp and SMB have something in common ?

   We work in BPM and workflows and our clients needs are often simple solutions to their big problems. I think that IBM need to be more visible (clients needs to get in touch with reps more often) and as mentioned before, simple products (installation and configuration).

   We still haven't been able to get Sametime 7.5 client to display our picture as we see in all IBM presentation these days. (For the record, we use Domino 7.x LDAP to authenticate).

1. 10  Chris Whisonant http://cwhisonant.blogspot.com | 4/18/2007 2:47:49 PM

   My name is Chris and I work for an SMB...

   Allow me to preface this by stating that Lotus products fill the needs of SMBs. That's not the concern Charles was raising, IMHO.

   I commented at Charles' site as well. But allow me to reiterate the sentiment that many of the wonderful things that we want to deploy are requiring much more than we're used to. Charles stated:

   "None of the new functionality uses Domino. Activity Explorer is deployed on Websphere and DB2. The Sametime RTC Gateway is as well. Lotus Component Designer can't deploy to Domino, you have to deploy to Websphere Portal. The only real interface is web-based, but you can wire it into a composite application in Notes 8 -- provided you use the Standard (Eclipse-derived) client, which comes with its own huge list of caveats. The early buzz changed to cries of outrage."

   This is the rub. For years we have become accustomed to running EVERYTHING in Domino. Mail? Check. Apps? Check. IM? Check. Collaborative tools/ Check. It's been easy. Especially if you run a system like the System i where you can just load another Domino partition without having to allocate disk or acquire another server. When we made the decision as a company to use IM, it was really simple. We didn't have to purchase hardware or software licenses. I ran a single command on my iSeries and we had Sametime. Same thing when I demoed Quickplace.

   But now we have come to a paradigm shift. If I want to begin using Activities (rumored to take the place of the Notes To-Do - is this true? The to-do list was left alone when the mail team redesigned Mail, Calendar, and Contacts for Notes 8), then I have to kick up a Websphere server. Ditto for extending my IM environment to the RTC gateway. This isn't what the SMBs are used to doing with Lotus products. If this were Microsoft, then we could understand having to acquire new hardware to implement a new feature.

1. 11  David Schaffer http://bloginprogress.us | 4/18/2007 2:58:14 PM

   Ed:

   This same conversation was going on four months ago: { Link }

   I support small businesses that interact with very large enterprises. Lotus makes some great products for that market but what they don't do well has already been articulated:

   - They don't market to small business, and they don't provide much help to technical influencers who know that switching to Microsoft would be a disaster but that's what the business leaders see discussed all the time.

   - They don't provide simple, affordable, licensing and support. I never know if I'm in compliance on my Lotus licenses.

   - They waffle on their marketing commitment to Notes/Domino no matter how strong the technical support and backwards compatibility commitments are.

   - They do market future directions that involve infrastructure small business can't take on.

1. 12  Stefan Mehlhorn http://www.emailtide.com | 4/18/2007 3:07:20 PM

   As a solution provider to the Domino customer base, I have to agree with Charles’ and Philip’s observations. The significant expansion of the technology stack required to run “Lotus” solutions will automatically deter large parts of the SMB market. And that’s not just because of the higher up-front investment, but the cost of acquiring and maintaining the in-house knowledge to support all of these (new) technologies. The Sametime gateway is a good illustration of this problem, being built on top of Websphere and DB2. The complexity of the setup combined with the hardware requirements for a base installation does not make this solution an easy choice for SMBs. IBM will need to simplify its architecture to be cost effective in the SMB market.

1. 13  Stuart McIntyre http://quickrblog.com | 4/18/2007 3:13:42 PM

   Couple of quick points, though actually I will probably have to write a whole posting on this at some point ;-)

   "need to get (back to) simple product architectures and deployments (like WebSphere Portal Express)". I can't believe you wrote those words Ed... Whilst Portal Express is a great example of product packaging from a marketing (and pricing) PoV, it is not, and never has been, an SMB-ready product. Unless you are prepared to throw very powerful servers and a heck of a lot of experienced skills at it, it is very difficult to derive quick value from it that would be attractive to the average SMB (in the UK I would set that as a 100-250 person company). In which case the £2.5k ($5k) investment in the software is going to be dwarfed by the overall cost of the solution.

   Secondly, if we go back to the conversations that were had a Lotusphere, for me the buzz was about a few key things. 1) Notes & Domino is back where it belongs as the cornerstone of the Lotus vision. 2) Web2.0 and social networking have led the market to effectively catch up with the collaborative message that we have been extolling for years with Lotus products. 3) Quickplace and Sametime are back and better than ever. 4) MS is weak in the market right now (I had a customer today that told me that he wants to get MS out of his datacentre by the end of this year...). All of this means to me that the Notes/Domino/Quickr/Sametime proposition is ideally targetted to fight head on with Office/Exchange/Sharepoint in the SMB space.

   However buying and deploying Notes/Domino/Quickr/Sametime is still not trivial. The SMB space needs one product code (Lotus Collaboration Suite Express?) that will provide the whole integrated solution. Also, installing Domino Mail/Quickr and Sametime takes three Domino partitions and a fair amount of configuration (great for us partners as services, but complex to the customer). Can IBM/Lotus do anything to make this be more integrated?

   Just my 2c as ever...

1. 14  Lee http://www.zephyrdg.com | 4/18/2007 3:31:50 PM

   Ed, I wanted to bring this up tomorrow at your Mpls meeting but I will do it here since I can't make it.

   Between me and my wife, we own 4 companies and a non-profit. That is my SMB. We run these businesses exclusively on Notes. Since I can't afford the infrastructure, I (name withheld to protect the guilty) design my dbs using beta versions of the client and replicate them to an ASP who has a shared Domino server. This has been working great for 10 years and our companies have flourished.

   I am passionate about Notes. Despite all the pressures to go with mainstream web solutions written in mySQL or Access, I still believe Notes to be the best in terms of feature set, customization and ease of programability. If I have to learn new languages/protocols and start buying all these servers and wire them together, Notes sinks to the level of everyone else and I lose the all the ROI I have built.

   My suggestion: give us bottom-feeders something to work with here. Give us access to shared Sametime servers, Websphere servers, Activity servers (or price it so ASPs can afford it). Keep a 'core' .exe that is sanitized and doesn't require .jar compilers and eclipse environments (for us formula-language throw-backs). And let us keep our betas.

   I don't know how you do this, maybe a special SMB product line or an HCP (High Commissioner for Purity). In reality, IBM doesn't have to do anything special for us; just quit monetizing us so we can continue leveraging Notes to pick the low hanging fruit Big Blue is content with ignoring anyway. Most of us don't need to make millions of dollars a year to be successful. We can offer something of value to our customers while making perfectly comfortable livings as bottom-feeders with our little UMBs (ubiquitous married business).

1. 15  Irv Schor  | 4/18/2007 3:51:09 PM

   I have to agree. Focusing on the aforementioned RTC Gateway example, the DB2 and Websphere requirements seem like a gargantuan task for SMBs to either pay for the consulting costs and/or train/hire someone to implement and maintain. I've just recently rolled out ST 7.5 to our organization and was dissapointed, only after diving into the release notes and admin guide, that the requirements of the ST RTC Gateway involved such complexity. I'll eventually figure it out, but I've been doing this stuff for 8 years and have the luxury of patience with my superiors. We have 1400 users, so its part of my job to get it done. But I can certainly see how a small business with less than a few hundred people are most likely going to have a hard time with this and will merely stay on AIM, Yahoo IM, or MSN Messenger.

   Is it just possible that some of these product decisions/direction had been made at the time when there was more anticipation toward growth in the Workplace line (based on websphere)? Now that the emphasis is rightfully back on the marketing/brand recognition track with Notes/Domino (being the cornerstone for collaboration), why continue on that aforementioned path? ...an add-in task for Domino via a check box on the ST server document seems like a much better approach for this (and future) endeavors for SMB.

   Maybe it would be a better for sales focus/platform direction in moving folks to more scalably OS like Linux and then stepping larger companies to the iSeries? That's probably a movement path the SMB's might better understand.

1. 16  John Turnbow http://www.navasota-unified.com | 4/18/2007 3:56:41 PM

   R8, Quickr, new tools look great!... About SMB, in Houston, TX, Notes/Domino seems to be almost non-existent, probably why you had so few people come to visit you at the Lotusphere comes to you event. I mentioned this along time ago that Lotus/IBM visits Dallas and other major cities but is almost never in Houston. I think when I talked with you it was said the last time here was over 5 years ago!! A response was that it's like having NY come to Boston, but it's not a 6 hour trip between boston and NY, big difference. I see the push in Houston from Lotus/IBM to be very light.

1. 17  Irv Schor  | 4/18/2007 4:07:20 PM

   Meant to add one more thing. The express offerings are very easy for license management. Offering the SMB market a Domino package that can run off of one or two servers for companies from 0 to x # of employees (# determined by IBM) the following features (with a one click type of install) would be a positive step to selling the SMB market:

   -Email

   -Webmail

   -Instant Messaging (including built in external community connectivity) w/screen sharing (but not necessarily full fledged meetings)

   -Quickplace (Quickr)

   -Notes Client 8 w/the Open Office Apps built in*

   Furthermore, provide some advanced licensing options to SMB so that they don't feel their costs will skyrocket if they need advanced features such as clustering, etc. Maybe two tiers (Domino SMB Express and Domino SMB Advanced Express).

   *Once ND8 is out there, a big way for this whole thing to pay for itself might be to have businesses consider how much money they'll save not having to buy MSOffice for every employee. Power users will always need office, but some smart thinking and selling can easily show a SMB owner how this proposition might pay for itself!

1. 18  Keil Wilson  | 4/18/2007 4:26:34 PM

   Ed, when you ask for opinions about the IBM sales process, please don't get defensive when people are critical. Russ' story (@3) reminds me of a presentation IBM scheduled at my organization. It was supposed to be about the new features of Sametime 7.5 and the Lotus Notes 8 client. The IBM team showed up an hour late with no notice. The presentation turned out to be mostly about new development tools in Notes 8. Unfortunately I was one of two Notes developers in the crowd of about 25 people. The manager who scheduled the meeting was embarrassed and angry and said he'll never invite IBM back like that again. It seemed like the speaker had no idea what the manager was expecting him to talk about. Who's fault is that? Is it my manager's fault?

   Sorry to be a bit off topic, but we need to get real about the fact that IBM's reps play an important role in purchasing decision. If they're not listening and responding to the customer's needs, then their role in the purchasing decision will be a negative one for IBM/Lotus.

1. 19  Ed Brill http://www.edbrill.com | 4/18/2007 4:42:47 PM

   @Keil, I think there's a huge difference between mis-set expectations and a "we're not interested in [x] market" statement. The being late an hour I can't explain. But like Nathan said in @8, I have heard anecdotal stories for years, and never can get a name of the supposed IBMer who said/did it. I -know- customers are NOT hesitant to contact IBM when they have issues with a salesperson...back when I was in the field a dozen years ago, one of my major accounts asked for my sales partner to be replaced and we did it. It happens. So if there is/was an IBMer responsible for representing Lotus talking smack about Lotus, I (or someone in my mgmt chain) need to know about it.

   So, yes, as any manager does, they try to find out more detail about what happened, and maybe my response @4 should have been more like Nathan's.

   For now, I'm irritated at what you describe happened in NE, and I'm sending a mail off to find out more about it.

1. 20  david racicot  | 4/18/2007 5:16:12 PM

   All NOTES stuff should work with just NOTES. We don't want Websphere, Portal or any thing else that multiplies the complexities or requires more hardware. SMB work on 5 figure budgets where the first digit is a 1 or a 0. Fix the bloody licensing model also (with respect to multiple CPUs). The posts are right in that once again IBM has an opportunity here to smack MS, so what are they waiting for?

1. 21  Wayne Sobers  | 4/18/2007 5:22:18 PM

   Nathan Freeman and Mike VandeVelde s' comments on Charles blog reflect my thoughts on IBM vs MS tools and Notes 8.

   For SMB's it's not just mind share, its how fast you can get good results (not best results).

   Good results are a happy user who gets his/her work done with little/no frustration. If the admins have to run around like mad men to keep things up, the users never see it and as far as they know this app is great.

   Good result don't occur when users are told by admins that you can't do x or y because the client doesn't work that way.

   Thats why tools like Sharepoint will make inroads. It behaves as the users expect and does 90% of what they want. I should be able to do the same with Domino - I can save design elements with webdav, why not user documents?

   There needs to be a dedicated team doing SMB research the way research was done for the Notes 8 mail template.

   How many Access, Dbase, Approach and shared spreadsheet models could be replaced by a robust, NSF based system that could actually scale up as the company grew?

   I don't think IBM can just do this based on their current marketing methods. They need to introduce something that will cause a low level grass roots adoption.

1. 22  Nathan T. Freeman http://nathan.lotus911.com | 4/18/2007 5:37:43 PM

   @20 - See, that's just hogwash. "We don't want Portal" is BS. Do you want the feature set? Then you want the product. Saying simply "I don't want Websphere" is just being obstinate -- even *I* know that.

   What you want is the ability to easily try out a piece of software so you can understand it's costs and benefits. Who cares if you have to install Websphere, if it takes 30 minutes, reads straight from your Domino LDAP directory for credentials, and runs on a spare desktop for your prototype mode? If you still have a problem with it at that point, you're just whining about having to download and run an install program -- and that's ridiculous.

   I said my piece about that a couple of months ago, too { Link }

1. 23  Tom Roberts  | 4/18/2007 6:03:17 PM

   I agree with the points made by Charles and Phillip, and Stuart (@13). I am the director of a SMB carrying Domino Collaboration Express licenses for all of my users (~160). Several years ago, I purchased Portal Express Plus for the company, but it never got off the ground - for a variety of reasons. I work with a great group of folks - competency is not the issue, time is. I think it is the nature of SMB that everyone wears multiple hats, changes occur hourly, and staffing is lean (1 SA, 1 Programmer, and 2 Support folks). As simple as the Marketing literature may say it is to install and configure, we do not have the iron, experience, or time (personnel) to maintain more stuff (especially big complex stuff).

   I abandoned Portal Express Plus (IMHO, IBM abandoned it) last year and started licensing all of my folks for Quickplace and Sametime individually. Quickr is a compelling product, and I know we are entitled to it when released, but Connections really caught my eye. I looked at it as a tool with a lot of potential to help build a stronger collaborative culture in the company. When I saw it my first question was "I know it is branded Lotus, but is it a Domino or WebSphere product?" Strike one. Next question was "Will there be Express Licensing for it?" Still no answer for that question.

   Again, I direct an SMB with ~160 users across 15-20 physical sites that are not connected via a private WAN - only public Internet. Domino LDAP, HTTP, Mail, and Replication provide an easy to manage, fault tolerant solution for managing our systems. Moving from a model with distributed server power and consolidated data, to one with centralized server power and distributed data doesn't seem to make a great deal of sense.

1. 24  Bill McCuistion  | 4/18/2007 6:08:26 PM

   Hi Ed, et al,

   1. IBM should sell Notes/Domino in retail outlets, perhaps pre-configured on servers, so the install/setup would be plug-n-play. Also, stock bookshelves with adequate reference materials. This should help capture mind-share.

   2. For those SMB's that THEN need support, IBM should work with SMB-oriented business partners, who should not have to fear IBM's consulting division competing with them in these accounts.

   3. It should be easier to purchase from IBM. I have one NE-coast client who's been trying for over a year to get an account with IBM, so that he can provision his internal ND7 environment, and deploy my application on a separate ND7 platform to HIS customers.

   4. Downward-scalablity is very important. Instead of just thinking about the "sky-limit", IBM should also think about the "floor-limit". The ND7 Domino install is pretty straight-forward, but I can't say the same for WSPortal express. (Your WSPE demo in Houston failed, even though the IBM demo'er had spent most of the night before working on it.).

   5. Put WS* into Domino, to replace the current HTTP stack.

1. 25  Bill McCuistion  | 4/18/2007 6:40:42 PM

   And, OBTW, (6) Add PHP support to the ND platform. (A) as a supported language within the Domino HTTP stack, and (B) as a PHP-Notes module.

   (7) Integrate ND with QuickBooks.

1. 26  Nathan T. Freeman http://nathan.lotus911.com | 4/18/2007 7:00:29 PM

   Actually, one thing that would help all those WAS/DB2 products get deployed in smaller businesses would be a series of O'Reilly books on 'em. It's the gold standard of SMB DIY IT. :-)

1. 27  Keith Brooks http://www.keithbrooks.com | 4/18/2007 7:11:38 PM

   @18 Keil, that just sucks and although I tried to avoid similar circumstances in the past, sometimes it happens.

   As to Ed's question which gets rehashed every few months, it's still the same.

   We out here portray SMB as 1-50 people, usually, in some cities we can be more liberal and go to 250/500.

   Yet IBM still saw my previous burger joint employer, with 3,000+ seats as a SMB.

   Yeah websphere is a pain to learn and setup if you never did it or are too old to remember to have some fun and play with new toys. It's also very dificult for small BPs to add something new because they will not go out and hire someone just for websphere. An internal person learns it or works with it. But then wait now they need to know DB2, which was never fun to setup in the past when I did it.

   Don't get me wrong, leave me alone with a quad server and diskspace I will learn whatever I need to do with something, from a non-appdev view, but it will not make me an expert in the real world. But it does in a small BP.

   This is how I learned Domino on AS/400 and Mainframes. So can I support it, sure, can I go beyond the periphery, not much.

   And BPs don't always have money to throw at training or take someone off billable hours for it. Online training for this stuff is not the same as hands on. When I taught the IBM reps about Domino.Doc, they complained it ran on Domino(as if they could even install OS/2 or DOS some of them)!

   So I taught them how to install Domino. 1/2 hour later we were doing Doc. But that was an eye opener for me that our own internal people were so clueless about how the pieces get put together.

   In the end, I appreciate where Lotus is going but it's hard to explain to the outside world who still asks if Lotus is still around.

1. 28  Rob Novak http://www.LotusRockStar.com | 4/18/2007 7:33:57 PM

   Random comments

   @Bill, I like the underlying idea behind some of your comments. I agree it would be nice to see radical changes to support SMB in different ways vs. any incredibly subtle and incremental statements to that effect. The sentiment behind your comments lends itself to that. Turnkey - as Wayne alludes to - is important in SMB they are not used to long development or deployment cycles. #7 is an ISV thing IMHO. Your #3 sounds like fun, I can't imagine having a hard time spending money :-)

   @Keith, Billable hours? What are those?

1. 29  Bill McCuistion  | 4/18/2007 9:08:55 PM

   @28 - Rob - YES! Infusing a SMB mind-set into the IBM culture would be a quantum change. And, funny thing is, most SMB customers I talk to would REALLY like to be IBM customers, IF they truely believed IBM cared.

   re my #7, I am that ISV, with a kick-ass posting engine for Quickbooks integration, based in ND7. It is a middleware solution targeted at the top 10% of the 2-million company population that uses QuickBooks. Funny thing is, the QB market is one that Microsoft competes in, but IBM doesn't, so would be the PERFECT entre for IBM to capture both mind-share and market-share.

   @26 - Nathan - I have this gut-level sense that the more books you find on shelves (real books, real shelves), the more mind-share you will preserve over-time. MS-Press has undoubtedly be a significant factor in Microsoft's overall success (despite things like MS-BOB).

   IMHO, IBM should start-up their publication engine to produce a whole series of SMB-oriented publications that SIMPLIFY the process of getting SMB-Managers to get EXCITED about IBM & IBM/Lotus solutions. Maybe even get the IBM marketing department involved so that it doesn't come accross as an IBM-Research project.

   These publications should be priced for the SMB-market. Not the $35 US that was charged for a IBM-research magazine, but more the $2.15 (two-dollars) that I paid for the IBM/Lotus Domino Java API reference manual. (I guess, by implication, that the Domino Java API is worth two-dollars in Houston).

   If I were IBM, I'd drop-ship these publications like leaflets into enemy-territory about to be occupied by friendly forces. "We can scale-you-up, if you'd like to scale-up". We can up-scale you if you'd like to up-scale. If you'd like to stick-in-the-mud, stand-still.

   Finally, there's an old quote from Bill Gates when he first saw Notes: "First, it doesn't print labels. Second, it's a shitty operating system". My suggestion is that IBM fully embrace Domino as an operating system-extension, at least for the SMB market. I generally reboot the Domino-servers every year or so, whether they need it or not. Sort of "fire-and-forget", but can't say that with any MS-OS, and this should really have value to the SMB market.

1. 30  Richard Schwartz http://www.rhs.com/poweroftheschwartz | 4/18/2007 9:12:28 PM

   Ed, as you know I'm with an ISV that is also a major competitor, and I'm responding mainly to tell you this: when IBM talks about SMB, the only people who understand what you're really talking about are the IBM faithful. And even many of the IBM faithful probably assume, wrongly, that the threshold for your Express programs corresponds to the top of what IBM considers the SMB segment.

   The product I work on is not sold to customers that we call SMB, but it is sold to customers you call SMB. Our definition of SMB stops well short of 5000. (That's what you once referenced here { Link } and I've not heard any revision since then.) Pretty much everyone else's definition tops out way below 5000, too, and it's a problem. It's a signal of a significant disconnect, not just between IBM's view of SMB and the rest of the industry's view, but between IBM's view of SMB and SMB's view of SMB.

   IBM needs to get its defintion of SMB more in line with what the rest of the industry considers SMB { Link } Note that the EU definition given there doesn't match what we use either, but at least we're not an order of magnitude off.

1. 31  Richard Moy http://www.dominointerface.com | 4/18/2007 9:46:03 PM

   Ed,

   I think we talked about this subject last week at the GRANITE user group meeting. I was going to bite my tongue and not blog about this, but I couldn't. I believe that most of this subject was talked about a couple of months ago. As you know I focus mostly on the SMB market for organization under 250 users. I agree mostly with what Charles and Philip said.

   As we all know you can create great things with Lotus Notes and Domino and I believe you can also with Websphere Portal Express and the rest of the IBM portfolio. Though it may not be as easy to create certain applications with Domino as with some of the newer IBM offerings, it can be done. But it is not about what technology IBM is trying to market, it is about what small businesses need.

   Small businesses using my definition are focused not on technology but business needs and the ability to deliver applications in a timely matter to meet their needs at the least cost. Lotus Notes and Domino provide a TCO to small businesses unmatched by any other technology. It may not be as sexy as Java-based technologies, but it delivers. It is an extensible universal platform that is ideal even without all the new composite applications and etc. I see where composite applications can be benefical for larger organizations, but for small organizations I do not see that at this point.

   What is missing is IBM's focus on the SMB market of less than 500. Since the revenue is not there compared to the medium and large organizations, I understand the focus of IBM resources. I know from our discussion IBM is trying to improve the focus in the SMB. But, as I mentioned in past blogging, IBM's marketing efforts in the SMB area is fragmentated with many different SMB Web sites and many different focuses. At some sites you can't even find Lotus Notes their best SMB solution. In some IBM SMB sites, they talk about small businesses and their needs and when you link to the solutions all IBM talks about is solutions for medium businesses of 1000 users. The business partner providers they emphasis are all large organization not the small partners who focus on this segment. There was an effort at Lotusphere to get case studies from ISV business partners in the SMB space for IBM to publish, but when I approached them about providing a case study all IBM cared about was medium business cases. They had no desire or mechanism for small businesses cases. If that is the case, IBM should just remove the S out of SMB. I believe what IBM should do is have one central group that has ownership of the small business marketing efforts. As part of this, there should be a small business business partner network that includes ONLY business partners who focus on providing solutions and services to small businesses. There should even be a Beacon Award for business partners providing solutions to small businesses. There needs to be a small business social network that brings IBM, BPs, and small businesses together. I am wondering what technology we can use for that? Huh. Sorry to include this link but this is a good example of what I like to see.

   { Link }

   The sad part is that I was told about a year ago the amount of revenue IBM generates from small businesses even without a focused marketing effort and I surprise to learn how big that was. Now imagine if IBM actually had a major effort in this segment.

1. 32  Ian Randall  | 4/18/2007 10:15:49 PM

   Regardless of the size of an organization (SMB or Fortune 500) ALL organizations benefit from systems that are simple to install, easy to use and have a low administrative overhead.

   That has been one of the main advantages that Lotus has enjoyed with Lotus Notes and Domino over the years and IMHO a key factor that restrained the acceptance of Workplace in the market not just price or limited access to technical resources by the SMB market.

   Sure licence pricing is an important consideration for entry level users such as SMB's and you may also need a minimum level of scale to achieve significant benefits from technologies such as Quickr, Connections and Activity Explorer.

   However, even very large organizations often introduce new technology as a pilot (which may limit measurable benefits during the pilot or evaluation phase) and large organizations are often more risk averse than smaller and more nimble organizations.

   But I think that a key issue for IBM and the SMB Market is not technical or pricing but a cultural one. Do they want to successfully address the SMB Market? If Yes, if IBM don't want to address the SMB market with their direct sales force then their only choice is to use their indirect marketing channels.

   I feel that a key barrier for IBM is the limited support that IBM provides to their indirect channel to help them address the SMB market. They appear to want to focus support for only the very largest (or US based) Business Partners.

   The purchase of Lotus by IBM created some huge benefits for Lotus Notes over the years but IBM appears to have lost the focus that Lotus had on their whole Business Partner channel since the merger. However, that problem can be fixed if IBM has the will to fix it. This blog and others like it indicate that some people in IBM want to try. But what is really needed is the commmitment and leadership of IBM Executive Management to make this happen.

1. 33  Bill McCuistion  | 4/18/2007 10:19:12 PM

   TIME FOR TRUTH: Does IBM care about the whole "Catholic" (Univeral) real world, or not?

   IBM is a public company, and is allowed to persue its own goals.

   The question is, is IBM "honest" when it says it wants to support the SMB market.

   It seems to me (and perhaps others in this thread) that IBM is not "aligned" with the "generally-accepted" definition of SMB, and so the question of "why" is introduced. In one universe, the answer would be that IBM purposefully uses its own SMB definiton to skew the answer, and preserve "face" in the community.

   Perhaps IBM could deliniate further the "S" market from the "M" market, and so help everyone understand IBM's positoning. While I appaude IBM's simple head-count designation, real-world SMB/Large designations are not so simple.

   It seems to me that (parts of) IBM has follow-ed the "UI-first" design paradigm, with the assumption being that the "browser" is the least-common denominator, while other units promote the Notes Client, while others still promote the Eclipse RCP as preferred.

   And, in the mean-time, where is the Notes/R8 component for U2 (UniData) access? There seem to be quite a lot of U2 installations in the "M" market, with .Net solutions, but not so much ND* solutions. WUWT?

   In the real world, businesses operate in complex partnerships (of all types) between trading partners (of all types).

   Various contributions have said that small companies grow-up to be be big companies, and I agree with that. BUT, most small/medium companies are ACQUIRED by larger companies larger then themselves, and often position their IT strategy / infrastructure "to be assimulated" by an acquiring company. TODAY, the argument is often that MS is the platform of the acquiring target, so the WHOLE IT strategy is to become MS-compliant, so to become more attractive as an acquisition target. My argument, that THAT strategy sub-optimizes the business-unit, looses the "mind-share" corner-office argument, and I have a hard-time arguing, since MS "owns" the mid-market mind-share, in many cases, rightfully or not.

   We need IBM's help in seeding the "consumer-up" market, so that the MS-default mind-set is not over-whelming.

1. 34  david racicot  | 4/18/2007 10:29:40 PM

   @22. Hi. First. I've been swamped, and have not dug into any details on R8. So, today was the first I read that all these new wonderful R8 features "ARE NOT NOTES". Sorry but if I read that R8 can do X, it should do it out of the box, with an upgrade CD applied to my existing server. As an aside, I found out yesterday that the Websphere gang at a client site have now passed the ONE YEAR mark trying to go to update Websphere. We did the R6 to R7 in less than a day. There are multiple schools here. One is the big enterprise/gov that can spend millions contemplating migrating their mail or having every technology under the sun Two is the shop where they have some resources to try integrating some technologies and Three are the gazillion SMALL businesses that just need to get the job done with less than 1 person. Thus my point @20.

1. 35  Alan Lepofsky http://www.alanlepofsky.net | 4/18/2007 10:36:28 PM

   @30 - IBM's definition for Express products is 1000 or less, not 5000.

   For more information see the Domino Express homepage: { Link }

   and the licensing FAQ , { Link } , "IBM Lotus Domino Express is a set of IBM messaging and collaboration offerings for companies with up to 1000 employees "

1. 36  Richard Moy http://www.dominointerface.com | 4/18/2007 10:48:52 PM

   @34

   In support of your comment, what technology can you slap on a Linux box running on a Pentium III and easily support 20 users for mail and applications, Domino. For the IBM hardware group kudos on the design of their X Series servers. Oh sorry X System now.

1. 37  Bill McCuistion  | 4/18/2007 11:19:07 PM

   IBM: Don't think about the underlying technology/platform; think instead about the benefits/solutions.

   CUSTOMER: OK.

   BUSINESS PARTNER: OK, but what does that really mean?

   IBM: Trust us. It'll be OK.

   CUSTOMER: OK?

   BUSINESS PARTNER: I'm supposed to be the bridge, and need to know the details.

   IBM: Don't worry about the details. (Subscript: IGS will handle the details for the global accounts).

   GLOBAL CUSTOMERS: OK with us.

   SMB CUSTOMERS: eh? What does that mean?

   BUSINESS PARTNERS: eh? (Loosing track of what the Notes/Domino platform REALLY means).

   IBM: It's all Communication, Collaboration, Coordination "STUFF", so it's all part of the same "IBM Family".

   LARGE CUSTOMER: "OK, Cool".

   SMALL CUSTOMER: (with the Geico caveman persona), "WHAT?"

   BUSINESS PARTNER: (now with cro-mangum-man persona), "WHAT?"

   IBM: "We'll fill you guys in later. (Maybe.)"

   IBM (Sub-plot): "When we know, we'll know, and (perhaps) let you in on the secret, providing our GSA (and foreign) contracts allow.".

   IBM (Sub-plot B): "We support Microsoft technologies better than Microsoft supports their own technologies. (LanMan, ODBC, OLE, .Net, etc). We give them more technology than they can absorb, and we like it that way.

   IBM (Sub-plot C): "We gave $3-billion to Open Source when they needed it most, so who cares about Microsoft's "standards". And, since "Open Source" doesn't care about Notes/Domino, we'll use HTTP/Browser for everything.", and with a look over their shoulder see "Java" and "PHP", so choose to intidate Sun to open-souce Java with an endorsement of PHP, but fail to mention that to the Lotus/Domino group.

   IBM Large Customer: We don't care about UI, beyond 3270, so SOA is cool.

   IBM Small Customer: "What? ... Email IS collaboration. Groupware has been banned by our firewall porn filter.".

   INTEGRATION PARTNER: "Most SMB's do (significant) business with LARGE companies. To the extent that we can align the SMB market with their LARGE customers, we can streamline the whole VALUE CHAIN."

   IBM: "What?" ... (and maybe now "HOW?") ... and soon ("WOW!").

   ,,,,

   later.

1. 38  Henry Ferlauto http://www.geniusinside.com | 4/19/2007 12:49:54 AM

   @ 3 & 4 - That rep should have been fired, period. Even if law firms aren't an identified target market; pure verbal stupidity is reason for "cause."

   We've actually seen a decent # of inquiries from a few of the larger law firms; all very happy Lotus Notes shops. (At least happy enough to send a few people to Lotusphere.)

   @ 35 - I think "up to 1,000" scares any CIO / Director of IT that has a company size less than say 300 people. 1,000 employees is not fathomable to them. I think people tend to read it (rightly or wrongly) as 500-1,000 people. Simply due to IBM's history of dealing with the largest companies in the world.

   ---------------------------------------

   What I want to know is when is the Lotus software group going to jump on the SaaS (Software as a Service) bandwagon?

   About a month ago, IBM held an event in NYC (I believe there other sessions around the country as well) targeting the IBM ISV companies. Basically saying, "offer your software on a subscription basis. There's lots of money to be made."

   I agree. And I firmly believe that subscription based services are the key to getting the very small business business (less than 100 person) market.

   There's a problem. All throughout the various presentations there were mentions of Websphere, DB2 and even a hint of Tivoli. Not one mention of anything Lotus.

   The fact that companies like 1&1 can offer Microsoft Exchange hosting for $6.99/month/ user speaks volumes.

   { Link }

   I'm not saying that a hosted Domino solution has to get that low (at least not yet), but it needs to get under the $20 / month mark for starters (including Sametime chat).

   Someday (hopefully soon) IBM will come to the full realization that little itty-bitty startups can grow into the "SMB space" and that there are lots of them out there.

   Lastly, 1 & 1 offers SharePoint hosting for $19.99 / month.

   { Link }

1. 39  Philip Storry http://www.not-so-rapid.com | 4/19/2007 2:36:54 AM

   Ed,

   "IBM has several segments to its salesforce, and I want to be clear that some of them very much prefer to sell to SMB, and are successful there. So are many of our partners."

   That's good to know. But that seems to make it the same problem we've had before with IBM - having a single, cohesive message across the whole salesforce that removes the perceptions we're seeing here.

   That, combined with an offering for SMB that handles integration better, would be a huge step forwards.

   This subject has obviously touched a nerve - so IBM needs to handle these perceptions better. I know that IBM have turned around similar problems (the ol' Websphere/Workplace perception problem especially) in the past, so I'm confident that this can be dealt with.

   (And as ever, I suspect your blog will be a major part of the opinion forming process. Thanks for keeping blogging!)

   The cohesive message part should be quick and easy to deal with. But perhaps it could be backed up by making an R8.5 release which has a few polishes for the SMB market?

   Ack. Who am I to tell IBM what their strategy should be? ;-) But sounding off an idea can't hurt, and I do think something like that needs to be done to prove IBM take SMB seriously.

1. 40  Henning Heinz  | 4/19/2007 5:00:42 AM

   I do not think IBM can do this so. Who would ever demand from Porsche to produce a car for 10.000$ (although Porsche is clever and owns 30 % of a company that can do this) ?

1. 41  Nick Hortovanyi http://blogs.toasttechnology.com.au | 4/19/2007 5:16:49 AM

   Ed,

   Tried posting a track back url. I've written a bit more here { Link }

   This is an interesting subject and would suggest that IBM should investigate going a step further to enabling more of it 's software to be able to be provisioned in an off-premise SaaS model.

1. 42  Peter Smith  | 4/19/2007 5:18:21 AM

   @40 well, IBM own a company called Lotus that could do this :-)

   @In General, we support UK SMBs by which we mean under 500 users, and a fair amount of them are actually under 200. A lot of them are pinning their continued Domino existance on R8 to level the playing field against the Exchange / Outlook crowd. And yes, for them mail is the big issue,they don't on the whole have in house developers cranking out Domino apps.

   For these companies maintaining a Domino skill set is a big issue, a couple of people leave and Domino is stranded, with the new non Domino admins just keeping it ticking over, and relying on the likes of us to do the advanced (or not so advanced) stuff when needed.

   So, if the shiny R8 dream can only be fully attained by installing Websphere, DB2 etc, then for them it will be a bridge to far. hopefully the improvements in client and server will suffice, but it is unrealistic to expect them to adopt new technlogies as part of keeping Domino in house.

   For the very small market, Domino needs to be simplified. Yes, policies can automate user registration, but to create a set of policies can be daunting for admins who do not have much Domino experience.

   I know the theme of R8 and beyond is ease of use for end users, but we also need to focus on ease of admin to capture SMBs.

1. 43  Phil West  | 4/19/2007 5:36:32 AM

   Ed

   Just to reiterate what seems to be the common theme:

   We use Domino. It is unlikely in the extreme that we will ever use websphere in any form. Build on what you have. One of the selling points in the past was that Domino could do everything that took 4 MS products to achieve. What happened to that mind-set?

   As for support for SMB: When we asked for a demo copy of sametime, one of the reasons given for denying it to us initally was that we were too small. The office has around 100 staff which is pretty small but the organisation is huge, 10's of thousands, so it was a comment that caused some concern here.

   On that basis I could well believe Russ's comment @3 happened exactly as described.

1. 44  Nathan T. Freeman http://nathan.lotus911.com | 4/19/2007 6:54:39 AM

   Man, there's a lot of silly comments here...

   @31 - If you have Small business case studies, why don't you produce them yourself? What are you waiting for? Do you want IBM to write it for you? Do you want them to fund marketing dollars for the result? If you've got a customer, why are you waiting for IBM instead of telling the success story yourself?

   @34 - You've been reading too much vowe. What "Notes" is is defined by the product strategy, not your perception of the technology. Is Sametime Notes? It's almost entirely a Java servlet, so what does that have to do with Notes?

   Yeah, you want turnkey deployment. So what difference does it make whether turnkey is based on technology A vs. B, as long as the key turns? One organization taking a year to update a platform isn't evidence. I've worked in companies that took 18 months to upgrade Domino servers from 5.0 to 6.0, and some that spend 2 years "researching" clustering before I just showed up and ran the agent. People drag their feet for reasons that have nothing to do with the underlying technology. Incompetence still shows up for work in the morning.

   @36 - Zimbra, strongmail, Scalix, Exchange 2000 (well, you need Windows instead of Linux.) Another interesting question is: how many organizations of 20 employees do you know who are license-compliant? Answer honestly.

   @37 - Okay, you need turnkey installations so you can audition the software instead of just talking about it. Yeah yeah... some of us have been saying that for a LOOOOOONG time. A WPE version that install in 45 minutes is, believe it or not, progress!

   @38 - If you think it's brilliant that 1&1 can offer those hosting solutions at that price point, COMPETE!! What are you complaining to IBM? Get a DSL line, lease a Dell, run the install and GO. Put your money where your mouth is.

   @40 - VW doesn't make cars in the $10000 range. They make them in the $20000 range. So you're off by a factor of two. If we allow you be off by a factor of two again, the Boxster is in the $40000 range. I've known college students that find a way to pay for a $40K car, so if we carry your analogy to it's conclusion, are there small businesses ready to commit to buying a Porsche instead of a Chevy? Certainly.

   @42 - So ease of installation and maintenance of the more complex technologies is the theme. "Lower TCO" has to mean not just in some monster data center, but less cost for education and deployment too. Okay. Let's note that Domino 8+ has already announced the capability to run without ID files, and direct authentication against Active Directory. Does that help your small deployments?

   @43 - Phil, do you have documentation on who REFUSED to give you a demonstration copy of Sametime? I've never had to ASK for any demo copy of Lotus software. Every piece of code I can think of has been downloadable from the website for evaluation purposes.

   Or was it that you were asking IBM to come IMPLEMENT it for you? That's a big difference. Please clarify. But if an IBM rep said "you're too small for me to point you to the URL where you can download the eval of Sametime" I bet Ed would like to know, even if it's not technically his product.

   @All - Since everyone's complaining about IBM's lack of focus on sub-1000 user shops, I wonder how many of YOU have focused on what you think is lacking. After all, if IBM isn't paying attention to this line of business, then that should represent an opportunity for you. So how many of you are...

   1) Offering hosted Domino solutions?

   2) Showing Linux Server technology to lower TCO for small shops?

   3) Showing Linux CLIENT technology to dramaticaly lower TCO for small shops? { Link }

   4) Building SMB business suites to provide turnkey value to small shops? (Yes, I know Richard Moy is -- he's committed. What about the rest of the BPs here?)

   5) Escalating questions when you feel like IBM is ignoring your business? Because you all obviously know that Ed is reachable, since you come here on a regular basis. Do the words "contact me" on this web site not inspire direct communication?

   If you're a BP, whatever you perceive as IBM's failure here should be seen as an opportunity by you. If you're a customer, you should be looking at the names of BPs in this thread who feel your pain and want to solve your problems and CONTACTING them. The Porsche dealer doesn't show up at your house for a test drive -- you have to go to the dealership and ask (and have a valid license.)

1. 45  John Head http://www.johndavidhead.com | 4/19/2007 7:06:24 AM

   Ok, we need to stop the bad information that is going around. Notes and Domino 8 is 100% Notes and Domino. The piece of the puzzle that is not is Activities. Activities is part of Lotus Connections, not Notes and Domino. One of the extension points (places a user actually uses) of Activities is a Sidebar panel. Seeing as the sidebar was designed to be an integration point for things Notes and non-Notes, it is being used by design.

   I understand that people run scared when they hear "Websphere" or "J2EE" when they are a die hard Notes user, but lets not put bad information out there.

1. 46  Richard Schwartz http://www.rhs.com/poweroftheschwartz | 4/19/2007 7:15:12 AM

   @35 Alan: You just missed my point. I know the limit for Express is 1000. And I know that it is not the same as the limit for what IBM considers to be SMB, which is 5000 (unless it has changed, so please correct me if I've missed the announcement). There's an internal disconnect there, and there's a disconnect with the rest of the industry's view of what SMB is. Outside of IBM, when people talk about SMB, they are almost all talking about firms that top out at 500 to 1000 people. When IBM talks about SMB, hardly anybody (other than the faithful) knows what you're really talking about.

1. 47  Steven  | 4/19/2007 7:26:21 AM

   Please tell us you were wearing your seat belt.

1. 48  Henning Heinz  | 4/19/2007 7:33:17 AM

   Only because you pay 20.000$ for a Volkswagen does not mean I have too. Indeed I thought about writing 10.000 Euros but I wasn't sure if Americans care what the current EUR->$ conversion rate is (call it SMB simplification). For sure the cars Volkswagen sell in Brasil or China do cost less than 20.000$ and Volkswagen sells a lot of cars there (but of course it is outside of the US).

   I have not complained either at least that was not my intention. Indeed maybe I have read too much vowe.net too. I do not know what a comment like this comment has to do with this discussion besides from fighting a personal issue with Volker Weber.

   At least I have now learned how to grow my business but does it only work with a Dell?

1. 49  Ed Brill http://www.edbrill.com | 4/19/2007 8:03:18 AM

   @47 of course. :-)

1. 50  Nathan T. Freeman http://nathan.lotus911.com | 4/19/2007 8:06:11 AM

   @48 - You express a price in USD on a site based in the US, it follows that you're talking about US pricing. But yes, certainly VW markets cars elsewhere in the world for considerably less.

1. 51  Keith Brooks http://www.keithbrooks.com | 4/19/2007 8:19:45 AM

   Pricing is an issue as well. I have a client who wants quickplace for internal usage and then for suppliers/vendors.

   Problem is I can not get a straight answer on pricing from the website. I have to find a distributor, pay them to get a price list? And I am a business partner, but obviously missed the link to pricing on the website.

   So how do you think an SMB feels when they are investigating something?

1. 52  Craig Wiseman http://www.wiseman.la/cpw | 4/19/2007 8:40:29 AM

   IBM makes amazingly capable software. A lot of it is amazingly complex as well, as it needs to be in order to serve global-sized customers. However, the issue for the Smb market is that amazingly complex & capable software is liable to break in an amazingly large number of had to troubleshoot ways, ways that the IT generalists that Smbs employ (if they have one) don't (and SHOULDN'T ) have time to address.

   Taking very large & complicated packages and making a simple install does make entry a lot easier, but from a TCO perspective solves 10% of the problem. The maintenace, care, and upgrade issues presented have not been really addressed, only covered over with a pretty install process.

   @Nathan - "Do you want the feature set? Then you want the product." I completely disagree. It should be possible to offer the feature set in a form that works for the Smb market. Take Domino, add Geronimo, and some real web development tools, and mix and you should able to come up with a Smb-friendly product that lets folks scale up to WebSphere when needed. After all, isn't that the whole point of the "we provide standards-based products.?"

1. 53  Craig Wiseman http://www.wiseman.la/cpw | 4/19/2007 8:45:42 AM

   To continue the thought....

   It's been admitted that the Sametime RTC gateway is not aimed at Smbs, but it's also not designed to allow someone (like Mr. Miller's wonderful Connectria) to take and host for multiple customers).

   IBM tends to "build big" and then try and make the "Big" product fit the Smb market. We need to wake and realize that that approach is not working, if we take the RTC gateway, and the apparent req's for Connections, etc.

   Yes, we want the feature set, and to carry the car analogy along - Smbs need a CRV where global folks need a Hummer H1. And the car companies realize this and make both.

1. 54  Nathan T. Freeman http://nathan.lotus911.com | 4/19/2007 8:59:36 AM

   "Take Domino, add Geronimo, and some real web development tools, and mix and you should able to come up with a Smb-friendly product that lets folks scale up to WebSphere when needed."

   If Domino is a capable web development environment, as many here (including me) would claim, why do you need the extra tools? Take Domino, and you have an SMB-friendly product. Boy that was simple!

   Is the complaint that there isn't a middle-ground between the capabilities of Domino and the capabilities of Websphere? I don't know whether I'd agree with that, but at least it's a clear-cut argument.

   In what way is Domino NOT the CRV? Because it doesn't have an RTC Gateway? If the Gateway installed in 45 minutes off a single DVD and used Domino as it's LDAP policy-control resource, would that cut it? Or is the problem that is doesn't actually RUN on the Domino box?

1. 55  Hynek Kobelka http://www.pylonware.com | 4/19/2007 9:04:00 AM

   Despite the fact that IBM most people think that Notes/Domino is mainly beeing developed for the needs of large enterprises, it has always been an incredibly powerfull tool especially for very small companies.

   I know of dozes of tiny companies (< 200, many < 50) who actually use this product even more effectively then large ones.

   In fact a small company has even several advantages in using Notes against a large enterprise.

   - They don't have that much data, so they have less problems with notes-limits and single file databases

   - They can afford to deploy application changes without huge testing cycles (even at the risk of minor problems)

   - Their administrators are not "specialized" but need to cover a lot of different products.

   Still Notes development for them is quite easy to understand and customisable.

   - Developing simple Notes applications is so easy that, quite often some Power-users start doing it on their own.

   - They don't have time do do large anaylysis projects and create development specifications. They need to speak directly to a developer and explain him their needs, so they get their results fast.

   The main problems small companies have with IBM products are:

   - Not enough visibility. Too many companies don't know that products like Notes, SameTime, Quicker even exist. (Yes but they all know about Outlook.)

   - Too complicated install routines. Some of the latest products (Sametime RTC Gateway, Notes 7 DB2, Notes 8 Activities ...) are simply a pain to install and have tremendous hardware requirements.

   (A three-person-admin team who takes care of a whole 100 user network, and has to do everything from firewall configuration to changing ink cardridges, does not have the time to set up a testing environment and study a product for 5 days )

   - Too few attention by IBM and Business Partners.(Microsoft calls and send trials even to one-man startups. Guess how long you have to wait till you get contacted by IBM. )

   If IBM could target these problems (and marketing the advantages) then i guess that even more SMBs would get it.

   However even now the position of Notes in this market is not that bad at all. And since the Express offerings are out it got a lot better.

   Well actually there are enough to keep my business running. :-))

   PS: I know that what i describe above leads to the dirtiest/ugliest/performacne crawling Notes applications you can imagine. But on the other hand these applications are enhanced and deployed incredibly, fast and they produce unbelievable value for these companies, making them faster and much more flexible then large enterprises.

1. 56  John Head http://www.johndavidhead.com | 4/19/2007 9:07:11 AM

   @53 Craig, who can say anything about the 'apparent requirements for Lotus Connections'? The product is only in beta for a limited number of customers. So what is happening is that people are reacting because it is Websphere and DB2? But how many people who are reacting have ever touched Websphere? And are they reacting to "Websphere" when most of them are thinking Websphere Portal and not Websphere Application Server, which is what Connections uses. I have personally installed the Activites Server that was given to the beta testers before Activites was moved into the Connections product. It took a total of 50 minutes to install ... sounds pretty easy to me.

   Can and should IBM fix the install issues of products like the Sametime RTC and Websphere Portal to be more like the simple wizard install of Domino? Of course. I know I have been very vocal with IBM on this regard, and to give them some credit, IBM has admitted they need to do this.

   So many people react negatively to things like Websphere Portal who have NEVER seen it. With Websphere Portal 6 Express, you can do a SMB install in under a week ... and those 40 hours would give you the product installed, configured, and a intranet configured (connect to Domino LDAP, Sametime, etc), including a custom theme and some basic portlets written and Domino apps surfaced via the included portlets. So, for 20 users, that would be 40 * hourly rate ... lets use $150 for easy numbers ... $6,000 US. Add in $2,500 for the software. Let's add in a $10,000 server just to go nuts since its Websphere ... so for under $20,000 I have a complete implementation. If I, the person doing the work, can solve the business problem or address the pain point, that is a no brainer.

   IBM makes a CRV ... you just have to be willing to get in the car for a test drive .. not stand on the other side of the street and claim you know how it handles.

1. 57  John Head http://www.johndavidhead.com | 4/19/2007 9:14:01 AM

   Oh, yes, I realize the cost for 20 people is way high .. but if we roll that to 100 people, the cost is $26,000. Yes, the price per user is high. But if all you do is look at costs as "what it costs per user" instead of looking at solving the business problem ... it is almost impossible to cost justify anything these days. Look at the business problem, figure out what cost savings you can get with the solution, and look it from that direction. Figured I needed to prempt the people who were going to disect what I posted :-)

1. 58  Craig Wiseman http://www.wiseman.la/cpw | 4/19/2007 9:17:35 AM

   @54 - As always, you make good points. I typed too quickly. It's possible to make great websites with Domino, but from a web perspective, Domino is a '97 CRV. Since I'm talking about the future, I thought I'd plug updating the web plumbing and development tools. And some indications are that the Eclipse version of Designer may fully address that, but since we never know what's coming until it's almost here, it's hard to tell.

   Note to IBM: Microsoft does a great job of letting it's customers AND partners know what's in the pipeline. A lot of times they give out what turns out to be wrong or unintnetionally misleading information, but they do let us know what they -think- will be coming.

   Take Quikr - it's shipping S.O.O.N., and we desparatly need something to put up against SharePoint, and Quikr seems to fit the bill perfectly, but IBM keeps the info under wraps. WHY?

1. 59  Nathan T. Freeman http://nathan.lotus911.com | 4/19/2007 9:19:25 AM

   "But if all you do is look at costs as "what it costs per user" instead of looking at solving the business problem ... it is almost impossible to cost justify anything these days."

   *shrug* I don't know John. I think you can justify a lot by looking at COMPARATIVE PRICE PER USER to solve the same business problem. That's what TCO analysis is all about.

   That being said, $260/user ain't bad, if the implementation really does provide a compelling solution. Honestly, I have difficulty picturing the 100-person shop that needs a unifying portal environment to provide a single point-of-entry into a multitude of applications. But I'm sure there are applications that I haven't thought of.

1. 60  Ed Brill http://www.edbrill.com | 4/19/2007 9:20:58 AM

   @58: "Note to IBM: Microsoft does a great job of letting it's customers AND partners know what's in the pipeline. A lot of times they give out what turns out to be wrong or unintentionally misleading information, but they do let us know what they -think- will be coming."

   Yeah, but I sleep better at night knowing that we don't mislead the market. Maybe this market is Batman vs. Mr. Freeze :-)

1. 61  Craig Wiseman http://www.wiseman.la/cpw | 4/19/2007 9:25:45 AM

   >> If the Gateway installed in 45 minutes off

   >> a single DVD and used Domino as it's LDAP

   >> policy-control resource, would that cut it?

   >> Or is the problem that is doesn't actually

   >> RUN on the Domino box?

   If it installed in 45 minutes, you'd have installed a hugely complicated set of co-dependent products (a very specific version & config of DB2, websphere, apache, and various other components) that you have very little idea of how to fix when the CEO of your Smb comes down the hall and says she can't IM the CEO of our largest customer.

   For the Smb market:

   DB2 adds complexity and NO functions that NSF can't or shouldn't be able to provide.

   Apache adds complexity and NO functions that Domino can't or shouldn't be able to provide.

   WAS adds complexity and NO functions that Geronimo can't or shouldn't be able to provide.

   The only piece that's needed is the SIP functions, and if they are truly 'standards based' java implementations, then they should be able to run in Geronimo.

1. 62  Craig Wiseman http://www.wiseman.la/cpw | 4/19/2007 9:28:53 AM

   @56 - Nice to hear from you....

   I stand by what I've said. I'm sitting here looking at one of my VMs running.... Websphere portal.

1. 63  Craig Wiseman http://www.wiseman.la/cpw | 4/19/2007 9:29:56 AM

   @62 - I DO apprecite that you've given up telling me that the reason I have my opinions is that I refuse to learn anything new.

1. 64  Craig Wiseman http://www.wiseman.la/cpw | 4/19/2007 9:32:03 AM

   @60 - Well Batman does have the coolest hardware & software.... 8-)

1. 65  david racicot  | 4/19/2007 9:41:46 AM

   Ya, but Mr. Freeze is going to be the President one day.

1. 66  Nathan T. Freeman http://nathan.lotus911.com | 4/19/2007 9:54:30 AM

   "DB2 adds complexity and NO functions that NSF can't or shouldn't be able to provide."

   Sure. 'Cause I use NSFs for all my LEFT OUTER JOIN needs.

   "Apache adds complexity and NO functions that Domino can't or shouldn't be able to provide.

   WAS adds complexity and NO functions that Geronimo can't or shouldn't be able to provide."

   Great, then you don't need anything from IBM. Go forth and build your SMB solutions on the Domino platform!

1. 67  Chris Whisonant http://cwhisonant.blogspot.com | 4/19/2007 9:55:54 AM

   @51 - I was able to easily get to pricing by going to { Link }

1. 68  Craig Wiseman http://www.wiseman.la/cpw | 4/19/2007 9:56:02 AM

   @66 - I was speaking in context of the RTC gateway.

1. 69  Nathan T. Freeman http://nathan.lotus911.com | 4/19/2007 9:57:12 AM

   @58 - "And some indications are that the Eclipse version of Designer may fully address that, but since we never know what's coming until it's almost here, it's hard to tell."

   Would you install WAS if it made Domino a better HTTP-delivery server?

1. 70  Chris Whisonant http://cwhisonant.blogspot.com | 4/19/2007 10:01:46 AM

   @66 - Nathan, you're (intentionally?) missing Craig's point. Specifically for the RTC Gateway, what do DB2, Apache, and WAS add that couldn't be done in Domino. You could use NSFDB2, right? :)

1. 71  Craig Wiseman http://www.wiseman.la/cpw | 4/19/2007 10:03:18 AM

   @58 - It seems to me that the core advantage of Domino has been that it's a single swiss army knife-like dev environment where someone with out a heavy duty development background can whip out and easily enhance high-value business apps. It's not the best at any one thing, but it's good enough for most everything for a Smb.

   WAS & Eclipse provide a world-class app server & dev environment - IF you have the time & resources to devote to it. Some (many?) business cases do not need that.

1. 72  Craig Wiseman http://www.wiseman.la/cpw | 4/19/2007 10:03:52 AM

   er, that's "@69" I think the number through me off...

1. 73  Nathan T. Freeman http://nathan.lotus911.com | 4/19/2007 10:05:21 AM

   @68 - Okay, I agree... the requirements for the RTC Gateway are dumb. I seem to remember having said something about that before. { Link } { Link }

   Then again, I've been talking about all this stuff for a while. { Link }

1. 74  Craig Wiseman http://www.wiseman.la/cpw | 4/19/2007 10:12:11 AM

   @73 -

   WE've been talking about this for a while:

   { Link }

   8-)

1. 75  Nathan T. Freeman http://nathan.lotus911.com | 4/19/2007 10:14:48 AM

   @71 - I don't get it. You say Domino delivers great solutions for SMBs. So it does what you want. Then you say "well, not everything that I want. I want better HTTP delivery from it." So I ask "would you install another product if it made Domino a better HTTP delivery mechanism?" And you say, from what I can tell, "no, I want the SAME product to do a better job."

   Dude, that's just being stubborn. Do you really insist that IBM's delivery vector for the business solution be cross-platform C code that installs with the Domino server? Why can't it be a separate process, if the result is the same?

   If WPE surfaced *NOTES* applications on the web with full fidelity with no additional coding on your part, and it made stuff like the Notes 8 mail template, or the kind of things you see at my blog or at interfacematters.com, look exactly the same in a web browser context, would it be worth it? What difference does it make if it's a separate piece of hardware? Good SMB installations of Domino have multiple servers in place anyway.

1. 76  Craig Wiseman http://www.wiseman.la/cpw | 4/19/2007 10:23:08 AM

   @75 - I (sadly) actually have work to go do, so I can devote the attention this point deserves.

   Here's the short answer:

   We should be decomplexifying things as much as possible. Why do I need two app servers (domino & WAS) and two web servers (domino and apache) to do this?

   More servers = more $$$ to purchase, configure, power, monitor, troubleshoot, upgrade.

   Yes, it IS stubborn. Sometimes it's hard to distinguish STUPID stubborn and USEFUL stubborn, as my wife continually reminds me.

1. 77  Charles Robinson http://cubert-codepoet.blogspot.com | 4/19/2007 10:33:29 AM

   Wow, it seems like Phil and I touched a nerve. :-)

   @Richard Schwartz - The disconnect in business size that constitutes a SMB is one I keep bringing up as well. No one from IBM or Lotus ever disagrees with me, they just smile, nod, and go back to pretending the rest of the world fits their paradigm.

   As for the rest, there are just too many individual points to respond to. Generally speaking it seems like there was a good discussion going on and now it's being dragged toward "but here's why the SMB mindset is wrong".

   It seems that the more outspoken aren't considering that SMB's run with skeleton crews already. As Hynek said, we don't have the time to spend a week just figuring out what a new product is, then another week figuring out how to install it so we can then spend a couple of weeks testing to see if it really meets our needs. As I said in my original post that Ed referenced, SMB's don't have legions of administrators and developers to throw at these things. Extending that further, and borrowing from Rob Novak, we can't charge our customers for updating our IT infrastructure, either. [Rob's response was to someone who is a BP. My point is internal IT is different from consulting. We have to absorb the costs of training and on the job learning downtime.]

   Much of the recent discussion has been from a BP point of view, which isn't the same as being on staff for a SMB. When the BP leaves I'm the one who has to keep stuff running. To Craig's point, even if the install gets to a single click you still need to know what's going on under the covers so you can fix it when something doesn't work. And the cost of acquisition and initial deployment is usually only a fraction of the TCO. There is ongoing maintenance, administration and development that also has to be considered.

   I understand there is a business reason for the decision to deploy Lotus products on Websphere and DB2. My contention is that decision pushes the products outside the reach of SMB's. That's what most of the non-BP people, and some of the smaller BP's, have been saying as well.

   This is an opportunity for IBM, Lotus and to some extent the larger BP's to listen and learn. We're telling you we want the prepackaged functionality being offered (such as Connections and RTC Gateway), but not on the platform it has chosen to be delivered on. What are you going to do about it?

1. 78  Bill McCuistion  | 4/19/2007 10:39:30 AM

   @75 - Nathan, The Notes HTTP server doesn't do PHP, so you end-up having to front-end Domino with Apache's HTTP server, which generally results in two-boxes, which is one-more than *should* be needed if Domino-did-PHP.

   This is not hard to set-up, configure or maintain, but it is added complexity that doesn't *NEED* to exist, especially given that Lotus provided for alternate HTTP stacks to run in Domino, but I don't want to run IIS, just a better HTTP stack, along the lines of Apache2.

1. 79  Nathan T. Freeman http://nathan.lotus911.com | 4/19/2007 10:45:32 AM

   @78 - So to address the SMB market, Domino needs native support for PHP?

   Well, that's certainly concrete.

1. 80  david racicot  | 4/19/2007 10:48:05 AM

   @75. Exactly Nathan, the answer is NO I would not recommend to my clients (SMALL to medium small) to install another product and server. Especially if it is Websphere. Especially if I am supporting them as an outsource. BTW, would you be willing to fly to Winnipeg to help two VERY large vendors at a large client resolve issues as to why they are taking a year to upgrade Websphere? Email me offline if you are and I can provide more information.

1. 81  Ken Barker  | 4/19/2007 10:53:53 AM

   To borrow a turn of phrase from the Clinton era.."its the marketing stupid!"

   I generally get a "huh? Lotus Notes?" or "I didn't realize that was even possible" type response when I talk about Lotus Domino/Notes to an SMB - mostly because the people that run these business don't have any idea that the product is suitable for them.

   Clear, simple messages from IBM that the Notes/Domino product can work for SMB's is what we need. (take all of the websphere, quickr, tivoli rubbish and put it away until AFTER the you answer the basic questions...it is simply confusing)

   I would suggest that someone in IBM/Lotus marketing put themselves in the situation of an SMB owner (say a 20 person local accounting firm) and start from the "I want to purchase the right platform to enable me to grow my business from all the places I have to work with things like mail, calendar, contacts, a website, knowledge tools, and a custom application or two...where do I start?". The current byzantine marketing approach used just does not answer that question in a form that doesn't make the SMB's head explode...

   Get that marketing nailed...I dare you

1. 82  Cesar Zavala  | 4/19/2007 10:59:50 AM

   After following the discussion, it came to my mind an unfortunate quote that was attributed to then CEO of Televisa (which some say is the largest television network in the world) ... he said something on the lines of "we make entertainment for the impoverished". He used an insulting word instead of impoverished, but I'm not willing to try to translate it to English. This was when he was questioned on not airing cultural shows.

   How competent are SMBs in IT in general? Should they be competent? Should they have competent people? In cases like the one mentioned, let's say 300 people with 1 SA, 1 Dev and 2 support people, I bet they are experts, but how competent should they be? Do we measure it in certifications, for example? How many SMBs have certified IT people? Are they certified in Domino, in Java, in Websphere, in DB2? I work in an SMB where we have like maybe 20 different servers in place, so ideally each of us would need like 10 certifications :)

   My general conception (said with due respect) is that SMBs are good for one or 2 things, and in general it's not IT (or great IT budgets). From there, I hate labels but I might say that in general SMBs have limited IT skills or are incompetents on one sense of the word. Love for "stupid simple" installations, architectures is common in SMBs. Domino does this. I'm glad to work on an SMB that pushes and uses technology, even when that means I have to learn different things every time. We are proud of having the latest version of everything, I know we'll have Domino 8 the week after it's released, and DB2 and all the stuff for the features that we want. I just think "poor guys" for those that have to test things for weeks or months before going to production.

   But maybe after a few years might not be that fun to learn new things, or install new things. I'd better stop this rant and go back to work on my competences before those times arrive.

   Regards!

   Cesar

1. 83  Nathan T. Freeman http://nathan.lotus911.com | 4/19/2007 11:03:21 AM

   @80 - I don't know what to say to that.

   @81 - "Quickr rubbish?" What the heck is rubbish about Quickr?

1. 84  Karen Demerly  | 4/19/2007 11:14:51 AM

   Ugh, I hate when this happens. People offer up opinions, then others get defensive, then arguments break out, then 800 posts later, we all go away until the question gets asked again. Good times.

1. 85  Ed Brill http://www.edbrill.com | 4/19/2007 11:15:26 AM

   @81, at least it took 81 commments for "Lotus marketing sucks" :-)

   @All, thanks for the comments. There are a number of interested eyes on this thread.

   First, I'm surprised at the visceral "we aren't going to buy WebSphere, ever" postings. This isn't Ford vs. Chevy (or maybe Pontiac vs. Chevy), and sometimes the best-in-class technology is a different product or architecture. IF IF IF it was made easy to deploy, administer, or manage, I wonder if the same would be true (such as the comment about Connections -- what if it is a black box and you don't know what's under the covers?) Someone replies, well, at some point, you have to maintain that black box. Maybe so, or maybe it just runs.

   Second, I applaud Nathan for asking some tough challenge questions and playing devil's advocate. You all know he's not afraid to criticize when appropriate, so it's clear he's not playing fanboy here. His company has some SMB experience (though, not to be too pointed, there are no case studies on their website that I can find, either) as do PSC and other partners in this thread. Don't expect them to give away all their competitive advantages in public, though.

   I was just reading this morning about Nitix Blue, which I think was mentioned here or in one of the side threads. Cool stuff and a great route to market for the S side of SMB. { Link }

   To Rich and Charles, you're right, IBM has an SMB definition internally which doesn't even map to go-to-market for products like Domino Express. I'm trying to bring even more focus to the "S" side of that. We'll have a new offering in the Notes/Domino space in a couple of weeks which is targeted in that spectrum (or even VSB).

1. 86  david racicot  | 4/19/2007 11:29:27 AM

   @83. The subpoint is IBM should not expect that by masking a Websphere requirement (and everything that means) under a Notes banner will gain them any market penetration in the space.

1. 87  Ed Brill http://www.edbrill.com | 4/19/2007 11:31:12 AM

   @86, not "masking" anything, but why is this a problem? What if it was done in a limited, no-cost (license-wise) way? And if that limited way meant that it could be installed and deployed quickly?

1. 88  david racicot  | 4/19/2007 11:47:29 AM

   @85. Why would I (buy Websphere). The Notes apps I support at small and large clients cost less to build, cost less to maintain, the platform is easier to upgrade then any Websphere app I have had the mispleasure of hearing that they used Websphere instead of Domino. (they aren't ones that require 10000 txs a second, but do handle 1000s a day). SMBs don't need Websphere hassles that I have seen. Why don't we start by defining new categories of businesses. SMALL (say <50). MEDIUM (51-300). LARGE. Then SMALL (Domino only needed). MEDIUM (90% Domino Only needed). LARGE (50% Domino Only needed). I thus give 10% of MEDIUMs and 50% of LARGE who have the time and money (but not necessarily the need) to play with all those other products and hardware.

1. 89  Craig Wiseman http://www.wiseman.la/cpw | 4/19/2007 11:48:13 AM

   @81 - "Maybe so, or maybe it just runs." Would you buy that argument when shopping for a car? [Ahh, that car analogy just keeps humming along.....]

   @87 - It wholely and completely depends on the implementation. I stand by the statement that crafting a simple install process onto a highly complex product does NOT make it, suddenly, a simple one to support and upgrade. And it's software - it WILL break, at some point.

   @77 - I'd actually argue (gently) with Charles point about "skeleton crews". That's a bit generous in some cases - "ghost" or "wraith" might be more apt....

1. 90  Nathan T. Freeman http://nathan.lotus911.com | 4/19/2007 12:00:53 PM

   @88 - "The Notes apps I support at small and large clients cost less to build, cost less to maintain, the platform is easier to upgrade then any Websphere app I have had the mispleasure of hearing that they used Websphere instead of Domino. (they aren't ones that require 10000 txs a second, but do handle 1000s a day). SMBs don't need Websphere hassles that I have seen."

   Then CONTINUE TO DELIVER DOMINO SOLUTIONS. And you just won't get a public Sametime gateway.

   Why does a company with 50 employees need a gateway? REGISTER AIM IDS YOURSELF.

   Do you need Connections in a 50 person company with Domino? You've got profiles (it's called a Directory.) You've got a web server. You've got a blog. You've got email. Get Notes 8 and you have productivity apps. Get Quickr Enterprise (which runs 100% on Domino) and you've got a productivity content management solution. Get Sametime and you have an internal IM and whiteboarding solution with built in teleconferencing. And gee whiz -- it's all on Domino!

   So... wait a minute... IBM *IS* delivering for SMBs! What's the problem here? You want Activities for a 50 person company? It's called a To-do list! How much bottom-up knowledge management do you need for 50 people? Do you have communications problems with that kind of population?

   You guys are making the question unanswerable...

   "What if Websphere was as easy to install, administer and upgrade as Domino?"

   "NO! It's too complicated to maintain!" What is maintenance besides installation, administration and upgrades!?

1. 91  Richard Moy http://www.dominointerface.com | 4/19/2007 12:02:13 PM

   IBM designs their technology for big businesses and will continue to do so until the large and medium size business market saturates and then they will look seriously into the small business market. When I gave a talk last year about Notes and Domino, I described Domino as the Swiss Army Knife of application servers, because you an get it to do practically anything and at a reasonable cost and for SMBs on one single box. Therefore, make the technology work in the small business environment, Domino gives you that flexibility. IBM provides great technology. It may not meet the needs of small businesses, but us as business partners, developers, and advocates it give you opportunity. Innovation is not about new technology is it also about how to apply current technology in new situations. Here are some examples.

   The Blogging feature in 7.02 was not developed by IBM it was developed by a Business Partner. There was a need, so it was created. If IBM did it it would have been on Websphere and it would take a year to implement.

   We all know that the Notes interface sucks. I have complained about the interface and problems with the development environment for years and years with no response from IBM except next version. So we redesigned the interface ourselves fopr our needs. Now with have a Lotus Notes Portal that can hold it own compared to any Microsoft or Web solution. And we will be doing the same thing with the Notes 8 Basic client since it better meets the needs of our customers.

   Yes, the RTC Gateway may not be appropriate for small businesses, but it gives us as developers an opportunity to develop a similar solution in Domino that will meet the needs of small businesses and that is good for ISVs. And yes I believe it can be done.

   Some people said we were nuts in building integrated ERP and CRM solutions on Domino without using NSFDB2, but we were determined to build it without DB2 because that was another server and complexity for clients. As a results is our Notes-based SOA technology that turns the way you design Notes application inside out. It provides faster performance and reduces the development time. And Nathan as I said before, UI design is not just about the front end but also about how you handle data on the back end.

   In addressing IBM and small business, technology is not the issue, it is the need for IBM to make an serious investment of time and resources in the small business market and remove the M when they talk about SMB. The small business market is fragmentated but extremely big and there is great opportunity if you know how to the market this segment. Yes, you may not be able to charge the higher consulting fees, but you should be flexible and figure out how to upsell your solutions and deliver at a much higher volume to make up the difference. And there is one advantage, there is no IBM Global Services trying to steal your deal at least not yet.

   I have never had a problem selling Domino to a client if the need was there. The main problem I encounter is getting clients to know that there is a company called IBM or that Lotus Notes and Domino is alive and well.

   And that is a marketing problem not a technology problem.

1. 92  John Head http://www.johndavidhead.com | 4/19/2007 12:03:17 PM

   Man, it is so hard to keep posting in threads like this when people will not open their mind to options. There are lots of partners out there using the entire IBM software portfolio in all of the market segments ... however you define them. Is Websphere right for everyone? Not at all. But when people say "there is no way I would every install/use ProductA" I can reply with a stack of case studies of companies that are doing it. Case Studies where the cost justification was fairly easy. People need to open their minds and be willing to step outside the box .. not just with Notes/Domino vs. Websphere but with IBM vs. other vendors.

   @89 So when Microsoft adds a pretty install to their products but they require SQL server and a mismash of administration to keep it running, why are people using it? Administration of Websphere is not the end of the world. Is it as easy as Domino? Nope. But there are plenty of people out there that believe Domino is too complicated to administer ... who are not using the product.

1. 93  Ed Brill http://www.edbrill.com | 4/19/2007 12:06:19 PM

   @91, Richard...

   "The Blogging feature in 7.02 was not developed by IBM it was developed by a Business Partner. There was a need, so it was created. If IBM did it it would have been on Websphere and it would take a year to implement."

   No, it was a purely Domino decision to buy vs. build. And there's a Quickplace blogging template that IBM is promoting, it's not WebSphere either. And IBM's next blogging capability, in Connections, derives from Roller, if it matters, but wasn't built on WebSphere.

   As for the Notes UI, I think the "next version" response with 8 is not exactly lip service. But then you complain that it all went into the standard configuration.

   Last, "he main problem I encounter is getting clients to know that there is a company called IBM "

   this is a little stunning, to be honest.

1. 94  Chris Whisonant http://cwhisonant.blogspot.com | 4/19/2007 12:06:44 PM

   @ "Marketing Sucks" - since that can of worms has been opened, let us now reflect on IBM's marketing:

   { Link }

   :)

1. 95  Charles Robinson http://cubert-codepoet.blogspot.com | 4/19/2007 12:07:07 PM

   @87 - It appears that some people are getting wound up because they think they have to *purchase* Websphere and DB2 in addition to the primary product they want (such as Sametime RTC Gateway). That is not the case, when you license the main product it includes all the infrastructure pieces you need. At least in the case of the RTC Gateway you still have to install Websphere and DB2 separately, but you don't have to purchase additional licenses.

1. 96  Bill McCuistion  | 4/19/2007 12:26:06 PM

   @94 - That reminds me of the Ashton-Tate dBaseII add that featured the bilge-pump, with the caption that read "most database systems suck".

   Problem was the bilge-pump manaufacturer's name-plate was promonet in the ad, so the mfg filed suit against Ashton-Tate for product defimation.

   Next week Ashton-Tate ran an ad with the same bilge-pump, with a caption that read "this bilge-pump sucks real good".

   The mfg withdrew the suit.

   --------

   IBM's marketing sucks, real good.

   We should be able to purchase IBM/Lotus software products in Retail outlets, but can't, and I don't understand why.

1. 97  Stuart McIntyre http://quickrblog.com | 4/19/2007 12:29:49 PM

   @95 In my experience, I think most customers have grasped the difference between IBM's licensing, packaging and footprint of software for SMB.

   IMHO, I think the licencing is mostly there (could do with some simplification, but no worse than most other large vendors). The packaging is definitely being improved (witness the sub-hour install for WPE), but still needs work - just take a look at the list of download images required for something like Portal Express from the PA site. The issue for many customers is still the footprint, which is a big issue for most of the S&M (if you pardon the expression) parts of the SMB market. Both WPE and the RTC Gateway are prime examples of where this could be improved (i.e. the footprint seems out of proportion to the cost/value of the product), whilst Domino is still a fabulous example of the other end of the spectrum (512MB of RAM, 1GB disk and any old P4 CPU will give you mail, apps, workflow, intranet, crm etc. etc. etc.).

1. 98  Stuart McIntyre http://quickrblog.com | 4/19/2007 12:31:54 PM

   @96. We've been there before, my friend... Move on...

1. 99  John Head http://www.johndavidhead.com | 4/19/2007 12:32:58 PM

   @96 - Why is it so important that you could buy Notes/Domino in a retail outlet? What does that give IBM? I would love to hear about that. I have my own thoughts but I will clear them out to get the most from your opinion here.

1. 100  Richard Moy http://www.dominointerface.com | 4/19/2007 12:52:32 PM

   @93 Ed,

   I stand corrected on the Blogging feature.

   Yes, the Notes 8 Standard does address some of the UI issues that I have.

   Yes, there are companies who have never heard of IBM. I was surprised too. This was in a small business show and there was a number of companies not just one.

1. 101  Bill McCuistion  | 4/19/2007 12:54:22 PM

   @99 - Mass-market mindshare comes to mind.

   Small box on shelve - WAS Enterprise $95K, might be the biggest ticket item in Best Buy.

   Next to it WSCE, $295 (or so), with pointer that says, from here you can grow.

1. 102  Charles Robinson http://cubert-codepoet.blogspot.com | 4/19/2007 12:55:55 PM

   @90 - Stop yelling and I'll start listening. :-)

   @96 - Are you including online resellers (CDW, Amazon, Buy.Com, NewEgg) as retailers?

1. 103  Richard Moy http://www.dominointerface.com | 4/19/2007 12:57:55 PM

   @96,

   If you go to CDW or other suppliers you can buy Notes and Domino. If you are talking about Best Buy and others it does not make sense. If you ever tried to have a product in a retail store which I have, the cost of having it on shelves is enormous. This is not a consumer product.

1. 104  Nathan T. Freeman http://nathan.lotus911.com | 4/19/2007 1:04:31 PM

   LMAO @101 - Ever heard of loss prevention?

   I can just see the black market for WAS install DVDs from Best Buy employees reaching monumental proportions.

1. 105  John Head http://www.johndavidhead.com | 4/19/2007 1:09:18 PM

   @101 - OK, so in the example, you just cost people money. I would never tell a customer to go to Best Buy to get ANY software that was being used at the Corporate Level. I would start with CDW and then move on to vendor-approved resellers. Why? Because they honor price discounts that you get from IBM Passport or Microsoft's corporate program. Yeah, the discount for 10 users is not the same as 1000 users, but it is still a discount.

   Richard (@103) got it right ... just because someone is a SMB, or even VSB, does not mean they are a consumer.

1. 106  Nathan T. Freeman http://nathan.lotus911.com | 4/19/2007 1:09:19 PM

   @102 - If Ed's blog understood simple markup, I wouldn't type in all caps to emphasize a point. And apparently, a number of these points NEED SOME EMPHASIS. *eye roll*

1. 107  Mike Robinson http://www.invcs.com | 4/19/2007 1:10:44 PM

   Wow, now I know why threaded replies were invented :)

   A lot of good stuff to digest, and I only was gone less than 24 hours (it totally exploded).

   Charles/Nathan did a nice job, and Ed's summation was well said. Also the first few replies pretty much reflects that.

   To use another comparison, I'm wondering if BMW/SAAB can *market* a 4 cylinder econ. vehicle (I know they could making anything). When I think of IBM I always think BIG blue, the computer that computes million chess moves in a sec- a lot of people and SMBs think this to. They do believe if IBM attacked their problem, it'll get done. They perceive though it's beyond their affordability- hence IBM is for guys bigger than me. So marketing wise (and this ain't a marketing, stinks...) encouraging integrators and SMBs that there are turnkey based IBM solutions out there is key- whatever it is, and I think Nathan's been hammering this point- it's got to be easy to tinker, demo, and feel like you can put it in front of a prospect- like "the manual is still in the shrink wrap" easy.

   In the SMB space, I've ALWAYS been impressed with MS Small Biz Server. You can sit in front of it without much knowledge of AD, Exchange, DNS, IIS, etc., and walk through a bunch of prompts and kapow- you have a server that does all the stuff a small biz needs. Even going from machine to machine and switching Outlook profiles was a breeze. Now what I've always though about Domino in this scenario is backup and realability, distribution, multiple computers, etc. MS SBS is awful here but you never feel the pain (unless very well articulated up front or until a crash occurs)- it's easy to get going, but terrible at recoverying from system failure (some consultant out there is making a killing getting AD back on it's feet after some crash). Using replicaion and possibly some type of hosted solution, an integrator could offer the other aspect SMBs need- disaster recovery, and this is a huge differential value-add.

   Mostly thinking out loud- all the raw materials are there for a turnkey solution, just needs to be done :) (I've said it and thus the easy part is done)

1. 108  david racicot  | 4/19/2007 1:14:40 PM

   @93. Smoke and mirrors that 'the' Notes Client was going to get a revamp finally. Then surprise surprise, well we didn't mean 'the' Notes client. (masking)

1. 109  Stuart McIntyre http://quickrblog.com | 4/19/2007 1:26:14 PM

   @107, yes and in European markets they do very well too. BMW { Link } and Merc { Link } . Given that they sell cars in the same showroom that go from £10k to over £100k (£300k+ in the case of the Merc Maybach) maybe there is something for us to learn from that?

1. 110  John Head http://www.johndavidhead.com | 4/19/2007 1:27:04 PM

   @108 - what do you mean David? The Notes 8 client did get a revamp. whats is being masked? There is a new UI. They also added extension points to new things, if you want to use them. I think you should expand on your thought, cause in my mind, there is nothing to back up what you are saying.

1. 111  Henning Heinz  | 4/19/2007 1:27:24 PM

   Is a decision that someone is not going to install Websphere much different from "We wants to get MS out of our datacentre by the end of this year"?

   I think CTOs tend to name this strategic decisions but sometimes plain stupid would fit better. If you force them they will probably follow or maybe move away.

   I am surprised how often I read the word Exchange/Outlook when I follow the blogroll here on edbrill.com and remove IBM business partners.

1. 112  Ed Brill http://www.edbrill.com | 4/19/2007 1:34:56 PM

   @108 The Notes client did get a revamp. It is Notes. Why is that unclear?

1. 113  Richard Schwartz http://www.rhs.com/poweroftheschwartz | 4/19/2007 1:40:06 PM

   @85 Ed: re "We'll have a new offering in the Notes/Domino space in a couple of weeks"... Ooooh! I like a good tease ;-) Sounds intriguing Ed. I'll watch for details.

1. 114  Samuel deHuszar Allen  | 4/19/2007 1:48:11 PM

   Well it hasn't been said specifically by an IBM'er that IBM doesn't see money in small businesses, not here anyway. But by the tone of frustration in the 89 (maybe more by the time I finish) previous posts, I think it's safe to say that IBM has pushed big-business tools into the small business sector using a very effective licensing mechanism.

   But to respond to Nathan's question of "well why don't YOU do it?"

   My personal experience is that it's REALLY HARD! Most of the books on the shelf barring the Notes & Domino 7 Toolbox (or whatever it's called, I don't have in front of me) are written for folks who have already been in the Notes Domino world for a long time. To be frank, when Notes 4.6 was being released, the developer community was very different than it is now.

   It's now very easy for people to be self taught in a development platform, although your results may vary! But getting trained on Notes technologies if you are starting at the bottom floor is damn near impenetrable. Sure there are a bajillion Redbooks at the DeveloperWorks site. But the amount of knowledge and navagation that has to be gained and traversed to get there is immense, and then most of those cover this aspect of the tech or that without a comprehensive overview. You really have to be in the ND flow for a couple of years before all the possibilities start to become apparent.

   That's a tremendous weight for small businesses. So there either has to be a means of more quickly training people from scratch, or the software has to be retooled for the Microsoft-Monkeys who want to manage everything from a simple interface (which isn't inheritly a bad thing).

   The frustration about why IBM isn't doing more for the small businesses isn't because the small businesses are lazy, or that IBM's offerings aren't compelling in many use cases, but because IBM keeps claiming that SMB is their bread and butter when they are CLEARLY ignoring many segments and their respective needs, and their mindset is still in big-business-land. Again, not intentionally, but as a result of this "disconnect". And as has been confirmed in this thread, that's not even a controversial statement.

   One of Microsoft's great strengths is that their software built with almost the opposite paradigm as IBM's. They make it for the peon cubical worker and then try to scale that as high as it can go. Now I think we can all agree that that has proved to be the source of many of Microsoft's biggest headaches as well. But no one asks with a puzzled expression if Microsoft is still around? Or ...funny, I could have sworn they went out of business. People know they can go to Microsoft because it is ubiquitous in every market segment.

   I think the "it's the marketing stupid" lens is a very small part of the problem. Most of Microsoft's customers aren't swayed by ad promos. In fact Microsoft's last Office promotion was a disaster! Who calls their own loyal customers dinosaurs?

   To see most of IBM's software, you have to work in an insurance company or a very sophisticated business of a decent size. THAT's why most people still think Notes has vanished. IBM can market Notes until it's blue in the face, but until people have a reason to use Notes casually throughout their day in a variety of non-work contexts, it will be a hard sell with a lot of refactoring of one's message. IBM is trying to compete with business software for business mindset against software that has business use, but can be useful in a variety of contexts.

   Anyway...

   I'm looking forward to a more stable Notes8 and the release of Quickr as I think it will sate the hungry for a lot of these issues, but IBM definitely needs to build their business software for a consumer mindset. Real small businesses (and by that I mean 'very' and not 'genuine') don't have time to do the research and do a lot of comparisons. Most don't even have time to implement their own services in their own offices as they are too busy meeting customer demand.

   IBM's efforts with Notes8 have demonstrated (albeit with a lot of crashing :P) that IBM can make software for the "little people". If they can move those same efforts to implementation and education, I think we'll be in great shape.

1. 115  Charles Robinson http://cubert-codepoet.blogspot.com | 4/19/2007 2:04:09 PM

   @106 - The all caps isn't the problem.

   @112 - If I can jump in for a minute... the confusing part is that there are two editions of Notes 8, and only the Standard client is being demoed. Since nobody is showing the Basic client or talking about any differences the assumption is that both offer the same functionality, and that is not the case. There needs to be very clear, very concise statements regarding what is supported in each edition, and it would be best if all demos were prefaced with this information.

   Another issue is that so much of this was announced and hyped at Lotusphere, but in the following months there has been virtually no follow up information. Our interest was piqued in January, and here it is coming up on May and we still don't know any more than we did then. The time between product announcement and deployment details has dragged on too long.

   @114 - You, my friend, get it. :)

1. 116  Stuart McIntyre http://quickrblog.com | 4/19/2007 2:12:10 PM

   @115 I completely understand what you are saying with relation to the lack of concrete technical info on the new products (Quickr & Connections) - I wish there were public beta programmes of these as there is for ND8.

   However, you seem to a lone voice re: the Basic version of Notes8.... Why is this such an issue for you? For most of the folks I've spoken to, Notes8Basic = Notes7+compatibility fixes, and this isn't a problem given the limited use of Notes8Basic they have planned. Does your org have a large-scale upgrade to Notes8Basic planned?

1. 117  Nathan T. Freeman http://nathan.lotus911.com | 4/19/2007 2:13:16 PM

   @115 - And yet 114 says pretty much exactly what I said here and on your own site.

   Go figure.

   I have real work to do.

1. 118  Ed Brill http://www.edbrill.com | 4/19/2007 2:13:50 PM

   @115

   1) As I said in the prior response, you don't see much information about the basic configuration because it is an accommodation. In this configuration, the feature improvements are limited. It's not the mainstream "Notes 8" -- the standard configuration is, full stop.

   I have also said before that the fact that anyone is spending much time with it makes me wonder whether we should even release it at all, but since we're IBM and not those other guys, we do what we can in the name of investment protection. Some new features, but not the big wow. We're also going to meet tomorrow to see about how to talk about these different configurations in ways that make more sense. At the moment, the very clear, concise statement is -- Notes 8 in the Eclipse-based standard configuration is the future of Notes.

   2) No follow-up information? We went to public beta in March, and published a whole reviewer's guide and new website full of information at that time. We're working on a beta refresh, planned for next month. There are many more resources in development for release timeframe, too.

1. 119  Richard Schwartz http://www.rhs.com/poweroftheschwartz | 4/19/2007 2:26:45 PM

   @114 I was waiting for someone to bring up the training angle. At this point I'm sure I sound like a broken record, but once again IMHO... getting IBM Lotus certification courses into the community colleges, technical schools and adult ed programs around the US (and their equivalents around the world) is the sine qua non for the real success of Domino in SMB. Hiring managers have to know that people in their communities have training opportunities available to them.

1. 120  Samuel deHuszar Allen  | 4/19/2007 2:28:44 PM

   @118 Ed, will that beta refresh be public or internal only?

1. 121  Samuel deHuszar Allen  | 4/19/2007 2:29:38 PM

   @119 If it makes you feel any better, I've probably posted those sentiments about 5 times on this blog and a few elsewhere. I should make a macro! :)

1. 122  Ed Brill http://www.edbrill.com | 4/19/2007 2:40:44 PM

   @120 Public

1. 123  Samuel deHuszar Allen  | 4/19/2007 2:47:58 PM

   @119 again: This is not a typical use case, but people will buy books and bash their head against the wall to learn MSAccess or OOoBase for a variety of personal reasons. I use Notes to keep my 'small-business of one' organized and backed up so if my laptop falls down a flight of stairs, my life and business have been backed up (Replicated/Syncronized) on my old Socket A desktop at home running my favorite Ubuntu Linux.

   I intend to, by the end of the year start extending some of my personal apps to a blackberry service. Yes I'm a techie, yes I'm a decent way down the rabbit hole in terms of learning curve, but if i told you my use of Notes was for business only I'd be lyin'. If Quickr meets it's promise, then I'll never leave a document on my file-system for any reason. In fact, given the type of portability that the Domino to Notes/Blackberry/Browser model provides, it'd be an impediment to do so.

   One of my longer term business goals is not just to develop apps for small businesses, but personal use. And I have to say, looking at the preferences panel in the Notes8 beta, I think if the strides that have been made thus far keep going in that direction, then the David Allen's of the world will have a much easier sell for packaging their product to operate in and complement Lotus universe offerings.

   There's a tremendous untapped market potential using these tools. And I think the exploding smart-phone market is a key indicator of how yesterdays complicated technologies are becoming more accessible and desirable.

   So yes, putting together cert programs in schools is an awesome idea, but I think it would not be out of the realm of the possible to aim at the street level and do very well.

1. 124  Richard Moy http://www.dominointerface.com | 4/19/2007 2:48:44 PM

   Sam,

   As we have discussed many times, creating good Notes and Domino applications requires you to use the many different languages that Domino supports. Somethings work in formula Language, some work in Lotuscript, some in Javascript, and some in Java, but not all in one language. You can learn these languages in a classroom, but from my experience it is best that you learn by creating applications and learning from the experience of others. Lotus Notes and Domino programming is a juggling act and an art and is not as clear cut. Frustrating it is as you have heard me complain. Yes, Domino programming books are almost nonexistent. The few that are available are not that great.

1. 125  Charles Robinson http://cubert-codepoet.blogspot.com | 4/19/2007 2:50:31 PM

   @116 - I'm not a large shop, so I'm not planning a large-scale deployment of anything. :) I can't deploy Notes 8 Standard, though, and I've spoken to other people in my situation who will also use the Basic version.

   The lack of good information on the differences between the editions isn't a huge deal to me, I'm just bringing it up because it's there. If the two editions are going to be available people need to understand the differences, it's as simple as that. All the screenshots and documentation is about the Standard client. The only thing I've found that says what is and is not in the Basic client is Appendix A of The Reviewer's Guide.

   @118 - I meant with regards to Connections and Quickr, not Notes 8. :-) Sorry I wasn't clear about that, I can see why you would be confused. Have you specifically heard customers with under 500 employees commit to investing in the hardware to run Notes 8 Standard?

1. 126  Peter Smith  | 4/19/2007 2:57:41 PM

   @119 Hoorah for the training angle. In R4/5 days when the quarterly brochures from the big IT training outfits arrived (Learning Tree etc), there would be half a dozen Domino Admin and Developer courses catering to the CLP tracks.

   In recent years this has declined and currently on the Learning Tree site(other vendors are available but I haven't time to research them), there isn't a single Domino course offered. I can't remember the last time I bumped into a "practising" CLI - is it still possible to become one?

   Bringing this back to SMB - if you are the IT manager contemplating the future and you leaf through the available courses for your staff, would you be reassured that Domino is a vibrant competitive offering when noone offers training in it?

   Maybe as well as publishing books money should be spent underwriting courses and training CLIs.

   On the plus side I did see that you can attend a 3 day course on "Patching Microsoft Environments" that made me laugh.

1. 127  Stuart McIntyre http://quickrblog.com | 4/19/2007 3:01:39 PM

   @125 Sorry Charles, still confused.

   If you can't roll to Standard Edition (I can only assume this is becasue of old desktop hardware), why bother to upgrade at all right now. Wait until the next desktop refresh happens (in most SMBs I know this is every 3-4 years, and if yours are old, then probably the next machines will be purchased in 12-18months), by which time you'll have 8.0.2 (or whatever) out and it'll be stable, well known and you'll have an easy ride...

1. 128  John Head http://www.johndavidhead.com | 4/19/2007 3:04:12 PM

   @125 - Yes ... customers who want to move to Notes 8 this year are ready for the hardware increase if need be ... at about 96%. The customers that are not willing to upgrade hardware are not going to go to Office 2007 or Notes 8 this year and will wait until next year. I have not talked with anyone but you that will upgrade to Notes 8 but not go to Standard.

   The majority of our customers are under 500 users.

1. 129  Samuel deHuszar Allen  | 4/19/2007 3:14:26 PM

   @124 - No arguments there Richard. That said, perhaps putting some thought into how one would teach Lotus Notes as a development platform might put some pressure on those who steer the direction of the necessary skills.

   I certainly don't expect that consumers would build multi-language enterprise apps, but when Notes was primarily @Formula and LotusScript is was released with the developer client built in under the assumption that folks would reuse the tools they were using to build spreadsheets to step it up a notch.

   Whether or not such an idea succeeded is not the same as asking whether or not it can still be realized.

   ...and I still think that the Domino engine could be used to power consumer apps. As Nathan was suggesting above, someone might be able to figure out a good business model hosting remote Domino-based services. Neither Flickr nor Google started out as juggernauts, but they are pretty dominant now. And they hit the consumer segment first and are now sweeping out a lot of dusty corners in the business markets.

   I'm not saying anything. I'm just saying... :P

   Also, Ed I think our discussion at the Granite meeting is bears repeating here as I think it's relevant in the education vector. Trying to bring come level of parity in capabilities between the various language bindings in the Notes universe would make it MUCH more accessible to new blood.

   Not to mention that Notes marketing promises developers the ability to utilize their current programming skills by using Domino without telling them that they have to in fact learn four languages to do the one thing they wanted to do in Java, or JavaScript, or LotusScript, or SOA. Not quite bait and switch, but not entirely earnest either.

   It would be a big project, but some level of commitment to those ends over the course of several releases would probably untangle a lot of this mess.

1. 130  Samuel deHuszar Allen  | 4/19/2007 3:17:36 PM

   @124 - Richard, to be clear, since Recor made the training software that pole vaulted me into this platform, I wanted to be sure you understood that to be comment towards the IBM folks. :) I think you've put more thought behind that problem than most. Cheers!

1. 131  Charles Robinson http://cubert-codepoet.blogspot.com | 4/19/2007 3:25:29 PM

   @127 - You're right, the reason we can't use Standard is because of older hardware. We don't have a scheduled desktop refresh cycle. PC's get replaced when they break, which isn't very often. Our new approach is to use Windows Terminal Services instead, which is a whole different lack of documentation issue. ;-)

   Notes 8 Basic still has functionality my users are clamoring for, such as inline spell checking, mail recall, out of office improvements, resilient mail threads and contact delegation.

1. 132  Craig Wiseman http://www.wiseman.la/cpw | 4/19/2007 4:40:07 PM

   I think it's safe to say we are well past "Two views of Lotus in SMB"

   8-)

1. 133  Phil West  | 4/19/2007 4:41:59 PM

   @44 the matter has been resolved and IBM has now sent us the disks and I'm sure nothing like it will happen again.

1. 134  Ken Barker  | 4/19/2007 5:44:09 PM

   Yikes...I'm not sure I meant my post to be that big a deal.

1. 135  Ed Brill http://www.edbrill.com | 4/19/2007 5:50:34 PM

   Ken, don't sweat it -- we want you to keep commenting here. It's just a meme that comes up frequently (like the original topic of this blog posting) over the ~13 years I've been here.

1. 136  Mike http://www.fndbook.com | 4/19/2007 6:38:53 PM

   Ed, when I am asked to take a marketing survey at my local mall, I don't expect the mousy college student to pull out a knife and yell "YOU'RE WRONG!!! YOU'RE STUBBORN!!! GO SOMEWHERE ELSE IF YOU DON'T LIKE IT!!!"

   The same here. You didn't ask your visitors to participate in a WWF Smackdown, you asked for comments; a one-way dialog (me-->you) because, I assume, you are truly interested in listening and are going to use my input to improve your product. I like that. Even if I am stupid and stubborn, IBM listened and maybe will do something about my problem.

   However, when you get defensive and allow others wig-out, I no longer think you are interested. In fact, it feels to me like one of those traps wives are so good at laying ("Tell me what you think about that girl over there. Do you think she's cute? Tell me. I'm curious. I just want to know. I won't be mad. Really. I promise.). After a few of those, I order another beer and don't answer anymore.

   Maybe I'm mischaracterizing your blog. Maybe you're just a regular Joe who loves Notes and wants to tell the world his opinion. If that's the case then feel free, it's your site. I would expect a lot of evisceration to take place. But if in fact you are the (a) face of IBM and there is a business purpose to this site, then you are doing a disservice to your company by allowing your customers to accost each other and always insisting on making your point.

   Most commenters seemed pretty sincere until half-way through. I wonder how many turned away after that. I know I don't want to be involved in it. If IBM is willing to allow its customers to be mocked like that in public, I can only assume it's going on in private.

1. 137  Erik Brooks  | 4/19/2007 7:06:40 PM

   There are TONS of SMB MS dev shops. They spend 90% of their time developing, 5% administering, and 5% recovering from MS-related crashes. These guys use SMB products themselves, AND they also help push them to other SMB customers.

   Why would an SMB shop (dev or otherwise) choose MS over Lotus? I would guess two reasons:

   1. MS products are ULTRA simple to install.

   They let a business get down to what they really want to do - customize stuff (website, contact groups, etc.) very quickly. Add in the fact that it's built on MS's "full-strength" products (e.g. SQL Server) and you've got something that appears to be ready to scale when you are. Plus there are a million people to call if you have a problem, which leads us to…

   2. Everybody’s familiar with MS products. IBM products are intimidating.

   MS’s products span just one family. Access is MS. SharePoint is MS. SBS is MS. SQL Server is MS. Outlook is MS.

   Websphere is IBM. Domino is Lotus. DB2 is IBM. Notes is Lotus. Eclipse is, well, Eclipse. Even though we *know* it’s all related, the general perception is that the integration just isn’t there.

   Not to mention the fact that it’s just plain confusing to figure out what IBM products you need to address specific business goals. Just the name “Small Business Server” *sounds* like the right product.

   And the fact that *LOTUS* Component Designer needs an IBM product to integrate doesn’t help anything at all.

   Even the screenshots of IBM products have wildly different fonts – yeah, I know, it’s just fonts, but there’s still perception there.

   It couldn’t hurt to give away a ton of IBM/Lotus products to universities, either. Nearly every IS/MIS/CS major comes away having learned with various MS products. How many touch IBM’s?

1. 138  Ed Brill http://www.edbrill.com | 4/19/2007 7:11:09 PM

   Mike,

   It's true, I probably should have asked a few of the comment posters here to take a time out at some point today, but I was doing my day job, too, and as the Notes/Domino community is, well, a community, these kinds of open discussions do happen from time to time.

   But a blog is not a one way dialog. At least not how I've done it for four years, and not how my role models do it. If I wanted a one-way dialog, I would have simply said "please e-mail me at ed@edbrill.com and I'll be certain to get your input to the right market research department".

   I'm incredibly interested in the input on this thread, as are others at IBM. I had a few of my colleagues contact me today about this discussion, mostly positively.

   I'm not sure which would be better -- allowing someone to believe that IBM listened to them but nothing changes, or at least an occasional explanation of why I personally or my employer might feel like something (for example, selling shrinkwrap software) doesn't work for us in 2007.

   Last, I am puzzled why your IP address is the same as someone who commented yesterday with a different name/e-mail address, a long way from the Sierra Nevadas.

1. 139  Samuel deHuszar Allen  | 4/19/2007 7:35:56 PM

   @120 Sweet! Linux as well as Windows?

1. 140  Ed Brill http://www.edbrill.com | 4/19/2007 7:58:28 PM

   yes, Linux as well as Windows.

1. 141  Nathan T. Freeman http://nathan.lotus911.com | 4/19/2007 8:12:00 PM

   "it feels to me like one of those traps wives are so good at laying ("Tell me what you think about that girl over there. Do you think she's cute? Tell me. I'm curious. I just want to know. I won't be mad. Really. I promise.). After a few of those, I order another beer and don't answer anymore."

   Sounds like you married the wrong woman, sir.

1. 142  Mike http://www.fndbook.com | 4/19/2007 8:31:40 PM

   @138 I'm the same guy. Mike is my SMB persona. He has a wife, two kids and a lab named Critter. He taught himself Lotus Notes when he left the Air Force and now owns his own construction company. He has designed his own workflow and contact management databases and also the backend for his wife's aqautic therapy site.

   Mike is resourceful and innovative and can usually find a workaround to most problems. When he's frustrated, he'll whip off a short comment or hunt-and-peck around a KB for simple answer. He turned off by excuses and doesn't have time to listen to why things are snafu.

   Mike is moderately patient but wants his products to give value. If they don't, he'll find a workaround by going somewhere else. Mike is busy running his business. He doesn't have time to go to the bathroom on most days, let alone complain. When Mike is gone, you won't know it until your quarterly report comes out. Mike is Legion and he votes with his feet.

   (I am also writing the Great American novel, and Mike is my pen name).

1. 143  Randall Shimizu  | 4/19/2007 8:40:33 PM

   I think Lotus has made some progress in the SMB market. Lotus Quickr certainly seems encouraging, but I am disappointed that they are not showing live public demos as of yet. Lotus also Domino utility server, but Lotus barely mentions this product.

   There suppsedly is a VP of SMB at IBM, but I get impression that Lotus is still just paying lip service to this market. I would like to see SMB council in the Lotus community. What is needed is a bundle like the IBM Linux for small business suite. One answer for the SMB market is the MSP (Managed service provider) route. Many VAR's in the MS SBS market are moving towards becoming a MSP. SMB's have limited skills and resources as others have pointed out.

   The other thing that is needed is patterns and practices for SMB customers who use Lotus and IBM products.

1. 144  Ed Brill http://www.edbrill.com | 4/19/2007 8:49:04 PM

   @143, Randy, from sales volumes for Domino Collaboration Express, I assure you that the current stance is not "lip service". Is there more that can be done, yes, but I just don't want the existing success to be ignored.

1. 145  Craig Wiseman http://www.Wiseman.La | 4/19/2007 9:01:20 PM

   @144 - Absolutely correct. In just the last two weeks, I have won two Smb clients over and am planning implementations. There's momentum we don't want to loose going forward - Folks buy products with a future.

1. 146  Karen Demerly  | 4/19/2007 10:03:53 PM

   @121 - "I should make a macro" - that's hilarious.

   I don't know why I'm even back here, commenting again. Does anyone even read response #146? I don't know, but I was working today and I didn't have time to compose a detailed response earlier. I was one of those who said we'd not be buying Websphere Portal. No one actually stopped to ask why, and I didn't have time to offer it.

   Here's why I say we won't be buying Websphere Portal:

   - Because the supervisor over the Notes developers (he was a huge fan and supporter of Notes) left last year after the big restructure and outsourcing thing that came as a result of our SAP implementation. Then two Notes developers transitioned to business analyst positions, and a third developer quit. I am now the only in-house Notes developer. I'm very low on the IT totem pole, and my ability to drive change is minimal at best.

   - My new boss came from a MS shop. He has no experience with Notes - that's just how it is. I cannot discuss Notes with him; he's supportive of my needs, but knows nothing about my skillset. Again, it just is, it isn't bad or wrong.

   - One of the former Notes developers turned BA, has been tasked with analyzing all of the Notes databases and deciding which ones should be decommissioned and/or built into SAP (not integrated - built in SAP, I mean). This isn't someone deciding they need Outlook - there's no talk (at this point) of doing any conversion to MS, it's simply (in thier minds) logical that we spent a bazillion dollars going "world class" with SAP, we need to continue to build on what we've invested in.

   - We bought the Websphere server over five years ago (back when the Notes team was strong). We use it for about four applications (I don't know much about it - so don't judge my facts, I'm just sharing what I know). There has never been discussion, even then, a plan to buy Websphere Portal.

   There is simply nothing that points to Websphere Portal. It's not a judgement on the product. When you ask about Notes/Domino, I wanted to point out that we do Notes/Domino. But that's all we're doing now, and barely, at this point. Our entire budget, planning, hiring, is all about SAP, and ABAP programmers, and consultants in India. It is what it is - there's no judgement attached. It just isn't about WP.

   If that helps explain our position, great. If not, I'm #146, and it's fine. It's all good.

1. 147  Ed Brill http://www.edbrill.com | 4/19/2007 10:16:22 PM

   It does help, Karen, thanks. At least it isn't (really) political in that scenario, just other priorities.

   I wonder what would happen if IBM were actively selling to your boss?

1. 148  Bill McCuistion  | 4/19/2007 10:50:51 PM

   Way back when I worked in "Big 8" accounting, we brought in interns from college (and sometimes high-school), college-professor interns, and governmental-equvilents.

   We coddled-them, and still, they learned in the trenches what we really did to do what we did.

   Generally, they went back and did great things, often leveraging upon the things they learned "in-the-field".

   Our field.

   To be sure, this field took a long time to harvest, but long-sighted leaders made the investment, without any specific ROI-measures for the bean-counters.

   They did it because it was the right thing to do.

   IBM/Lotus now has a product-line with a 15-20 year history.

   It (IBM) must be faced with an internal challenge on how to recruit the "best-n-brightest" to extend and maintain a "legacy" product, when new-cool-strategic opportunities exist elsewhere (e.g. Google, x-cool-stuff.com, etc.com).

   I'm a great fan of Eclispe, and was before IBM mentioned it in a Notes context. (BTW, the Domino Developer sucks, but would suck real good if was Eclipse-compliant).

   There's a movie, in which the premise is "Omission is betrayal". I can't help but to feel that IBM's omission as to the technical underpinnings of the "Notes-8 Suite" is some kind of betrayal-by-omission.

   I'm sure that if IBM *wanted-to*, it could have delivered all the "Lotus/Notes-8" stuff within the familiar Notes/Domino framework, and not introduced, for the SMB user, WAS or other such alien technologies.

   Fundimentally, this is the problem:

   Microsoft's stuff sucks because their teams don't communicate with each other. This results in products that don't integrate or scale-up.

   IBM's stuff sucks because their teams don't communicate with each other. This results in products that don't integrate or scale-down.

   I'm not sure if it's better to start with a MS-based small mind and strive for big, or whether its better to start with a big IBM-based mind and not strive for small.

   In the midst, are various open-source solutions looking for market-share.

   IBM, you need some consumer-based, shrink-wrapped, software, or IMHO, you'll live in an ivory-tower that will explode in some holocost, and leave us with MS-roach-based OS to deal with.

   Give the students something to look forward to.

   In a mass-market kind of way.

   -----

   How about just spinning-off Lotus and letting them hire Ray back?

1. 149  Bill McCuistion  | 4/19/2007 10:59:13 PM

   Why doesn't IBM grab a copy of Debian and rebrand it OS/3?

1. 150  david racicot  | 4/19/2007 11:08:34 PM

   I'm back (pun on @65 which I personally thought was brilliant even though I wrote it). First. Okay I spent a half an hour reading about the Notes 8 Standard install (to hell with deliverables I say) and have now discovered that from what I can tell it is Notes. The main issue is that it needs a Cray for a workstation (just kidding)? So I can apparently upgrade my R7 server to R8 and go around the office with my R8 Standard Client install and everything will be just peachy. Right? And my server and desktops can be Suse? No DB2, no Websphere. If so ... Ed, I retract the 'masking' comment regarding the Notes 8 standard client. Second. we need the licensing model changed with respect to CPUs by the end of April :-). Third, SMALL and MEDIUM needs to be redefined (maybe if IBM used millimeters they'd get it right? and Fourth. @146 and other humour. Thanks, 'cause if you haven't got your humor, you haven't got anything.

1. 151  Stuart McIntyre http://quickrblog.com | 4/19/2007 11:15:35 PM

   @150 Hmmm... Sounds like it's time for you to go download the beta and play with it for real... You're right about the upgrade to Notes8 - even better you can use SmartUpgrade to upgrade the clients remotely in a policy-driven automated manner. Secondly, the SUSE install is great - the Notes8 install on SLED10 is a breeze, and looks awesome. Finally, not sure about your comment re: CPU licensing - the Domino Express products are all licenced purely by user - you can run as many servers/CPUs as you need to service the user population you have.

1. 152  Bill McCuistion http://OS/2 wan't all bad, but WTF | 4/19/2007 11:23:30 PM

   Why did IBM get out of the OS market?

   New OS's are evolving all the time.

   Gates, et al, know the "he who owns the OS, owns the rest" mantra.

   Why doesn't IBM just step in with THE-MIND-SHARE-OS, and rule this issue.

   OH, maybe the US Justice Dept?

   Sheeps in charge?

   National security, world security? Who do you trust?

   IBM doesn't (seem to) have the guts to do the (mass-market) job that MS doesn't have the (mass-market) integrity to back away from.

   Google doesn't care, while a single "SEARCH" box finds stuff.

1. 153  Kevin Pettitt http://www.lotusguru.com | 4/20/2007 1:40:48 AM

   Wow, I have so many thoughts on this topic it's been almost painful to not have time to comment until now. Fortunately most have been mentioned already, but its worth re-iterating or making a few points (as briefly as I can):

   1 - YES, "easy implementation" is key when you have limited time and expertise, but NO this doesn't necessarily have to mean avoiding DB2 or WAS if the technical complexity is hidden. "It just works" should be the standard, just like many of the existing subcomponents of Domino such as the agent manager or indexer.

   2 - YES, SMB mindshare hinges on things like training classes offered and technical books on store shelves. NO there probably isn't any money to be made on these so IBM subsidies are probably essential - and worth it. This applies to department level IT management in corporations as well.

   3 - Business Partners shouldn't have to work so hard to make prospective customers aware that Lotus has compelling SMB offerings.

   4 - For those wishing there were a Linux/Domino answer to Microsoft's Small Business Server, take Ed's lead and check out Nitix Blue: { Link }

   Keep in mind that truly small businesses have more fundamental IT problems than administering a Domino environment. It's common to get even the "basics" wrong, in particular firewalls and backups. Nitix has done an impressive job of delivering a solution that makes setting up a Microsoft-free IT infrastructure extremely simple - no Linux experience required. I've had the opportunity to evaluate the Nitix Blue/Domino system running on a IBM XSeries, and if anything it's TOO simple for someone with actual Domino expertise. Fortunately they make a less automated version that doesn't hide the full Domino administration interface for those of us who want greater control. VERY, VERY cool.

1. 154  Philip Storry http://www.not-so-rapid.com | 4/20/2007 2:36:09 AM

   Gosh, such strong feelings!

   @77 - Charles, I think I may just give you all the glory^Wblame for this interesting discussion. :-)

   @138 - Ed, glad to hear that IBM is interested in this and that internal discussions are going on around it. For me, that's a great outcome.

1. 155  Lucas Williamson http://www.advancedclp.com | 4/20/2007 3:57:08 AM

   This thread has struck a chord in me too!!

   Bundling Domino with other IBM products from the Tivoli, WebSphere, DB2 brands presents major skills issues for SMBs (and indeed any cost conscious company). Finding people who have skills in all of these products is very rare and if you do find someone they are probably very expensive. As a result, you probably need to find more than one person to get the right skills. This is completely prohibitive for SMBs. The cost of licensing compared to a person is usually insignificant.

   The organisation I work for (~9000 people) has a policy of a minimum of 2 FTEs for any new product so even medium to large organisations won't like this type of bundling.

   To add to the above, IMHO, IBM is also still stuck in the 1970's in relation to administration interfaces for server software. Even the one's that aren't CLI driven are clunky and unintuitive. The same UI revolution that N8 has undergone needs to happen to every server product as well if IBM wants to compete on a level playing field with MS.

   Microsoft gets that it needs to dumb down its server products for the average Joe. It hides the majority of the complexity under a pretty GUI and the software just installs and works. MS has been doing this for years and it is a winning strategy. Its also the same for the desktop. A simple GUI appeals to the thousands of average people out there for whom IT is a job, not a passion.

   Nathan's remark about 2PHDs is absolutely spot on. I've yet to see ANY IBM server software which is as easy to install and get up and going as MS equivalents.

   @148 I agree. Gaining market share is based in having mindshare. Boundaries between consumer and business technology are very blury now. Consumer products are the seed of building mindshare and Google, Microsoft and others appear to understand this.

   IBM can't defeat the "I use Outlook at home" argument without a consumer based equivalent. It doesn't matter whether this argument is based in truth or not because perception is more important than the truth.

   Why not produce a consumer oriented (free) Notes 8 lite POP/SMTP client which does nothing other than mail and calendar?

   BTW, does anyone else out there go through the pain of using the Notes client as their POP, SMTP client for personal mail? I do, and I can tell you that it is almost impossible to set up and configure for the average person. I know that's not what Notes is primarily designed to do, but why shouldn't it?

1. 156  Henning Heinz  | 4/20/2007 4:29:17 AM

   I am little envious because Nitix does not need RH or Suse Enterprise Server.

   If the LCS gateway is all about open standards it should be possible to run it on Tomcat (and if it needs EJB, Geronimo) and DB2 Express-C. I would prefer Tomcat because it is relatively easy for SMB to get Tomcat support. Although I already learned about good SMB installations I think the possibility to run it on one machine is important.

   Apache support still is important. For SMB many Internet projects are outsourced and done with LAMP (Linux, Apache, MySQL, PHP) configurations. At the moment this often results that the infrastructure is completely replaced while if Domino would support Apache the internal Lotus division would still be able to in some way "control" the web environment. When the external project is done you can enhance it in-house (and there are some things that are still easy to do within Domino).

   IBM needs to do something about the servlet engine. Not that SMB does much with servlets but I think it is bad for selling Domino using old technology that is just left for compatibility reasons. Perfect possibilities for the competition to juggle with words like legacy or maintenance only.

   I still think that the jsp tag library is an interesting concept but there is little to no information about it. I think IBM should promote it more in a way of why it is there, what it can do and why it is good to use it.

   The Websphere product line is probably an awesome technology but if you install it today along with a Domino server it is significantly increasing hardware resources. Often more that is justified for "just having a look". If IBM is not going to do something about it I think it is important to maintain an integrated WAS release within the Domino server installation.

   I have different customer responses from what John Head said and I see companies thinking about mixed installations. Classic for the "poor" workforce and standard for the power people. I am quite uncomfortable with that.

   Customers need more information in a FAQ way like what is going to happen with Terminal Server/Citrix installations?

   I read the comments about Vista having equal hardware requirements. That is true but I do not see companies moving to Vista anytime soon. With XP support to 2014 companies are in a very comfortable position at the moment.

   Anonymous HTTP access for Express should not need a utility server. In general I find the price tags for extranet use a bad idea. Extranet use is a good way to showcase a technology and I think it is a pity if companies use Sametime internally but not on their website.

   Maybe it makes sense to have an extra option for anonymous http priced at e.g. 499$ (up to 999$ or in some way comparable to Microsoft Web edition) and Utility Express for full log-in requirements.

   Designer pricing for Express is missing. 299 or 399$ seems to be a good price especially if Microsoft has their free Studio editions.

   IBM has to be more vocal about what is going to happen with some add-on products like Workflow or Domino.Doc. Even Sametime and Quickplace had a period where customers were unsure what IBM is going to do with it. If customers get in doubt about their software choice they are open to competitive offerings.

   As book offerings about Domino recently lack in some way it is important that IBM fills the gap with good documentation and Redbooks.

   Unfortunately the help in many ways is outdated, new functions are little documented and the examples are often too short. I like the links to external resources but you cannot include these resources in your search.

   Redbooks is something that is unique in the market. It is a real advantage (if not a gem). I would like to have more Redbooks dealing with Notes and Domino and a more agressive release schedule.

   If I have a wish I would like IBM think about their support.

   "We have not plans to fix it in the current code stream" or "The product is working as designed" are often raising customer frustration as it sometimes implies that the problem is not important (this does not mean that IBM must fix every little problem). It should not take days to get a hotfix for a known problem that crashes your SMTP server (like the TNEF conversion problem in 7.0.2).

   Let me stop with Syncing with mobile devices as a problem. People should not need Outlook to sync their data (as many do today). I know that this is Partner business but it does not work well today.

1. 157  Nathan T. Freeman http://nathan.lotus911.com | 4/20/2007 6:16:51 AM

   @146 - You don't sound like you work in a place with fewer than 1000 employees. In fact, it sounds like you might have at least 5000. Which doesn't make what you say unimportant -- but does take you out of the realm of SMB, which means you SHOULD have IBM crawling all over your account.

1. 158  Nathan T. Freeman http://nathan.lotus911.com | 4/20/2007 7:14:22 AM

   @156 - "Anonymous HTTP access for Express should not need a utility server"

   I'm fairly sure it doesn't. The utility server is for authenticated users only.

1. 159  Wayne Sobers  | 4/20/2007 7:54:01 AM

   When IBM mentions Tivoli, Websphere, etc, people (at least me) are going to think of the behemoth tools that we saw a couple of years back. Keep in mind that these deployments were squarely aimed at enterprise customers. *That* is what is causing a pause when you mention that these great new tools run on a separate platform along with Domino.

   Nathan has a point about the deployment. If Activities was about putting in a CD and pointing it at the Domino Server, I could live with that.

   While the BP's have some valid points, their issues are not the same as SMB issues.

   I am a one man band here. I learnt my admin from redbooks, blogs and forums - In most cases I have to *dumb* down the enterprise version of a process to match what I want. It also means reading reams of help to piece together the knowledge to find out if what I want to do is even possible.

   The Domino package does not need dumbing down, and there doesn't need to be a turnkey system, there just needs to be more and better examples of what a part time administrator could and should do in a small (1 or 2 servers )deployment.

   The same goes for development. IBM should give Nathan and Chris Blatnik a huge thank you for better explaining what can be done at the UI level. But it shouldn't be that hard.

   I have the same challenges as Charles regarding Notes 8 deployment - older and slower boxes and a slow/no replacement schedule. So I will be testing the Beta and I will come up with some scenario so I can get a budget for it at a later date. I do like the new look and feel and I have a couple of users working with it daily also.

   However there are some long standing issues which where not addressed, and while the new stuff is great, the older issues still remain.

1. 160  Henning Heinz  | 4/20/2007 8:01:34 AM

   Nathan,

   I am not a business partner so for sure I do not get every news. This link however still mentions anonymous access only for users that also have a collaboration express license (that is in some way anonymous access but not what I meant).

   { Link }

1. 161  Ed Brill http://www.edbrill.com | 4/20/2007 8:10:04 AM

   @160, but a Domino Enterprise Server is not that much more expensive than a Utility Express server, if your concern is unauthenticated access only.

1. 162  Charles Robinson http://cubert-codepoet.blogspot.com | 4/20/2007 8:45:18 AM

   @154 - Thanks. If you ever had any doubt I'd take a bullet for you... ;-) Getting this on the radar of IBM'ers was my intention, and it seems like we achieved that goal. For me the lumps taken in the process are worth it.

   @Ed - "Don't be afraid to try another flavor, possibly something in the 'lean' or 'light' area, or different packaging. Hint: licensing (i.e. 'Express') doesn't go far enough." Just thought I'd throw that out there. :-)

1. 163  Richard Schwartz http://www.rhs.com/poweroftheschwartz | 4/20/2007 9:23:03 AM

   @160; That page clearly says "anonymous access to non-mail applications (no sign-on or authentication involved) from a Web browser is allowed, even without a client access license".

1. 164  Karen Demerly  | 4/20/2007 10:00:09 AM

   @157/Nathan - 4,000 Associates (U.S. and Canada). We share the city with Eli Lilly and Caterpillar - I guess it just feels like we're small to medium. (In my best Emily Litella voice) Nevermind. ;-)

   @147/Ed - I think maybe everyone should assume it isn't political to begin with. And I'll try not to throw out comments I don't have time to explain, because they aren't really helpful.

   As for what'd happen if IBM were actively selling to my boss (and I have no knowledge of who is or isn't doing that), I think IBM could make a great case for itself with our infrastructure. We're in the process of looking at buying more SAP licesnses - and Notes/Domino makes a great case for itself around that (save money, integrate Notes, people know how to use it, why not leverage that?).

1. 165  Henning Heinz  | 4/20/2007 10:02:38 AM

   @163 Richard, there is only little I can do if you read something else than I do. I remain with my opinion and I am still not sure if anonymous access is chargable 2500$ when there are competitive alternatives. I thought this was a question about what can be done to increase SMB awareness.

   I still think I raised a valid point.

1. 166  Richard Schwartz http://www.rhs.com/poweroftheschwartz | 4/20/2007 10:46:38 AM

   @165 Henning, You are correct. I mis-read that. The statement I quoted applies to the Enterprise license, not the Express license. My apologies.

1. 167  Samuel deHuszar Allen  | 4/20/2007 10:54:03 AM

   There's been some insinuation that the WAS product lineup is intimidating and that's why people stay away, but I think it's worth underlining that it's not just that it seems big and scary... it IS big and scary and requires a LOT more tin than Domino, hence people's ruffled feathers when it is announced that the most heavily pushed features of Notes and Domino 8 require a lot more than notes and domino.

   At one of last years GRAANITE meetings, one of the Chicago IBMers did a demo of Workplace Forms and talked about what cool stuff the server would be able to let you do. I asked him about how accessible it would be to small businesses, and he said the requirements weren't super steep, you know any old dual-processor with 4GB of RAM should do the trick.

   <doh>! But he was very sincerely talking about this being accesible to small businesses. Even if there is a free express entitlement for the server, most small businesses will be doubling their server investment, just to play with it and see if they want to bite. Domino can be run on REALLY OLD tin for up to at least 100-150 users. That's why a lot of us are talking here, and where the word disconnect comes from. Then on top of the hardware cost you add maintenance, training for a brand new skillset, cost and time for implementation, etc...

   It's way too much for small businesses to even evaluate. I was given 10 free Workplace Express licenses to play with. I was SUPER excited! Did I get it up and running? No. Because I didn't have a machine with 4GB of Ram and the only machine I had which could handle that much was a DDR-3200 -based box. At the time of the offering, it would've cost me $1000 just to get the memory footprint under control so I could play with my "free" licenses.

   That's not an SMB friendly approach, even if the licensing program is perfectly reasonable.

   I would also like to 2nd the vote to make the Designer client cheap. Free even, at least for express packages. You want businesses to not complain about the templates and build their own better choices, at least give them a cut-down version for free to play with. You could probably cull out SOA based objects, and a whole host of other stuff, or like clustering, just license it on an honor system. But the developement pool is graying, and not a lot of new blood is showing interest. Maybe 8beta will change that, but maybe not.

1. 168  Henning Heinz  | 4/20/2007 11:11:12 AM

   @167 Richard, no reason to apologize. People already wrote me that my English reads extremely grumpy. All I can say is that it is not my mother tongue and I use it too little nowadays. I mostly enjoy my days (that includes Notes and Domino). If you have a family with children business becomes less important.

1. 169  Nathan T. Freeman http://nathan.lotus911.com | 4/20/2007 11:16:24 AM

   @165 - the basic pricing as listed on IBM's website seems to be about $3825 for a basic Wintel box running Domino Enterprise Server for a public-facing application.

   https://www-112.ibm.com/software/howtobuy/buyingtools/paexpress/Express?P0=E1&part_number=D55JDLL,D55J9LL,D55MRLL,D55MTLL,D55JBLL,D55JGLL&catalogLocale=en_US&Locale=en_US&country=USA&PT=html&S_TACT=none&S_CMP=none

   Compare it to an open source tool, and maybe it doesn't sound so hot. Until you consider that the built-in datastore & messaging model is pretty much guaranteed to save you at least a month's worth of development on your site right out of the gate. Then run over the OpenNTF.org and grab a couple of tools and get an awesome value.

   Pretty compelling for an SMB, I'd say. Especially if you finance it as part of your hardware purchase, which I think you can do from a couple of major shops, including IBM.

1. 170  Richard Moy http://www.dominointerface.com | 4/20/2007 11:35:56 AM

   @169

   The pricing for the Domino Enterprise Server and Utilize Express Server is a good price. What I am seeing happening in the SMB market is that more and more are looking at a hosted solution and do not want to deal with the hardware and maintenance issue. I have three prospects right now that want a hosted solution and one is a pure Mac shop.

1. 171  Nathan T. Freeman http://nathan.lotus911.com | 4/20/2007 11:40:22 AM

   @167 - I've run WPF on systems considerable smaller than 4GB. That's a production minimum, not a prototype minimum.

   And a Dell PowerEdge dual-proc Xeon with 4GB of RAM is $65/month right now. That's pretty affordable.

1. 172  Nathan T. Freeman http://nathan.lotus911.com | 4/20/2007 11:41:45 AM

   @170 - Well, if you're not looking to put in a data center, I hope you'll email me with those prospects. ;-) I'm sure we can come to an equitable arrangement.

1. 173  Dan King  | 4/20/2007 11:42:00 AM

   @43 and @44 - installing a demo of Sametime: we asked for one and were told it was not possible to get one at all.

   After talking to our BP they said IBM had agreed that they could come and install a trial version on our server, but they would also have to come and uninstall it after 30 days. They'd be charging us for their time of course (2 days consultancy). We decided against it....

1. 174  Richard Moy http://www.dominointerface.com | 4/20/2007 11:50:16 AM

   @173

   Why isn't the BP installing a demo for you?

1. 175  Henning Heinz  | 4/20/2007 11:55:19 AM

   @173 Dan, every Business Partner should be able to install a Sametime demo at a customer site without the help from IBM. I am not a Business Partner and have done this. If your Business Partner is too far away he can do it remotely. You just need an internet access.The more I read here the more I think something is really broken.

1. 176  Scot  | 4/20/2007 12:33:29 PM

   The one thing that I have always liked about Domino is that it is easy to get up and running. Need to move to another machine - piece of cake. The problem now is that, as stated before, the newer programs require Websphere. We are not going to install Websphere - period. Too many problems and an administrative nightmare. If you look at it from this perspective, yes, IBM is ignoring SMB's. A small shop does not want to install a Domino server and then have to buy another machine to install Websphere (and have to maintain it). Dommino has always been a hands free program. Once you get it setup correctly, rarely do you need to go back and tinker with it.

   Personally I think the major problem has been marketing. Microsoft could sell you your own mother. Our company is a Domino shop (or should I say was). We are in the midst of migrating from Domino to Exchange. The next phase is Sharepoint. I know programming is faster and easier in Domino but that does not matter. What matters is the marketing of a product. IBM has ignored the UI for too long and now we are paying the price. Ver. 8 looks great but for us, about a year too late.

   We tried to sell Sametime but again it is a bit too late. V7.5 is great but it took way to long to create an IM client that was as functional as the "free" ones. I hate to say it but looks are very important. Usability is the key.

   I am sorry to see Domino go but so be it - out of my hands. I will say that IBM has dropped the ball in our case. We were pushing Sametime and at the last Lotusphere, I talked with IBM folks telling them that we are going to drop Sametime for MS Live unless you can show me a demo of the telephony integration for Cisco. Needless to say, I could not get a demo of the product (they did mention going to a specific session to see it). In short, since we were not a 1000+ user base, we got ignored.

1. 177  Charles Robinson http://cubert-codepoet.blogspot.com | 4/20/2007 1:23:19 PM

   @176 - Did you go to the session that was suggested?

   At Lotusphere I managed to corral people from core Domino and Enterprise Integration to discuss an esoteric problem I've been having. They pulled in other people and scheduled a time the following day when everyone would be in the lab so we could hash out the details. Nobody asked me how many users I was supporting. At Lotusphere, if nowhere else in the IBM world, I truly felt like just another customer. And I mean that in a good way, Ed. :)

1. 178  Keith Brooks http://www.keithbrooks.com | 4/20/2007 2:21:57 PM

   @155, I use notes as a stand alone client, it is NOT more difficult than Outlook. Based on how many times I have to walk my "friends" through a new setup.

   @173, email me, I will set it up for you remotely, you tell me how long you need it running. I have a flat fee for that kind of thing.

1. 179  Jack Dausman http://www.leadershipbynumbers.com | 4/20/2007 4:46:37 PM

   Ed., sorry to take so long to add my voice.

   What everyone says about SMB is true to their context. If I could make one suggestion it would be to "hire the customer you wish to have." That person should run the SMB channel.

   Honest, only someone who has survived in SMB is going to understand the hundreds of details, and how each piece has its own place in an ecosystem.

1. 180  Mike VandeVelde  | 4/20/2007 7:36:28 PM

   Well, it seems to have calmed down a bit, I'll see what I can do about that ;-)

   I think Notes is great. It does it all, simply and cheaply and reliably. I'd like to see the message, at least when aimed at SMB, to be that you don't need anything else. That used to be a killer selling point, when contrasted to the collection of stuff from MS you would need to match it. Now it seems like IBM is competing with MS for how much stuff you can/need to get in order to take full advantage of all the features. That's the main problem I have with the marketing message.

   And as a part of that, I feel pretty much talked down to as a true Notes believer. I stand by my comment on Charles' blog - "realistically what we have is Basic = NotesClient, Standard = IBMClientThatHappensToDoNotes". People seem incredulous that anyone besides a total luser would contemplate installing basic - so I guess I'm right that "The real Notes Client seems to have been banished to live in the attic", except I guess in terminology because the Notes client of the last 15-20 years isn't "real" anymore.

   If I have no intention of using Websphere or Tivoli or Activites, and I already have OpenOffice, then what is left to make me want Standard? It's not because I'm a luddite or some kind angry loner. I'm a master Notes application smith, and I intend to keep doing what I do - solving problems using Notes/Domino. It seems I should be embarrassed about this? Maybe I'm somehow inferior if I don't step right up and dive into whatever IBM tells me is what I should be doing? If I don't get with an updated set of acronyms then somehow the people I'm helping are getting ripped off or something?

   I believe that Notes can do pretty much everything that almost any organization needs. Maybe it won't scale up the biggest 10%, but that doesn't concern me at all, and with clustering and what not I'm not entirely sure that's the case anyway.

   Standard is very pretty, and if you get into it it has some very compelling features, and I'm sure it is the right choice for a lot of customers. Great work IBM for putting it together. I'm not saying at all that it is a bloated piece of junk that I refuse to touch with a 10 foot pole or anything like that, I'm just saying that I'm perfectly happy with the same old Notes. Am I alone? The same old Notes got you to 100 million+ seats. Don't now go and say all those people were some kind of suckers to settle for such crap and should en masse jump ship to the wonderful new world of Eclipse. It's truly fantastic that the option is there, but I think it's real sad that Basic now seems to be considered an embarrassment, and that pure Domino shops now seem to be considered some kind of dying breed who just ignorantly can't let go.

   Notes Basic with Domino only is fantastic value for the SMB market. Sametime included makes it even better. Websphere and DB2 and Activities is a step too far, IMHO. It's wonderful that those options are there, a lot of people will and should use them. But don't forget about the wonderful beast that is plain old Notes/Domino!! It deserves much more marketing power!

   While I truly believe that all the things that have come out this year are great, just not so much for me so far, for me personally there are a lot of other things that if I were in charge I would have worked on first. Like fixing up embedded views for example. Things that would directly help me, the true Notes believer, to build better solutions with Notes/Domino. Notes 8 Basic has a lot of improvements, but in my little bubble it would have been better to focus more on the core Notes/Domino and less on bolting on other things. But I know Notes needs a future, so I'm happy to see that other stuff happen and make that future more solid, and I'm more than happy with the improvements we did get. But I'm proud of what I can accomplish with plain old Notes/Domino, I don't want to be looked down on be any superior Phd-of-all-trade types (but let it rip anyway, I like seeing healthy displays of passion!), and I really really want to see IBM admit that plain old Notes Basic with Domino only is great value for money - especially for the SMB market - and start marketing it that way. Not hiding it in footnotes and appendices with no demos.

   How's that?

1. 181  Rob McDonagh http://www.CaptainOblivious.com | 4/20/2007 8:06:18 PM

   I'm a bit late to this party, I see. Woof! Comment number 181. Maybe, if I type fast...

   I have only one point to make. There's been some discussion about whether a "black box" version of (either Activities/Connections or Sametime RTC, depending) would be an acceptable solution to some of the complexity that makes a bad impression in the SMB world. If there was no maintenance or configuration requirement, would anyone care that it was WebSphere or DB2 under the covers? The answer, I suspect, is that most people don't think IBM can actually produce a good enough black box, because otherwise the answer is an obvious yes.

   So my question is this: can IBM do with WebSphere and DB2 what Apple did with BSD? Seriously. OS X sits on top of Unix. And for plenty of geeks, myself included, that's a Good Thing. But for the vast majority of Apple's users it's completely irrelevant. They don't need to know it's Unix, they never need to see Unix, and - as with most things Apple - it JUST WORKS. If the Activities Server was built in such a way that nobody who used it would ever need to dig into WebSphere or DB2 to get it setup and use it under reasonably normal circumstances, then most people wouldn't care what was under the covers.

   I know, I'm comparing a consumer end-user product with an enterprise, back-office product. But I think the comparison has some validity. Is a black box a useful approach? That depends entirely on how good the black box is. The amount of manual adjustment necessary even for Portal 6 (a week of an expert's time to configure it seems to be the norm), which is light years better than 5, suggests that IBM will have an uphill battle convincing people of the quality of the black box. Which doesn't mean that the black box approach won't work in the SMB market.

1. 182  david racicot  | 4/20/2007 9:32:12 PM

   @180. I do think there is value in DB2 for a percentage of customers where adhoc reporting is needed. I obviously need to work more with Standard before commenting further on that. As for the large % of customers that I mentioned earlier (@88 fingers david) ... Notes is all they really really need (though I should leave some room in the SMALL space for DB2 Express for reporting. But then that's more complexity and that's what we've been trying to say is not affordable. That's it! Complexity is not affordable for almost all SMALL, and most MEDIUM. The Linux solution is it. The more momentum behind that the more glorious the future. So that's why we need the Notes client to work on Linux.

1. 183  Craig Wiseman http://www.wiseman.la/cpw | 4/20/2007 11:02:57 PM

   @181 - Rob, you've clearly laid out what's underlying my concern. I've worked with IBM's software since OS/2 2.11, incl. the wonderful technology & horrible UI of IBM AntiVirus, HOD, Communications Manager, et c. Now looking at CommonStore for archiving and compliance

   I haven't seen anything that inspires great or even marginal confidence that IBM can pull off a Black Box of such complexity that "just runs" as Ed said.

   This is not to say that IBM doesn't have great, highly capable products.

1. 184  Nathan T. Freeman http://nathan.lotus911.com | 4/21/2007 8:57:21 AM

   "So that's why we need the Notes client to work on Linux."

   { Link }

1. 185  Ed Brill http://www.edbrill.com | 4/21/2007 10:04:29 AM

   @180, that's going to take a whole separate blogpost. I do have to say, I'm amazed that anyone considers Eclipse a barrier to the future, even the future of NSF-based Notes client applications. There's so much net positive about it (like, for example, the Linux client Nathan and thousands of others are using already) that it's hard for me to imagine the next ten years of Notes without such a significant step forward.

1. 186  Richard Moy http://www.dominointerface.com | 4/21/2007 12:55:43 PM

   @185,

   Ed. If anyone is interested in discussing this further, I have create a new blog about this { Link } If you are using Lotus Notes and Domino in a small business, I would like to hear from you about what you would like to see improved in Notes and Domino platform that would address your needs as a small business or what products or solutions you would like to have to running your small business. What's important to your business that would keep your business to continue using Notes and even expand its use. I would like to hear constructive suggestions not crap like that Notes is ugly, or we need lower pricing.

1. 187  Ben Langhinrichs http://www.GeniiSoft.com/showcase.nsf/GeniiBlog | 4/22/2007 7:22:06 AM

   @185 - I have to tell you, Ed, that the only reason I spend so much time in the Standard client is because of the productivity editors. I think those are a wonderful addition and a huge potential advantage, but if I didn't want those, the entire Eclipse setup would just be a rusty anchor around the Notes client's neck (for me personally). If a company needs Activities or composite apps, great, but the memory requirements, performance issues and spaghetti gloop directories are a lot to add on to a fairly standard Windows desktop customer. (And before anybody says that is is a beta and the performance and memory requirements will be better, try running Basic and ask yourself why it doesn't suffer as much as Standard) The power of Eclipse may manifest itself eventually, and I expect it will with third party add-ons and extensions, but I honestly don't see why you would be surprised that people don't see it now.

1. 188  Wayne Sobers  | 4/22/2007 12:00:27 PM

   It's funny that IBM would have an Express version which really is aimed at Small business but miss them out completely when designing the new client.

   In the past, when I've installed a new beta, I expected to see new or augmented design surfaces, some revision in the mail template and some fixes to previous bugs/features. Not this time. You should have put the changes in the "basic" client and called it "standard", put other changes in the eclipse version and called it "enhanced".

   With each domino upgrade, I get more users, more security, more stability *on the same hardware*. Now I'm told, you get no increase in client capability until you upgrade your PC base.

   I really hope some of this gets addressed in a point version release.

   There is another area which is being left out, which is to position the notes client as a replacement for Access and other Spreadsheet model type applications without the Domino backend.

1. 189  Ed Brill http://www.edbrill.com | 4/22/2007 12:36:16 PM

   There is an increase in client capability in the basic configuration, several new features (in-line spell check, improved personal address book, . But it is not the road to the future. Again, I'm genuinely surprised by the reactions here, and need to start a new blog about it, because since "Hannover" was first announced 23 months ago, this is the direction that has been set.

   The Eclipse-based standard configuration isn't a different client. It isn't an "upsell" and to use it you don't need anything but a Domino server (the asterisk being if you choose to look at the Activities plug-in or Sametime plug-in). I wouldn't want to call it "enhanced" as that implies some kind of additional premium price -- that's what the other guys do.

   Need to start a new blog entry on this, looks like I've got a few big ones coming up for Monday and Tuesday.

1. 190  Ed Brill http://www.edbrill.com | 4/22/2007 11:05:26 PM

   and even though I posted two new entries tonight, I have not forgotten my commitment to come back to this thought on the Eclipse-based configuration. Give me a day or so.

1. 191  Dan King  | 4/23/2007 4:14:12 AM

   @174, 175

   All I wanted was a demo CD to be able to test out Sametime. This wasn't available which was annoying, and being told you had to pay for the privilege of a trial wasn't great. We're only a small company (an SMB in Europe, but maybe smaller than that where IBM are concerned), and the trial would of cost us as much as buying the product (almost). It's too late now as the server we had available for trying it out is now in use elsewhere.

   We did, of course, try the online demo, and also tried a demo that the BP set up at their place (which kept crashing). We didn't go for it in the end because it just seemed a bit too slow (which was why we wanted to try it out on our network to see if it might have been better).

   The general point though is why is there not a trial version of this product available, at least for present customers?

   Dan

1. 192  Ed Brill http://www.edbrill.com | 4/23/2007 6:31:40 AM

   @191 there will be a trial version of Sametime posted based on the 7.5.1 code (which becomes available today, if all goes well). I know that didn't help you in the past, but it should help for that product on a go-forward basis.

1. 193  Charles Robinson http://cubert-codepoet.blogspot.com | 4/23/2007 9:15:33 AM

   @192 - Thanks for that follow up, Ed. I've been asking for the same thing since 7.5 shipped. It'll be great for those of us who don't even have a BP (much less a Lotus rep) to work with. :-)

1. 194  Mike VandeVelde  | 4/23/2007 1:23:26 PM

   Eclipse is by no means a barrier Ed. IBM just has to understand that not all clients *need* it. Clients who choose to stick with Basic for the time being should have no reason to feel ashamed, it shouldn't be hidden in the liner notes as an option for lame hardware. Show it off! There are definitely some useful improvements in it over 7.

   The impression I have is that IBM is pushing hard to get rid of Basic, maybe 9 will be Eclipse only? I can understand not wanting to have 2 versions to support, but am I right that Standard is the same code base as Basic just surfaced in Eclipse? That should keep away a few of the headaches, and should let you update both with one code change right? So why not let Basic live on (at least for the medium term future) as an optimized specialist Notes-only client option?

   Anyway, just wanted to clarify that to me at least Eclipse is no real "barrier", just a further option that people may or may not want to take advantage of, with either choice being great value. Looking forward to seeing the conversation carry on in another post. Thanks for enabling the dialogue!

1. 195  Erik Brooks  | 4/24/2007 7:23:37 AM

   I've got to agree with Ben here. The switch to Eclipse isn't doing a whole heck of a lot more "out of the box" versus the Basic client.

   When you factor in the added complexity, extra memory overhead, etc. it's pretty easy to see why somebody would simply want to run with Basic for the time being.

   I was hoping that there would be more "out of the box" with Designer on Eclipse as that would at least give more exposure to the Eclipse direction.

   Overall, long-term, "big picture" though -- this is a GREAT move. I realize the major goal of 8.0 was to "do no harm", and once various pieces are more tightly integrated with Eclipse I think we'll see some big things open up.

1. 196  Ben Poole http://benpoole.com | 4/24/2007 8:24:41 AM

   (Sorry for taking this further off-track).

   FWIW, I think IBM are doing right by holding back on releasing Domino in Eclipse at this early stage in the product's lifespan. My experience of many Lotus Notes & Domino developers is that they're simply not ready for what Eclipse offers yet.

   To my mind, a lag between Notes 8 standard and the Eclipse-based development tools is thus no bad thing: the product can develop properly, whilst developers can get educated!

1. 197  Ed Brill http://www.edbrill.com | 4/24/2007 5:05:53 PM

   So, I've posted a new thread about the standard vs. basic point. Some of these comments might be worthwhile as a repost (for example, Ben L's assertion on beta performance, which I assure you is improving as we head towards release).

   see { Link }