Ed Brill

Wow. You would have to be absolutely stone-cold crazy to migrate any kind of enterprise mail to Sun's offering. I'm talking barking mad here.

OK - can we all face a fact here.....

"Notes is dead" is a myth that has been going around for years! It's still alive, still kickin', and still kickin' ass!

Security, stability, performance, reliability, extendability, interoperability, programmability - key business values that I challenge any other product to match "bang for the buck".

N'uff Said!

Cheers

Bob Baehr

The Unofficial Poster Child For Lotus Notes, Domino, and Lotus Foundations

P.S.

Ed - sorry about the "a**" word above!

It's important to dress up lies with truths (or perceived truths), and, there is one buried in there that forms the foundation (sic) for the concern that many people feel about N/D's future

IBM already has a(n) ... application server (WebSphere). Domino didn't make the cut.

Up until IBM began pushing Websphere, N/D was marketed as a general purpose app server that could do a lot more than 'collaboration'. There's a lot of new stuff in R8 & coming in R8.5, but most of it is left over from the Workplace debacle. (expeditor, Symphony, even xForms). Traveler, Atlantic, and, and xForms are very cool, but don't use the traditional Domino app server.

IBMotus needs to come out with a rock-solid and clear message and practice that the Notes/Domino RAD platform is here to stay, and be very clear that it's not just a short term sham to get everyone hooked on Websphere/DB2.

My 2 cents.

The thing about Sun puzzles me... I mean, I like their stuff OK, and at my day job we host a pretty heavy Domino environment on Solaris, but in the ISP world, I see more and more outfits that long-ago moved to Linux or something akin to it. The site that hosted the original Gonzo Lotusphere Page has been on FreeBSD for at least seven or eight years, maybe more, and they're about the biggest independent ISP in Maryland.

I know of far more organizations who have Domino mail than Sun. I know of far more MS-based organizations than Sun-based. I can't think of a single large enterprise who has gone completely to web-based mail for critical business functions, and a large number of them actively block employee access to freemail services offsite. Almost all government facilities are forbidden by law to host critical systems with a third party.

I don't even depend on web-based mail. Sure, I have accounts on most or all of the big ones, and some obscure ones, too, but my critical mail comes to my actual server in my actual house and gets stored on an actual drive that I can grab with two hands and run with if big rocks start to fall from the sky. Once I have that mail on my host, I have total control, and a careless backhoe operator two states away who cuts a fiber optic line won't render me helpless.

No one with any sense would run their corporate network any other way.

Now, in the SMB market, sure, there are probably companies that operate off GMail as a cost saver. But back in the days, I also knew lots of SMBs that used 1-2-3 as their "corporate database." The fact you could get away with it doesn't make it a valid IT architecture.

The last thing about Sun is that it is, at its gut, a company that produces software so that it can sell hardware. For them to transition to trying to be a major player in software-as-a-service now, when Google, Microsoft, IBM and hundreds of smaller players have been in the field for years and doing it as well as it can be done given the limits of the technology and the market doesn't seem like an achievable goal. I remember when Novell was a company that wrote a network operating system so they could sell servers for it, and then transitioned to pure software, but that was more than 20 years ago and is not a repeatable example.

(not about the Sun part, but about the SaaS market being serious competition to Domino/Exchange)

I'm glad to see IBM taking the hosted email services competition seriously here. Honestly, I think it is a much bigger problem for MS, who has historically had a much larger share of the SMB market than Notes/Domino. I do think it is inevitable that, over the next few years, anyone who has a business of less than 200 employees will have to have some special reason (intellectual property concerns, archival regulations, etc.) to NOT use some hosted software solution for messaging. It will be interesting to see how/if Lotus Foundations plays a role in this market segment that is changing fast.

Ed, a question. Does this mean we'll be seeing a Domino offering on BlueHouse soon? I hope so!

Actually, @6 was going to prompt that question, Bob. IBM already has a SaaS offering called Applications on Demand. We are looking at several ways to expand that in the context of Domino and mail under the Lotus brand. More to come on that.

Ed - Please stop feeding the troll.

@9 MARK! Good to hear from you. Honestly, if DominoPower hadn't fed the troll, and the troll's PR firm hadn't blasted that article out to hundreds of industry analysts and other contacts, I would have ignored. But DominoPower gave Ron's rant an air of legitimacy it clearly doesn't deserve.

Remember that LCS announcement? :)

You too! Found your blog from a link in another blog that Ron linked to in a self-promoting, pointless message to the ccmail-alum list. (I really don't have this much time on my hands.)

I guess you have a point there. Maybe in this case public ridicule is the best bug repellent.

I know that SaaS is a hot topic but it is not so easy to implement if you also sell your software through a channel.

Not every partner thinks it is a great idea that the vendor now does the business.

No secret that I think that the Domino application model is broken but the combination of custom applications and collaboration on a unified platform is a powerful model for selling software (either as a service or standalone).

Hosted Microsoft (not only Exchange) is a hot topic indeed but maybe one of the reasons is that nowadays it just became more difficult to be a Microsoft shop. While the complexity of the various software and server products might be manageable by larger companies many smaller companies feel that for the fraction of functionality that is in use the price to run it in-house is not justified.

Ron Herardian... I remember him from cc:Mail days. What a blast from the past.

The art of making a name for oneself by espousing a controversial viewpoint has a long and distinguished tradition. These days, we call it link-baiting.

Well, it's obvious this guy is a hack who couldn't pass a Rhetoric 101 class today. When you can't speak intelligently, shout as loud as you can and throw gas on the fire. At least he will feel relevent. That being said, SaaS is the wave of the future for SMB, and soon after, enterprise. The proverbial gorilla is going to be Microsoft Online. I've seen the infrastructure, I've been briefed on the capabilities, and I know the pricing. At least 2 extremely large enterprises (50k+ seats each) are moving to it as we speak. It's out there, and if you're in the business of running your infrastructure, I promise you your CFO will come to you in the next 36 months asking you to justify why he has all of this capital expense sitting in the basement. It's going to be a very tough battle to win.

I guess sometimes you have to get dirty with the people slinging the mud. Keep up the good work. :-) That's not a criticism, I'm glad to see you combating the ignorance that's widespread.

@12 - You hit the nail on the head about MS's infrastructure. We considered upgrading to Exchange 2007 and deploying Sharepoint but it would require us to nearly double the number of servers we have deployed. Outsourcing came up as an option but the company I work for is too small for that to be feasible. You need a certain scale before you can remove the expense. Decommissioning a single server and dropping 120 CAL's in exchange for a monthly hosting bill that is more expensive just doesn't make sense.

@14 - Care to make a bet on that? I can say with absolute certainty that my CFO would never come to me and ask me to justify the infrastructure we have. I don't work for a company that has enough IT infrastructure that outsourcing any part of it would be any less expensive than keeping it in house, though.

Ok, I read the comment about the Constitution on Yahoo but still keep asking myself how can someone with this opinion be an IBM Business Partner?

Don't feed the trolls? Sure the discussion is now at a point where it does not make much sense to go on but I do think that the discussion on Yahoo have some interesting points (not from Ron though).

Yeah, but nowhere does Ron single out Notes as the victim of this trend to SaaS. It's just that the publication is focused on Notes, so that's what he talks about. He's talking to his *audience*.

This isn't a new trend. I've been talking about it since at least the mid-90s. But we’ve seen vendor after vendor try to offer hosted Exchange — many of them backed by substantial Microsoft resources — with few surviving.

The problem is one of cost. Although the vendors would make a coherent, well-argued case that an organization should migrate to its hosted service, few IT managers believed it would save them money.

These vendors would tell potential purchasers that they could provide the service for less money than it was currently costing to run it in-house, but when it came time to actually quote for the service, most IT managers simply didn’t believe it cost them that much.

For fans of Economics 101, the hosted providers were charging more than the market would bear. Looks like Microsoft is making the same mistake with MOS.

More at { Link }

Its been years since I had an interaction with Ron, and I can't recall ever having one that was in any way positive.

It seems like every few years he pops up like this. It must be when he is into something new or is looking to generate revenue because he arrives on scene with a splashy controversial headline that has little or no factual basis, then threatens lawsuits privately for people who call him on it. If he ever makes such a threat to you, don't negotiate with him. Send him a response saying that your reaction to any further steps will be very vocal, very public, and very negative. Always call the bluff of a guy like that. I've made it clear to him in the past that I will probably publish any future communications from him or anyone representing him.

For those who are IBM Business Partners, have a look in past forums for his comments. There aren't many discussions with him but they're almost always the same, and the underlying reason for his question doesn't usually seem to be what it appears to be on the surface -- not to me anyway. You judge for yourself.

Personally, I would turn down any business opportunity in which I knew he was involved and walk away from any in progress as soon as I was ethically able should he become involved in one ongoing.

Well lets see. Since both Exchange & Domino run on LANs...LAN based email is most certainly still in play.

And stating that back in 1995, and having it still be the most common form of corporate mail isn't much of a prediction.

Only in the last couple of years are we seeing more of a SAAS based or web based mail format taking any hold.

Ages ago, I worked on a SaaS telemedecine application (Domino based believe it or not). This was back in the dot.bomb days. The "customers" (and I use the term loosely) didn't want to pay for it...it was mostly a tire-kicking opportunity where they had lots of loopholes in contracts so that if it didn't perform as they expected for 90 days, they didn't have to pay.

I'd be surprised if people who are doing SaaS are really doing that well. The only one I know doing decently well is Salesforce.com and I think their offering is pretty weak (a Domino one could easily do better)-:

And ditto on Ron and DominoPower. Try getting off DominoPower's spam list...you'll never be able to. I just add them to my spam blocker and let them bounce away...I have no respect for anyone who associates with them ;-)

@15 - Actually, I would hope he would at least ask. Now, SaaS, outsourcing, out-tasking, etc., aren't for every company, but it is always a wise idea to get a gauge of where you stand. Sometimes it makes financial sense, sometimes it does not. Most of the enterprises I deal with could save a significant amount of money by moving to a hosted solution. Whether they choose to do so or not is the hard part of the job.

I did not see intelligence from him or his article. He seemed to think that Notes/Domino had not changed since the 90's (which is what MS would like customers to think). What a behind the times and uninformed person he is.

Personally, before R8 came out, I "almost" switched to MS. R8 is going in a great direction offering more capabilities than any other single solution on the market.

Keep up the great work!

DominoPower's editor, David Gewirtz, has left a comment about all this on BenPoole's site: { Link }

Go to google and try "java is dead", "javascript is dead", "domino is dead". There are thousands of those claims and if a single of these was true I would have no job today.

I couldn't understand why DominoPower ran the article so prominently in the first place. It was the top subject on their email alert and made me immediately reach for the unsubscribe link as I have no interest in seeing such an outlandish view against the very product you'd think DominoPower would be supporting.

@25 - my exact thoughts. Life is too short for this.

Chris

Sun has too many issues in both their technologies and their company leadership to be seen as a viable option at this point, but something to watch for in the enterprise market in the years to come. I think Google has a better chance to disrupt the enterprise market, once they can clean up their sales pitch. Google still has some learning to do on how the old school enterprise works though, after dealing with them in many sales calls. They don't present well to the old guys... yet.

The market is changing, which is good. The consumer space tells us email is free. Go to work and email can cost hundred of dollars per user when you factor in hardware, software, support, backup, archiving, ediscovery, data center space, power, encryption, data classification, etc. So, from a financial perspective - email should be dead. From a tool perspective that people rely upon to do their job daily, it can't die - only morph in to something better. There must be innovation. We've all tried hard to get people to use tools other than email, few have succeeded, most have failed. So, we must innovate around where people live. That is a tall order for the vendors in the space and I hope the competition is good for us all. I've seen presentations from all the top vendors on their 'top secret' projects around email and I'm a bit worried. A lot of similar ideas that mimic already existing products rather than new ideas.

Ron is playing us all and doing a good job at it. It's a sleazy move and now that it's been exposed he's promoting a product, rather than his normal self glorification, it's just slimy.

Let's all get back to work and find a cure for this common disease called the inbox :-)

enjoy

- Jeff

@27 - Well said Jeff. In other news, Ron's taken it upon himself to contact me via email and instruct me where I am wrong on my view.

How fun. Needless to say that goes both ways. : )

@28 - Sounds like Ron is in charge of a large corporations EA department :-) (sorry - the last few I've worked with come across as out of touch as Ron does)

Deleted - no anonymous comments allowed, and sad to see there is a mis-information source inside one of my customers.