. . . Lotus Notes should be considered a legacy product at this point. Its collaborative application and content platform capabilities are still useful, but they are out of step with current market dynamics, and even IBM now explicitly encourages you to look elsewhere (i.e., IBM Connections) forcollaborationsocial business solutions. There was a point, several years ago, when it appeared possible that IBM was going to be able to sustain a "dual-lane highway" for its Notes and more Internet-architecture-focused customers, but that approach was unsuccessful for several reasons, and IBM is now strategically focused on Connections and other IBM WebSphere-based offerings.
Perhaps IBM Lotus Notes and Domino isn't a product for a conference focused on technologies and business practices that liberate the workforce from the constraints of legacy communication and productivity tools like email. After all, isn't that what Notes and Domino does best, email?
Before I have to don flame retardant underwear, my comment should be viewed as sarcastic. Perhaps Notes and Domino shouldn't have been there, but I am certain that there are some applications that could have been presented without having to mention "IBM Lotus Notes and Domino" as the underlying technology.
Then, Peter scans the conference vendors and sees:
Notes-inspired capabilities most people now take for granted in their collaboration solutions, for example, include:
- Workspaces, to facilitate purposeful, joint activity
- Pervasive discussion/conversation capabilities, including the ability to comment in context
- A hypertext content model and the ability create links to workspaces and documents, to categorize documents, and to share information via e-mail, subscription/notification, and other mechanisms
- Identity, authorization, and access control mechanisms to specify user- and group-level privileges, and to ensure that identities are authentic (Notes also includes dynamic content- and context-based access control capabilities that most modern alternatives have yet to deliver)
- A distributed and replicated document storage subsystem (which, in the case of Notes, has served as the inspiration for recently popular "NoSQL" systems such as CouchBase)
- Platform services, developer tools, and templates that can be used to create custom applications
While the product is nowhere to be seen, it's influences are everywhere. If you recognize what you are seeing. So, as a "legacy product" it's legacy seems to be that it has inspired many other products, ones that are more in step with "current market dynamics." Funny, that a product that created a software catagory, that released the workforce from having to be in the office and tethered to a network cable, that provides capabilites way beyond email, is out of step with today's information technology needs and wants. How and when did that happen?
Link: Peter O'Kelly: Enterprise 2.0 conference impressions: Lotus Notes is nowhere
Link: Peter O'Kelly: Enterprise 2.0 conference impressions: Lotus Notes is everywhere
Comment posted by Fredrik Malmborg06/30/2011 07:58:46 AM
Homepage: http://www.replikera.se
Gregg, I think you have discovered something very important.
Notes/Domino is not something that the Social Brats can earn millions on. It is not a career burster. It is not brand new.
People wanting to earn big money and quick money knows they need something fresh and almost not understandable from business point.
And notice that they do not talk about Outlook/Exchange/Sharepoint.
It is not about replacing what we have, it is adding new.
The fact that the IT pop artists do not talk about Notes/Domino is not a sign of it's death. It is another sign of its matureness. Unfortunately that can be boring.
Comment posted by Richard Moy06/30/2011 11:30:39 AM
Homepage: http://www.dominointerface.com
As we all know Notes and Domino started out as an application server, after IBM purchases Lotus Notes and Domino was marketed more as an email system against Exchange. There has been too much focus on Domino as legacy. What is legacy is that Domino is what it has been. The platform is fine. It has its limitations that I do not see IBM changing. However, the platform is fine for the SMB market and there is where a majority of the market is. IBM Connections is too big and expensive for most organizations. LotusLive or whatever it is going to be called is okay but not earth shattering. Many companies still want an internal solution that they control.
It is the ISVs who need carry the day for Domino. There needs to be applications that are earth shattering on Domino that the customer does not know it is Domino. XPages help, but developers need to understand that it is just a tool. It is what you do with it that is important.
Comment posted by John Stockbridge06/30/2011 06:35:01 PM
Homepage: http://www.brookstone.com.au
Richard
I couldn't agree more. Our business is almost based totally on Domino. We sell solutions to SMBs who not only don't care what the platform is, they don't ask.
It is IBM who think that Domino/Notes is not cool, not the customers, and certainly not the incredibly loyal business partners.
Email, when they discover it, is seen as a bonus.
Comment posted by hpd53007/04/2011 05:24:51 AM
Homepage: http://www.hpd530.com
Indeed a very good read! Very informative post with pretty good insight on all aspects of the topic! Will keep visiting in future too!
Comment posted by Mike Gonzalez07/14/2011 12:02:24 PM
WE all know the power of Notes but as it's been said thousands of times, no marketing. Isn't it a piety that MS markets products that don't work well and they sell sell sell. IBM doesn't market the best product on the market and companies are leaving the product in the dust.
Notes needs to have it's own browser that can display all the bells and whistles of Notes on the internet. If IBM would have made that years ago, an intelligent browser language that utilizes the power inside of Notes, it would be different.
If IBM is calling it a legacy product, guess how the user community is going to look at it. Sigh.....................
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