Leadership By Numbers

Category
What are analysts and Microsofties saying about IBM's press releases from last week ? The search engines have picked up the releases, and this new face to Lotus has created some controversy. Even Quickr is being cited outside the core tech sources.It's not just about IBM's press releases, either. Product announcements for mobile devices are much more likely to contain content about Lotus Domino connectivity (e.g., the Nokia E75).

200+ Microsoft Partners Per Month Flocking to Sell IBM Lotus Foundations Appliance was a tidal wave that washes the "Lotus is just Notes" banner out to sea. A second wave followed, shortly after, with the next announcement of Companies Choosing Lotus Collaboration to Work Smarter and Lower Costs.

Harry Brelsford, adds some back story, explaining why loyal Microsoft partners would be buying into the Lotus Foundations program:

. . . many Microsoft partners privately express to me that the Microsoft Program has gone 80/20. That is, the focus is on select elite upper-caste SMB partners and their peers (typically upper-middle class males -- this is the top 20%) that bring in 80% of the licensing revenue. Engaging in an 80/20 strategy is fraught with issues including creating opportunities for your competitors.

The VAR Guy weighs in with an acknowledgement that he "has heard rumors that Windows Small Business Server 2008 suffers from a difficult upgrade path," and that "IBM, Cisco Systems, and a growing list of technology vendors smell blood in the water." And, The SBS Diva, suggests that "regarding the slowing sales.... it's the economy stupid."

Not everyone is so sanguine in reading press releases. Stephen Arnold is suspicious about the numbers, and even thinks that fees may have been waived to induce Business Partners. So, there is going to be an undercurrent that doesn't realize that in order to be in the Lotus Foundations program, a unit has to be purchased. They are not being given away.

Laurie McCabe, a Partner at Hurwitz & Associates, summarizes the announcement with her own experience:

I think IBM is doing it right. I've had several demos at different IBM events, and Foundations makes good on its pledge to provide small businesses with an easy to use, turnkey collaboration solution--really! Foundations offers file storage, advanced backup and recovery, connectivity and security, collaboration and email and application services in one integrated package. Some of the things that set it apart include:

• Automated installation and configuration; it discovers and maps the network for you, and auto-configures firewall and VPN, so you can deploy it in 30 minutes or less.
• Automatic data backups, and full system recovery if a disaster should occur.
• Symphony office productivity tools are bundled with, so you don't need to buy Microsoft Office software.
• Under the covers, you get the reliability and cost benefits of Linux and open source technologies (Foundations is priced less than Microsoft SBS servers), but you don't have to know a thing about Linux or these technologies to run it.
• It has the collaboration power of Lotus Notes and Domino, tailored for small businesses, with Notes clients for Windows, Mac, and Linux.

As important, IBM has factored in what's often the biggest hurdle to getting momentum for new product: inertia. Outlook users can continue to use Outlook with Domino Access for Microsoft Outlook. And, IBM added VMware virtualization to Foundations, so you can also run Windows applications on it. Customers don't have to give up things they already use--Outlook and Windows apps, such as Intuit QuickBooks. And, I almost forgot--you can also get a 30-day free trial, and it's black and yellow, like a bumble bee.

The small business technology market and the channel partners that serve them are at a turning point. Many businesses are tired of dealing with the cost and complexity of Microsoft products and licensing, and channel partners are deciding that they need another option for serving customers that don't want to deal with these hassles. This time, IBM is in the right place, at the right time, with the right solution, to give them a true alternative.

From Redmond, the Microsoft message seems out of sorts with what is currently being said by independent analysts. Bob Muglia, president of Microsoft's key server and tools division, argued to Bank of America Merrill Lynch analysts that Exchange is cheaper than Domino, which he saw as "long in the tooth." Yet, the Forrester Research analysts are defining the ND8 class of Lotus and Domino as presenting a "way cooler" implementation. IBM's approach to collaboration is looking pretty visionary.

We are in the midst of an industry shift away from the Microsoft desktop-to-server platform. Linux is starting to emerge on consumer devices (e.g., ARM processors for the hardware in smartphones and netbooks; the software is Ubuntu, Moblin, or Android). Lotus should have a strong association with this direction. After all, Lotus Notes, Domino and Sametime have supported Linux for years. Oddly, the synergy has been mostly confined to a corporate environment.

Domino Linux seems to have been principally about running a cheaper data center, rather than winning new converts. This argument can work both ways.  It's possible for Microsoft to steal Linux away from Domino, by touting Linux clients as building-blocks for re-architecting a cheaper messaging platform. Right now, the latest Gnome release includes a mapi implementation for the Evolution client, so that Ubuntu, for instance, can connect up to an Microsoft Exchange server with a free, open-source mail client.

Fedora 11 is readying it's next release, and it will be supporting Openchange to provide "a portable Open Source implementation of Microsoft Exchange Server and Exchange protocols." It's interesting, and it won't happen overnight, but just as the Samba has created Windows compatible file servers, it's fair to expect the same for email through the open libmapi protocol. If Domino were to include the open libmapi protocol (or its capability), then the advantage would be for Domino.

For those that work within the IBM Lotus framework, the returns on their investment is paying back big dividends. The flexibility of implementation, the pricing structures, and the base technology are being recognized as best-in-class. The Business Partner program has expanded and analysts are giving Lotus a thumbs up. IBM/Lotus is definitely attracting attention. If Lotus ties up some concerns with the low-cost Linux client, and continues to support consumer devices, they are going to continue drawing a crowd.

Posted by Jack Dausman At 7:14 PM Location Washington, DC | Permalink | Comments (2)

Category Administration IBM/Lotus Domino ND8
Here's what I found for sizing the breakdown of DAOS compression: the file storage for the nlo attachments required 25% of the original total. There are a couple of different ways to gauge how the storage changes from DAOS will impact your planning. I've found that it's hard to summarize, so I put it into a graphic:

From TechShots

Technorati Tags: Domino 8.5, DAOS, Lotus Notes

Posted by Jack Dausman At 5:44 AM Location Washington, DC | Permalink | Comments (0)

Category
Ted Schadler of Forrester Research lays it out for the who's-in and who's-out, for collaboration. In summarizing Google's "Wave," he looks at what it means for "Information & Knowlege Management Professionals and for the industry."

• WIM #3: Microsoft will have yet another innovation hill to climb (and it will). Redmond will have to digest this advance, but it will shortly ramp up its own conversation-oriented online engine. It will have to make this kind of conversational advance part of its BPOS strategy at some point.

• WIM #4: IBM's approach to collaboration is looking pretty visionary. Lotus has been quietly reinventing itself over the past few years, and if you haven't looked at Notes or Sametime lately, you need to. And with lead architect Allistair Rennie now at the vision helm, these products with their REST-ful APIs, redesigned interfaces, and Web-centric design metaphors are looking good.

Spot on.

Posted by Jack Dausman At 3:34 AM Location Washington, DC | Permalink | Comments (1)

Category Administration IBM/Lotus Domino
DAOS is amazing, and maybe revolutionary. The more I work with it, the more potential I see for its implementation. We've begun enabling DAOS on our Win2008 archive servers, and will be turning next to the AIX mail servers.

I had expected a 30% gain. I had run the DAOS estimator on a 2.3 TB archive server, and I've been using DAOS on some ND8.5 application servers for over four months. I felt comfortable with DAOS. Thirty percent seemed to me to be a safe region as an estimate. Prior to DAOS, I've analyzed a large sampling of our mail files, and found that attachments typically used 70% of the mail file. The first picture is a screen shot of a report that I use to examine mail usage with attachments. The slide comes from my Lotusphere 2009 presentation on upgrades.

What I couldn't figure out from my own analytic tools, was how much of the 70% was being used for duplicate attachments. Because my company encourages the auto-saving of all sent email, I was expecting a significant number of duplicates between the mail files. What I didn't expect, was a 60% reduction in storage use. When I saw the final numbers, I was stunned. I told someone that the results are in the range of "science-fiction."

DAOS recovered nearly two-thirds of the space of our SAN.

Midway through the conversion process I took a snapshot with the Notes Administrator Client, to chart the difference in storage usage between the two clustered servers. Both are Domino 8.5, Win2008 servers connected to our NetApps SAN. The graphs of historical statistics are positioned strangely, but it's readable with a few markers. The timelines goes from right to left, the most recent time being against the left margin. What's being measured on the Y axis, is the amount of free space. When the lines slope downward, close to bottom, then it's time to ask the Unix admins for the partition to be enlarged.


I enabled DAOS on a few directories (that's the first upward bump), waited a day, and then began the conversion for all the mail files. Each SAN partition for the clustered pair of Domino servers is 2.3 TB, with 2.043 TB in use for the NSFs. At the completion of the conversion, the DAOS enabled server went from 2.043 TB to .829 TB. That's a reduction of 60%.

Pulling the attachments out of the mail files, and reducing duplicate entries improves the entire architecture, and brings additional capabilities:

• It means that differential backups are much faster. The attachments are placed in file folders (encrypted), each folder holding 40k files. Using differential backups on databases is not efficient, because a 2 G NSF file might have one document altered, and it will trigger a complete backup for the entire 2 G. However, with DAOS, (1) the mail file has been reduced in size and (2) the attachments don't change frequently. I'd expect differential backups to be at least twice as fast as before DAOS.
• NSF compacting is faster. Prior to DAOS, attachments were cut up into 64k chunks, and serialized into multiple fields. With DAOS, the attachments are no longer in the database, so compacting can zip along, unhindered with managing the extraneous data.
  
• Extracting an attachment from a document is going to be faster. Large attachments make for lots of chopping apart to squeeze them into the database, and lots of stiching-back-together when they are retrieved. With DAOS, the file attachment is stored just like an HTML file, and read much faster than if it was being recomposed from its many 64k parts.
  
• File maintenance will be faster (e.g., consistency checks).
• Disk I/O demands are reduced.
• Because the disk I/O demands are less, then indexing is faster.
  

Personally, I think there is one downside to DAOS. Ignore it at your peril. Because as soon as it is activated, and the performance and storage savings are realized, then the questions are going to start, "Tell me again, why was there a delay in implementing DAOS ?"


Technorati Tags: Lotus Domino, DAOS

Posted by Jack Dausman At 6:45 PM Location Washington, DC | Permalink | Comments (3)

Category
CNet posts that Dell is offering Ubuntu for the premier XPS series of laptops. It's not really news. After all, I've been using the XPS 1330 set up for about six months (the XPS 13 is a little different, in that it has fashionable leather trim), and a few weeks back, I listened to a podcast interview of Mark Shuttleworth who answered the question about what he uses as a laptop: "XPS 1330."

What is news with Dell and Ubuntu, is that it's no longer a footnoted secret. Dell is even pushing Ubuntu to the Education market with the Latitude 2100N.

Portable, powerful, and Linux: the Dell Latitude 2100-N makes a great netbook for students and workers on the go.

Even John Dvorak, who can be a curmudgeon on Linux implenations, is warming up to Ubuntu:

The more I use the free Linux distros out there, mainly Ubuntu, and combine that with free word processors that are essentially clones of MS-Word 2003, the more I wonder why people would pay hundreds of dollars for the Microsoft products when the functionality is nearly identical.

While nobody believes that Ubuntu is the best of breed as an operating system or that AbiWord is as good as Word, the differences are not worth the added expense to most users.

It's really interesting to watch the gravity of TCO drive a disruptive technology forward into the work place.

Posted by Jack Dausman At 4:14 AM Location Washington, DC | Permalink | Comments (0)

Category
Technorati Profile I'm looking at two different surveys, with wildly different conclusions about adopting open-source software. If you are looking at open-source, knowing what differentiates these studies from each other is important. Starting off,  Forrester Research has concluded that the #1 concern is security. Really ? Software Development Times, has published these findings in an article by David Rubenstein which opines on the rise of open-source.

Download the print version, because it contains the Forrester summary points:

1. Security of the software
2. Availability of service and support
3. Overall complexity
4. Product immaturity
5. Total cost of ownership
6. Legal issues of intellectual property
7. Viability of open-source communities

Now, if you were to read the latest Information Week Analytics Report on the "State of Open Source Software Adoption," (by Michael A. Davis) wouldn't you expect to find a correlation ? Here's the top eight criteria for choosing open-source, in order of importance:

1. Total cost of ownership
2. Features
3. Security
4. License type
5. Roadmap
6. Support options
7. Financial stability of the supplier

 

Hm. These two surveys are pretty much upside down on the same subject. The survey population was about the same size: Forrester Research had 582 respondents and Information Week had 557. To find the split, you have to look closely (just like reading a company's annual report, all the really good stuff is buried in the small print). At the bottom of each graph, is an explanation of the population base. Forrester Research was looking at companies which had not chosen to adopt open-source, and were weighing their decision. The Information Week survey was composed of companies that had made a choice, and were using open-source software.

Information Week presents the more interesting data--it explains the justification for the adoption, rather than the rationale for delay. It suggests that even though decision makers might say they want security and support, if the price is right and the open-source offering has the most important features, then open-source will be accepted. I'm not sure I needed a survey to spell out a basic tenet of human nature.

Any restaurant knows how to present their menu to guide their customer to a satisfying choice. Sure, I want to see healthy, wise options available for my lunch. But, if the price is right, then I'm going to be tempted with the All American Everything Cheeseburger.

It's the best deal.

Technorati Tags: Open Source, Michael A. Davis Technorati Profile

Posted by Jack Dausman At 6:46 PM Location Washington, DC | Permalink | Comments (0)

Category Management
If your company is lurching into financial uncertainly, you'll want to read the Jim Collin's excerpt "How the Mighty Fall" in this week's Business Week. What's especially worth posting on the wall, is the trait list for the The Dynamics of Leadership-Team Behavior:

Teams on the way down: People shield those in power from unpleasant facts, fearful of penalties and criticism for shining light on the rough realities

Teams on the way up: People bring forth grim facts, "Come here and look, man, this is ugly" to be discussed; leaders never criticize those who bring forth harsh realities

Teams on the way down: People assert strong opinions without providing data, evidence, or a solid argument

Teams on the way up: People bring data, evidence, logic, and solid arguments to the discussion

Teams on the way down: The team leader has a very low questions-to-statements ratio, avoiding critical input and/or allowing sloppy reasoning and unsupported opinions

Teams on the way up: The team leader employs a Socratic style, using a high questions-to-statements ratio, challenging people, and pushing for penetrating insights

Teams on the way down: Team members acquiesce to a decision but don't unify to make the decision successful--or worse, undermine it after the fact

Teams on the way up: Team members unify behind a decision once made, then work to make the decision succeed, even if they vigorously disagreed with it

Teams on the way down: Team members seek as much credit as possible for themselves, yet do not enjoy the confidence and admiration of their peers

Teams on the way up: Each team member credits other people for success, yet enjoys the confidence and admiration of his or her peers

Teams on the way down: Team members argue to look smart or to further their own interests rather than argue to find the best answers to support the overall cause

Teams on the way up: Team members argue and debate, not to improve their personal position but to find the best answers to support the overall cause

Teams on the way down: The team conducts "autopsies with blame," seeking culprits rather than wisdom

Teams on the way up: The team conducts "autopsies without blame," mining wisdom from painful experiences

Teams on the way down: Team members often fail to deliver exceptional results and blame other people or outside factors for setbacks, mistakes, and failures

Teams on the way up: Each team member delivers exceptional results, yet in the event of a setback each accepts full responsibility and learns from mistakes

Technorati Tags: Jim Collins

Posted by Jack Dausman At 4:54 AM Location Washington, DC | Permalink | Comments (0)

Category IBM/Lotus Linux Ubuntu
The good news is that IBM understands Lotus collaboration as dead-central to their "Smart Work" initiative. Bob Picciano, the Lotus GM, has written up his attack points at CIO.com, and then took time for a conference call with some bloggers (thanks to Nathan Freeman for his transcript).

There is more to Picciano's analysis than a C-level,
marketing cold-call for reducing cost. I'm reading his words as a shift into the core strengths of the Lotus platform, and a revitalized effort to engage customers. Not just customers as in Enterprise Businesses, but customers as people who are as diverse as those with strained resources in developing economies, as well as those working with mashups against huge data-centers. It's a smart message.

The timing is late for Lotus.

What Lotus Notes does well, no one else can touch. But, IBM's competition delivered a smoother GUI earlier, provided more appealing hosting options, and created lock-in by tying the customer's assets into a single platform. The years of building out with Workplace, the slow maturation of Sametime, an awkward UI to Notes (pre-8.5), and weak data integration with Domino has taken a toll on the public image of Lotus.

Lotus Notes is the only collaboration platform that can be delivered as a full-featured client on Linux, Macintosh and Windows. That is an amazing capability. Yet, even in the Ubuntu Linux stronghold of Free Open-Source Software, there is no recognition for Domino, and very little for Notes. That is a stunning disconnect.

The Ubuntu 199 Exam Objectives actually requires Linux System Administrators to understand the process of integrating with Microsoft Exchange:

125.4 Configure Evolution mail client (Weight: 2)

Description: Candidates should be able to configure Evolution to work with a variety of server types and mail protocols. This objective includes the secure configuration of POP3, IMAP, SMTP as well as the integration with an Exchange mail server. Candidates should also be able to set up filters in Evolution to manage spam and other email.

Key files, terms, and utilities include:

• evolution
• ~/.evolution/*
• evolution-exchange

IBM has all the right pieces to build a new customer base, but that opportunity has many challenges. I think a lot of the Lotus faithful have become so accustomed to being an underdog, that there is a community expectation that no one but the Disciples of Domino understand the product. Many of us who have lived with the rise of Lotus Notes have accepted an industry insulation that lacks appreciation for our virtues in security and stability. It's a mistake to ignore public perception.

Google Apps is awesome. It's becoming it's own trend, and university after university are discarding their messaging infrastructure for Google's. And, Microsoft ? Their Exchange 2010 is just not half-bad. It's had a serious update, most of which was cooked off-stage with little pre-announcements, and it's scheduled for an early debut. They have also done a great job in building up a hosted solution, and that has been years in the making. And like it or not, Sharepoint is taking up a lot of oxygen.

It is possible for Lotus Notes to adapt and morph into a platform which is better accepted. But first, there needs to be a hard stare at some tough realities. Rejected technologies never rebound.

Let me point out a famous struggle between Microsoft and WordPerfect. The European Committee for Interoperable Systems has just published their findings in support for the EU Commission's recent preliminary findings, on January 15, 2009, that Microsoft violated antitrust law. On page eleven, there is a chart of the dominance of Microsoft Word over Wordperfect. Look at that curve for Wordperfect, because it's the shape of a plumetting demise that never, ever recovers.

Technologies just don't have comebacks. Companies might readjust, but no one is going to revisit Token Ring or fire up the Iridium satellite network and SmallTalk will never resurge. The trajectories of  technology on a down slope are boringly consistent at SimplyHired.com or Indeed.com.

Smart Work for Lotus is going to have to extend beyond new economies of lower cost. Bob said that it takes smarter people to implement the Smart initiative. That's a good line. I'm hoping it has many meanings. I'd like to see real integration and interoperability into other open-standard and open-source platforms. It'd be great to have Lotus Symphony as a pre-load on Netbooks. The pricing of the Ubuntu PPA for Lotus Notes (and marketing) needs to be nudged forward. Even LotusLive holds promise.

Smart Work is going to be hard work, but IBM/Lotus can rebuild if they are working towards a new base.





Technorati Tags: Bob Picciano, Lotus Notes, Ubuntu

Posted by Jack Dausman At 8:29 PM Location Washington, DC | Permalink | Comments (9)

Category IBM/Lotus Domino Messaging And Collaboration

Lotus collaboration has placed high in CRN.com's analysis of the 2009 Channel Champs: 10 Best Vendors In Support.

IBM earned the second-highest score in the Support Factors Criteria of all vendors in the entire survey.

Despite fierce competition from Microsoft, IBM wound up on top in Support Factors within the Collaboration category -- due to its strong scores in Presales and Postsales Support.

IBM was the ultimate leader in the Collaboration category, with an overall Channel Champs rating of 72.4.

Microsoft was also recognized for its collaboration suite, where it placed #4 in the category for "Increase in Sales."

IBM/Lotus and Microsoft continue to dominate the arena of collaboration. For those involved with IBM/Lotus offerings, it's a decisive victory.

Technorati Tags: Lotus Notes, crn.com

Posted by Jack Dausman At 7:43 PM Location Washington, DC | Permalink | Comments (0)

Category Management
Let's just say it, right now,  PowerPoint is old school. After using Prezi.com, I can see that I've been tied to a metaphor that is merely a transliteration of slide projectors.

I've been around long enough to remember when companies had a graphic arts department that would create the graphics with computers, then have them printed onto slides. Sales staff and executive would travel around with a Kodak Carousel of their presentations.

The next step was the ground-breaking software of Harvard Graphics, which provided an all-in-one solution. It was so popular that people used to sling around "Harvard Graphics" just as frequently as today when I hear "PowerPoint" to mean anything that is remotely related to a business presentation.

Prezi is a mix of mind-mapping on an infinite canvas, completely replacing the card stack styling of traditional presentations. The display swoops from one spot to another, visualizing your thoughts as a trail that never breaks. After seeing and working with Prezi, a slide presentation feels creaky and antiquated.

Prezi is also emblematic of a new wave of productivity tools (e.g., Yuuguu.com) which is agnostic to the desktop operating system. It doesn't matter if you have the latest MacBook Pro, a Dell Mini 9 running Ubuntu, or a Windows white-box. Prezi is created on-line, and then it can be hosted on Prezi, or downloaded for off-line viewing.

Prezi is highly recommended, especially for those that have been loyal to Slideology. They offer off-line viewers which are compatible with Windows, Mac, and Linux.


Technorati Tags: prezi.com, slideology

Posted by Jack Dausman At 6:53 PM Location Washington, DC | Permalink | Comments (2)

Category Administration Open Source
I love Clonezilla, and have found it an extraordinarily useful tool for creating image backups and restores. It works on every Windows OS I've tried (Win95, Win98, Millenium, XP, and, yes, Vista). It works on Mac's, and it's absolutely amazing on Linux file systems (even handling LVMs with grace).

What a great surprise to read Ting Li's write-up on using Clonezilla to create a VM image. Terrific idea, and I'm looking forward to trying out her suggestion. I'd like to add a comment, though, to the conversation. Before cloning a Windows system, be sure to prep it by running the defrag, followed by a chkdsk. Windows NTFS can be fussy, and I've found that by adding these two steps, I've achieved 100% success with Clonezilla.

I'm also wondering if I can repeat the technique for Sun's VirtualBox.

Technorati Tags: Clonezilla, Ting Li, VMWare

Posted by Jack Dausman At 10:13 PM Location Washington, DC | Permalink | Comments (0)

Category
Maybe we'll have a new headliner for Lotusphere 2010. Howard Stern has apparently declined a Palm Pre, and selected a Blackberry Bold. His criterion was Lotus Notes compatibility:

Stern said that the Pre was a fine phone (it's unclear whether he actually held it), but said its inability to connect to Lotus Notes was a dealbreaker.

Posted by Jack Dausman At 6:05 AM Location Washington, DC | Permalink | Comments (2)

Category Announcements IBM/Lotus Linux Lotus Foundations Sametime
Too small to consider any "Unified" technology ? Sametime Unified Telephony is priced by per user--so it scales down, as well as up. Today, in a conference call with IBM, a brain trust of David Marshak, Alistair Rennie, Bruce Morse, and Marisa Viveros provided an overview of Sametime Unified Telephony (SUT).

The concept of Unified Telephony has been a long-time in coming. Every study I've read cites significant advantages for integrating VOIP, video, messaging, collaboration, etc. However, until relatively recently, it's been the sort of gee-whiz technology that you see on The Jetsons and requires a single-vendor solution. No one wants a rip-and-replace solution (and we are all tired of vendor lock-in).

Bruce pointed out that with the 14 vendors who have already validated their telephony systems, SUT is now supported on 75% of all installations. More vendors are in the pipeline, and  because the SUT communication protocol is running as a "ratified SIP" the validation has been averaging one day to complete. Clearly, there is an advantage to running with "open and published industry standards."

Allistair drew on the strength of being able to work "well with what exists" rather than re-architecting onto "a homogeneous stack" from a single vendor. He doesn't just mean the hardware pieces, but also the messaging core. SUT isn't only for companies with a strong IBM/Lotus presence, because it's been designed to mix well with different platforms that haven't been "burdened" by weaker collaboration capabilities. It's a marked advantage for IBM, that SUT has a "more practical vision" that integrates into existing equipment.

The occasion for the call was VoiceCon 2009, where a SUT demonstration was provided that was similar to the one premiered at Lotusphere 2009. I was at the Lotusphere presentation, and the interplay between different phone devices, Sametime, and back-end PBXs received welcome applause. At VoiceCon, IBM included an even larger variety of devices and telephony systems for their staged overview.

SUT will be released in July and it's going to deserve a close look. Gartner has already recommended it for it's "great potential." But, Gartner may also have been overly cautious about its lack of suitability for smaller enterprises.

IBM is already gearing up the next release of Lotus Foundations to include SUT.



Technorati Tags: Sametime Unified Telephony, Lotus Notes, SIP

Posted by Jack Dausman At 9:11 AM Location Washington, DC | Permalink | Comments (0)

Category Security Ubuntu
Last night, I asked our security manager if we had contingency plans for the expected impact of the Conficker worm on April 1st. Perry smiled and said, "Yes . . after the meltdown, we'll all install Ubuntu."

And, still be running Notes.

Posted by Jack Dausman At 5:53 AM Location Washington, DC | Permalink | Comments (0)

Category IBM/Lotus Domino ND8 Marketing Open Source Ubuntu
This last January, after Stephan Wissel's presentation on DXL at Lotusphere, he and I had a frank talk over some trends, and some possibilities for Lotus. Notes and Domino should be the hands-down winner of any county fair cook-off. But, sometimes IBM is like a cook that could have a winning recipe if only a few, small ingredients had been included. Notes is so close to being able to make up some lost ground: the ND8.5 client is user-friendly, and it runs as a full client on three operating systems. Spice up IMAP, throw in some MAPI, and Lotus would have a completely different flavor.

Because I was an IBM/Lotus Business Partner for many years, and Stephan is a "Lotus Technology and Productivity Advisor" for IBM, he and I could commiserate how difficult it has been for IBM to take competitive advantage of Domino. Part of the problem could be that Domino is just a different sort of product from the standard portfolio offering for an IBM client representative to choose.

IBM's Systems and Technology Group (STG) know about how client reps want an easy sell, and they create a conversation around their p and z series systems: "Dear IT manager, look around and count boxes in your server room. ah... so many!! Have a look with one or two of our big machines you can kick all these boxes out, and we also have the service people to do that for you." This conversation is easy because the client rep is talking to the person she is most likely to have the best relationship: the IT manager. It doesn't hurt, either, that the result is very concrete and tangible.

Domino, though, has been on the defensive for a long time. This has changed with ND8.x, and there might be a renaissance for developers, clients and administrators. But, a lot of business users still think of it as an "historic" product (which competitors exploit). So, when an IBM sales rep tries to introduce Domino to a Microsoft Exchange shop, the conversation is familiar, but also out of sync: "Dear IT manager, look around and count boxes in your server room. ah... so many!! Have a look with one or two of our big machines you can kick all these boxes out, and we also have the service people to do that for you. Hm, you will, however, have to touch every desktop as well as retrain each user, while changing a corporate mind set. It's worth it, though, because the Notes 8 client is a truly collaborative platform."

The Lotus seller loves to have this conversation, but you and I can see there will be a fundamental, and dramatic disconnect between the product's capabilities and the customer's interest. The client rep and the IT manager see it, too: "Um, I'll need to discuss this idea first with our users, and they are so opinionated. Don't count on anything." The Domino conversation dies before it starts.

Incredibly, there is new competition which has already jumped ahead of Domino in the conversation to win over Exchange clients. How can this be ? IBM has been struggling in this terrain against Microsoft for over a decade. Yet, Cisco, for one, has aggressively began to elbow IBM out of the arena with their recent acquisition of PostPath. Cisco has already figured out how to make the conversation easy. Their secret ? Postpath includes MAPI and is a drop-in replacement for Exchange.

Here's how Stephan and I imagine their conversation: "You have so much Cisco gear already, just add a few more and get rid of all those patch cycles. Your users won't notice, since you don't even touch the desktops !" That's a simpler conversation. With Cisco marketing power, the slogan can be, "Let's kick out Exchange, but still keep Outlook."

Why isn't this possible with Domino and Notes ? Why doesn't Domino support Outlook clients ? Or, why can't a Notes client connect to Exchange ? The introduction to Lotus architecture to a Microsoft shop can just as easily begin on the client side, as with the server. The Open Source community has already taken advantage of the European Union's demands for Microsoft to publish their protocols. The latest Linux releases can now read/write locally stored Outlook PST files, and connect to an Exchange server by MAPI. Ubuntu 9.04 is a full MAPI client, at zero cost. Today, Novell's SUSE can natively connect to either Exchange or Novell Groupwise.

Domino is being pushed out of the competition, because it lacks a few protocols. It needs to support the Microsoft messaging wire protocols that Outlook uses. I'll leave it to your imagination, how much the sales conversation will improve, just by adding in a little MAPI into the mix.

Posted by Jack Dausman At 6:35 PM Location Washington, DC | Permalink | Comments (6)