Leadership By Numbers

Michael Rhodin, Lotus' vice president of development and technical support, has been quoted as saying, “I think it's safe to say we won't be [adding] anything more to LotusScript." This has created a little firestorm of controversy among Lotus developers that I find reminiscent of the Garnet-J2EE confusion in the initial R5 release (you can check feedster.com). Michael also suggests that Lotus developers turn to the IBM Rational Rapid Developer. While I’m sure that the Rational Rapid Developer is a wonderful tool (I haven’t used it or seen it), its cost is on a completely different level than the Lotus Designer. Quantum level.

Gary Devendorf has also called attention to Rhodin’s comments. Devendorf’s comments are poignant, because he is working at Microsoft and intimately understands the Domino architecture.

So I found it very interesting to read another editorial in a software trade journal arguing that a major vendor is abandoning core developers, forcing them to 'face the daunting task of re-architecting their applications, and the clock is ticking.' But, this time, the article was not on the untimely demise of Lotus.

The journal is 'Visual Studio Magazine,' the vendor is Microsoft, and the March article by Bill McCarthy is calling for a bridge between .NET and VB6.

Microsoft ends mainstream support for VB6 in March 2005, and VB6 developers risk having their applications stranded. . . . Microsoft's loyal customers deserve better. . . . Microsoft needs to stretch out a warm hand to the community, to our sisters and brothers who feel left behind.

McCarthy’s sentiment is an interesting parallel to some of the comments that I’ve been reading and hearing from Lotus developers. The difference is that IBM/Lotus is not abandoning the Domino platform, not requiring the orphaning of working applications, and not requiring extensive retooling for Domino business developers. It’s still possible to run V2 Notes applications on a ND6 platform. That’s amazing, I can’t think of any database vendor that can maintain legacy code as well as Notes.

What’s fascinating about the Lotus vision, is the upcoming release of Workplace Builder with the Rich Client Platform (RCP) that promises the capability to present existing Domino/Notes applications over the web with no rewrite (well, we expect to do some rewrite). If the RCP demo at Lotusphere was an indication of its potential, then Domino business developers will have a long lifespan for creating and maintaining their Notes client and web applications.