Domino is Missing a Key Ingredient to Dominance
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.
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.
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Comments
Now, as regards MAPI versus IMAP--I hope I didn't misrepresent your perspective, which is MAPI on the server. I agree. Hugely. Missing MAPI is like missing HTTP.
But, now that MAPI has been opened up and is available on zero cost clients, then I think it's worth considering for the Notes client, as well. I hope I'm not muddying the water, or being too lazy to create another blog entry.
Still, if Bob Picciano asked me to choose between (1) client MAPI or (2) a complete IMAP/CalDAV implementation on the client, I would choose 2.
He hasn't called me yet, so I'm not going to worry about the choice as much as trying to voice the need for better protocol implementation.
Posted by Jack Dausman At 08:10:55 AM On 03/26/2009 | - Website - |
@Michael: MAPI support for the Domino server wouldn't target Lotus customers. It would target new customers switching to Lotus. In the long run these new customers would switch to a Notes client (eventually)
@Jesper:
Jack pointed out: DAMO does only Outlook and only on Windows. MAPI would serve any client. Also DAMO requires to touch every PC and run additional code on it, so it is inheritely slower than a pure MAPI client.
In General:
I think NRPC is a superior protocol to MAPI. It allows compression, encryption, 2way sync and any type of data. I also think SyncML is better than ActiveSync (and TokenRing was better than TCP).
In reality an IT vendor needs to support the protocols that are out in the wild. No point offering the finest steaks on the planet to a vegetarian crowd.
My 2c
Posted by Stephan H. Wissel At 07:48:25 AM On 03/26/2009 | - Website - |
Jack, as usual, you make a lot of great points.
It would be great if IBM looked at the competition and added the "me too" features simply to make things easier on everyone... kinda like they did when they added Domino way back in 4.5.
Posted by Tim Lorge At 10:37:17 PM On 03/25/2009 | - Website - |
But, it's not the equal of a MAPI connection.
- What about the Macintosh clients ? Microsoft is providing MAPI with Entourage.
- What about Linux ? MAPI is now baked in.
- DAMO requires a Notes client install and configuration. With DAMO, two clients, per workstation, are being supported.
- DAMO requires a mail file replica to exist on the local workstation. This is the major deal killer for most shops, where the executive staff is working at home and in the office.
Where I've seen DAMO win the day, is when a senior exec insists on maintaining their well-earned Outlook productivity skills.
Trying, though, to sell DAMO to a SMB with a lean IT support crew is not promising. Or, asking a 5,000 + shop to add a second client, but keep using the first just doesn't go far.
Honestly, I think DAMO was the best solution, when it was the only choice. Now, we have better options.
Posted by Jack Dausman At 09:26:11 PM On 03/25/2009 | - Website - |
Posted by Michael Sobczak At 09:24:57 PM On 03/25/2009 | - Website - |
I think Lotus made this for exactly the reasons you mention above.
Brgds Jesper
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Posted by Jesper Kiaer At 07:42:26 PM On 03/25/2009 | - Website - |