back to article Has IBM grown a new Lotus?

If you were in the market for collaboration software, what would your reaction be if a major software publisher offered you an all-singing all-dancing suite of battle-hardened collaboration tools? What if that publisher were IBM? What if it were Lotus? What if it were Microsoft? Bear in mind we're talking about the same set of …

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  1. MarkOne
    Paris Hilton

    As an avid Lotus Notes hater

    I had Notes V5 inflicted on me, and it was horrendous. It was sold to the management as the silver bullet, and the guys writing databases never complained, as it's complexities were paying their overinflated "developer" wages (not real developers of course, the pretend developers like those that make websites).

    Because of my moaning about Notes, I got offered an update to Notes 8.01, and my god what an improvement, it almost puts it on-par with proper desktop applications. Clearly the move to Eclipse was a great move, as soon as they fix the bugs and sort out the performance issues, then it will be a very usable bit of software.

    However IBM really need to drop the Lotus Notes brand, the old versions were so bad, it's damaged the brand beyond repair. Call it "IBM Domino Client" instead, as most developers/purchasers will know it's the same product, but it won't have the Lotus Scrotes stigma.

    http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2006/feb/09/guardianweeklytechnologysection

    Lotus Notes is used by millions of people, but almost all of them seem to hate it. How can a program be so bad, yet thrive?

    Paris, because she is much prettier than Lotus Notes V5 interface with 1980's icons.

  2. Chris Miller

    Mis-marketed

    The problem with Notes is that it has been oversold (what, by IBM salesdroids - never!) as a glorified email system. TBH if all you need is email and a shared calendar you'll be far better off with Exchange (or an OSS alternative if your tastes run that way).

    What Notes offers is a comprehensive, rapid-development workflow environment. Microsoft has been catching up over the last few years, but still lags some way behind in this area.

  3. amanfromMars 1 Silver badge

    XXXXStream Racing Operating Systems ....for Sorting the Wheat from the Chaff ...

    .... to make Loads of Bread and Corner the Globe and IntelAIgents Markets*

    David,

    That was one very clear and concise extremely informative piece. Thanks for all the phish.

    Methinks the New IBM Lotus problem is that they don't have a Killer Team Management Drive and Drivers or Control Applications for Deployed Applications ie Great Forward Vision.

    That is always easily fixed though with a new Body to Invest in, Honorary Seat on the Board, Strange Face around the Table ie Fresh New Blood with Guts and Nuts for Glory. It is certainly what they would be facing in an opposing Apple McLaren Daemonstrator.

    * Corner the Globe = Square the Circle in UKGBNIRobotIQs Speak/Channel Direct Obscure Chatter for Stealthy Instant Messaging and Quantum Web Communications in Sensitive and Secretive Fields.

  4. Michael Strorm Silver badge
    Coat

    You can't pirate this on a single 3.5" floppy either...

    I guess that's what being taken by IBM does for you. Their products have got much less fun since the days of Lotus Turbo Challenge 2.

    ....What?

  5. Anonymous Coward
    FAIL

    Usability fail

    Notes and Domino are the classic example of a good idea implemented badly, and software that attempts to do everything, and as a result does nothing well.

    Version 8 of Notes was a vast improvement on previous versions - they apparently spent a lot of money on usability - but it still fails epically because there's just too much irrelevant functionality shoe-horned in and getting in the way.

    For instance, Open Office comes bundled, and earlier versions (and possibly still) had Lotus' piss-poor attempt at a web-browser.

    Then there's all of the enormous quantity of obsolete functionality that hangs around in the client - for instance dial-up networking. Presumably there just in case somebody somewhere still uses it.

    In all honesty, Lotus might be better ditching Notes completely and focusing on standards based server software.

  6. Bill Buchan
    Grenade

    In fairness...

    This 'IBM don't market brands' issue has been going on for a long long time. IBM claim that it doesn't market product and doesn't market brands.

    This appears to have been turned around (after only 10 years or so - which is light-speed to IBM) and a new Marketing VP has been beavering away, and is about to inflict a new campaign on us. (My toes are still curled up from the last attempt at 'viral' marketing)

    As a (very) long (suffering) Lotus Business Partner, this is something we've been screaming at IBM for - oh - the last 10 years. I hasten to add that the (remaining) local Lotus/IBM folks are not the issue here.

    So yes. You don't need Notes to do amazing things with Sametime, QuickR (the old 'quickplace' on steroids), Lotus Connections and a few other bits and pieces.

    if you are an MS shop, and you hated Notes before - thats no reason (aside from the negative brand issues) NOT to check out Sametime, Connections, etc.

    ---* Bill

    (Hand Grenade ? For the short-sighted IBM beancounters)

  7. sandman
    Thumb Down

    Special Software

    It takes a really special piece of software to make a person plead for Outlook/Exchange, but Notes used to be that software. No matter how good it may be now, without a name change it isn't going to grab market share. Lotus as a brand was also contaminated by the "Suite", including the appalling word processor and dodgy later versions of 123 which were installed as crapware on poor quality PCs.

  8. Error: no_such_handle
    FAIL

    An opportunity missed

    It's great technology but the usability was horrendous. How could IBM be so incompetent that they forgot that people actually need to use the thing? They have completely destroyed the brand and lost a huge amount of potential revenue.

  9. Phil Rigby
    Heart

    As an avid Lotus Notes fan-boy

    I've been a Notes admin for almost 12 years, both in the UK and the US. I started in 1998 on Notes 4.5. I have seen Notes improve dramatically over the years, probably 6.5x series is/was the best. Now I'm currently planning a global migration of 6.5x to 8.5x, and I'm not looking forward to it in the least, simply because Notes 8 has so many issues, mainly centering around Ecllipse. The performance is terrible - at least during the client start-up phase - and there's still bugs in there from 1998. There have been many, many improvements but there's still so much fundamentally wrong.

    I think the whole problem is simply IBM trying to make the client look like Outlook. What (most) people don't grasp is that Notes was designed to remove paperwork. The idea was, that if you had an item which required paper flow from one point to another (Purchase Order, for example) then Notes could take that paper and make the process electronic. So therefore, by definition, it can do email. However Notes is -not- an email platform in it's own right, like Exchange. Also it doesn't have the advanced database functionality such as SQL (hence since v6, the tie-in to DB2). So IBM are trying to big-it-up as a viable alternative to Microsoft, which it is, IF the shop buying it has never been hard-core MS before. For companies that are fairly small or medium sized and overhauling their infrastructure, it's a great product.

    I've done several Notes --> Exchange migrations and usually every couple of weeks am offered another by a job agency. I think in the past 5 years I've seen one MS --> Notes conversion.

    But I will say, I do know of companies that have switched from Exchange to Notes for email because of all the security issues in Exchange (yes MS fan-boys, admit it, there are some) which become non-issues on Notes. For example, a virus physically cannot function in a Notes environment - it just has no mechanisms to run. All that can happen is a user forwards it on to another person manually. None of this copying your entire address book and spamming everyone with the code. It's also an extremely hardened kernel and uptime can be extensive, once the box is configured and run-in.

    The author of the article is correct however, IBM really need to shake up the whole perception of the product - everything from name, to web site, to target audience, to roadmap and everything else that goes with it. I love the product, but I am very seriously considering a platform-switch when my current contract is up.

  10. Mark Dowling

    Notes 8 heavy?

    @Phil Rigby - there's always the basic client - keep the server side improvements, client side stays at the 6.5/7 experience.

  11. Citizen Kaned

    as an ex notes developer....

    at first post. not sure why you are hating on web devs. if you dont like websites then why dont you piss off stop using them? or is this just another bitter 'support' person?

    anyhow. using notes 4.5 to 8 i can say that what it gives with 1 hand it takes with another. at the old company i worked for (was 7 years a developer with them) we were wholly reliant on notes, due to all our systems being written in lotusscript (very like vb but with a load of notes API built in too). anything for the client was very rapid development. you could get a rough app up and running VERY quickly. then spend a week trying to make it not look like a 5 year old made it! seriously. the designer was terrible to use and still used 'inches/cms' for such things for measurements on screen! no pixels anywhere!!! limited colours etc etc.

    and dont even try web developement! you had to implement so many hacks to get it do do anything nice. i was very proud that our systems eventually looked amazing but after 10x more work that you should need.

    i'm now glad to be away from notes in an open source development environment.

    notes is ok for beginners (you can even set up a system with no real programming knowledge through 'formulas' which were pretty powerful). and i have to admit that they do have a brilliant dev manual, with examples all over the place, which was much better than anything ive seen since.

  12. Anonymous Coward
    Unhappy

    Yep...

    ...you'd be forgiven for thinking that IBM don't actually want to sell Notes/Domino when you visit their website. To seach their site I find it's easier to use Google :-(

    IBM seem to have spent a lot of cash upgrading the Notes client software for version 8.5 but the documentation supporting the new client is sadly lacking (there's no troubleshooting guides for when the client breaks or fails to start, which seems to be quite regular in version 8.5).

    Also they don't seem to have spent a bean on upgrading the end-user out-of-the-box templates that come with Domino (with the exception of the the mail template, that is). For example, the Teamroom application design is like something from the last century. And sadly I think that was when it was thrown together (and it's still shipping with version 8.5 I belive). I'm told that IBM doesn't even use the standard teamroom within their internal environment, which says alot about what *they* think about it.

    I agree with the comments suggesting that the product could be great. Unfortunately I don't think the company selling it sees it as anything other than a cash cow which can make them some money selling their services to customers in the form of writing applications that should probably come out of the box. I don't think this strategy will serve the product well in the long term, rather it will probably push customers away who are increasingly seeking better value for money from what comes out the box. If they put as much money into designing proper out of the box Notes and Domino applications as they did into the eclipse front-end they'd have a far more marketable product (IMO, of course!). Then they just need to market it via their website </shakes head>

    Unfortunately I just don't think they care much about Notes and Domino any more, or about retaining customers (let alone gaining new ones).

  13. Phil Rigby
    Pint

    @Mark Dowling

    Good point, I tend to forget about Notes Basic as I've never implemented it, but you're correct. Thanks for the heads-up :-)

    Also surprised these comments haven't turned into the Notes-hater flames I was expecting. Beer for everyone who at least one time liked Notes :-)

  14. Anonymous Coward
    Grenade

    Typical fan-boy ya da ya da & @Phil Rigby

    I could't resist posting something (yes hark hark I hear you say). I'm not one of the weird Lotus deciples who clap at Lotusphere in the states, "cut me and my blood is yellow" idiots. Instead I have been an admin and dev of various IBM products over the last 10 years or so, Notes & Domino included.

    Firstly Notes is fantastic value for money. For $80 / license you get a server access license, email, calendar, documents via openoffice, instant messaging with sametime and the ability to use an unlimited custom applications such as customer management, it helpdesk, accident reporting, complaint management.

    As this talk of notes inferface isn't great - yes the old version was crap but 8.0.2 solves that with eclipse. Plus the light version as previously posted by people for those old machines.

    From an application development perspective you can create standards based websites with full cms xhtml/css ajax etc, custom notes client applications with integrated java agents and javascript both in the client and on the web, workflow applications, security from the LDAP compliant directory..the .nsf is a container for pretty much anything..

    The fact is that for an SME there is simply no better tool to combine it with an ERP system or accounting package. Notes for soft data and collaboration and the other systems for the hard data.

    Oh did I mention that using the ODBC driver tool you can connect Crystal reports to domino and have classy reports coming from your database - use views to link your data in a relational way and report against it.

    Basically its great, but not for everything! IBM however are not great at promoting it.

    @Phil Rigby - I have been involved in a number of MS -> Notes migrations and most are successful but only for specific application(s). Notes vs Exchange on mail and notes fails.

  15. LRE
    WTF?

    @Phil Rigby - thanks for reading my mind then posting it

    ;-)

    seriously - pretty much everything Phil said, I'll say too.

    I've been a Notes dev for so long I've almost forgotten what it's like in the big scary Exchange world. But I've been on the periphery of enough migrations to know that Domino is a NICE platform to work on compared to many alternatives once you get used to its' quirks.

    We've got one customer at the moment in the early phases of getting a migration underway. They're going to triple the number of servers to get the same service out of Exchange as they have / had in Domino.

    @Citizen Kaned - myself and others have pushed some damn good solutions out of Domino (IMHO) - but you are right in as much as the low barrier to entry in Notes development can encourage self-limiting solutions (particularly on the scalability front). Also I agree with you that Notes Designer is about 15 years behind the times (admittedly 8.5.1 will close that gap somewhat).

    As for the IBM website - personal bugbear of nearly every IBM user / dev I have ever met. Honestly the quickest way to find anything at ibm.com - use Google. I swear that site was designed by people who have never used a computer.

    WTF is for IBM - they're their own worst enemy.

  16. Sandra Greer
    Paris Hilton

    Too rich for our blood now - but oh what a great tool it was

    I loved Domino. I think I started developing in Notes 3 something. When it went webified, in 4.6 I think it was, I went crazy over it.

    I haven't used it in about 8 years. Last time I looked into it for the non-profit I now work for, it was just too complex and too expensive for us. We are using Drupal. But Domino -- now that was a rapid development tool. Never mind how it looked!

    Looks are way over-rated.

  17. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Turns off potential employees of our Co.

    Telling prospective employees that we have Notes as the email client makes us look like a horrible place to work. People who know simply don't want to live with it again.

    When *that* happens, the brand is well and truly dead

  18. Anonymous Coward
    Grenade

    Notes...

    I liked notes v5. I never found any major problems with it.

    Outlook/Exchange right up to 2007 on the other hand does my head in...

    It throws any standards Microsoft does have in keyboard shortcuts out the windows...

  19. Eurydice Sophie Exintaris
    Go

    IBM's Lotus takeover...

    The company I work for has entered into an agreement to be bought by IBM. So on "day 1" we are all getting magically migrated to Lotus notes... This article gave me something to look forward to, as all I've heard of Lotus notes was that it's quite powerful in the back-end, but an absolute usability horror. And guess what. I'm a UI designer. This should be interesting...

  20. Mike VandeVelde
    Megaphone

    Lotus

    Lotus Notes at it's core is simply sublime. The simple database - document - field model is a dream, and being able to make it play with basically anything out there is heaven. Wrapped around that is a *long* list of things that badly need to be handled. Slowly, slowly, IBM gets around to them. It is constantly improving. Every new release offers something to someone. With release 8, "client looks like a dog's regurgitated breakfast" goes away (I never really minded it though, couldn't care less if it was "different than Outlook"). With release 8.5, "client's new look makes it move like a snail" starts to go away, and we get the start of a long overdue overhaul of the development environment - most importantly including XPages so that "I'd rather carve my eyes out with a rusty spork than do web development on Domino" goes away (it wasn't that bad really, if you know what you're doing, it's just not as great as regular Notes client development). With 8.5.1 it all comes together, and we're where all Notes developers wish we were years ago. But all along, light years ahead of MS offerings anyway so we keep on keeping on. And the future is looking rosy.

    Now the IBM website - yup read you loud and clear. Nothing anywhere has so painfully obviously spent so many years being designed by so many committees. IBM is a huge company with a huge number of software offerings, so in order to keep them all IBM branded and for consistency's sake, you need to drill down 10 levels to get anything actually useful, which usually ends up being a haystack for you to look for your needle in. Don't even get started on all the various bits that need various login credentials for access. On the whole it seems like they are actively trying to prevent anyone from learning about or <gasp!> purchasing any of their products, but individual teams deep down in the bowels of the beaurocracy are actually making valiant efforts.

    So Lotus Notes is a great product. 90% of complaints could be laid to rest by sitting the complainer down with someone knowledgable (there are some things about it that are just plain crap, but not nearly so many as some people try to make it seem). IBM could have done more, could have some things differently, could have done some things faster, but they are doing things, a lot of them pretty amazing.

    Ditch the Lotus brand? What would that get? The people who are religiously ANTI still wouldn't budge an inch, so what would be the point? Through 20 years Lotus has remained strong and growing, it would be retarded to drop that "baggage" simply to try and quiet the compulsive complainers.

  21. Dave Harris
    Thumb Up

    @Mik VandeVelde

    Reminds me of an aprocyphal tale, that one year at Lotusphere, someone was wearing a t-shirt with the slogan "Certified IBM website navigator".

    Didn't go down too well. Mind you, this is the company (according to another meme) that would have marketed sushi as IBM Cold Dead Fish.

    Thumbs up since, after 13 years, I love using Notes and Domino just as much, if not more, as I ever did

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