Is it dangerous to criticise Lotus Notes?

Rod Boothby posted an article entitled Simple Recipe for Leaving Lotus Notes. The title probably overstated his case, but he pointed out that there are more accessible and attractive tools in the Office 2.0 marketplace, and that "Lotus lock-in" may be overstated. He's also reflecting a sense that Lotus Notes may have reached it's "sell-by" date.

Rod doesn't pick on IBM alone. In the same article, he referred to another post -- Is Microsoft Losing it's Network Effect? -- in which he quoted Nitin Duggal, a Product Manager with Yahoo! search:

People used to have to buy Windows machines because that was what you needed to run MS Office and most other software. But people aren't building applications on the Windows any more; they are building them on the web.

There's definitely that buzz about. He's saying something that worries everyone at Microsoft too. No-one here wants to be a case study in the 2007 edition of The Innovators' Dilemma.

However, what's interesting is the reaction  he got from the Notes community. Much of it was a passionate defence of Notes, and some of that included the aggressive personal attacks that you have to get used to online.  In a long follow-up post called Lotus Notes - The Asbestos of Enterprise IT,  he dealt with many of them.

He wrapped up his individual responses  with two observations. The first dealt with the nastiness of some of the comments:

If I am right that Lotus Notes faces a real threat from a new generation of Enterprise 2.0 collaboration tools, then it is easy to understand why both IBM and people with an extensive personal investment in Lotus Notes / Domino are going to do everything they can to forestall that change; including shooting the messenger.

I have already felt the brunt of some personal and nasty comments.   My guess is there will be more.   That is unfortunate.   I am not in competition with IBM.   I am just an end user who is interested in seeing better technologies within the enterprise.   It would be nice to see a civil debate, instead of name calling.

He concluded his post with a section titled One Big Disappointment, in which he said:

I really enjoy writing this blog.   I do make mistakes and amazingly, kind people help me correct them quickly.  

However, that has not been my experience with Ed Brill

Ed Brill is Business Unit Executive, Worldwide Lotus Messaging Sales, IBM Software Group.

From his post entitled Rod Boothby on Notes, part two -- second verse, worse than the first

Between that and his linkedin profile, we can determine that Mr. Boothby has never been in IT, has no background in Lotus Notes (other than that of an end-user), and that most of his academic and work background is in finance.

As many comments here and on Rod's posting suggest, Mr. Boothby should have quit while he was behind.

First, I think it is interesting that as far as Ed is concerned, 2 1/2 years of using Lotus Notes as an end user counts as "no background in Lotus Notes".   That shows you what respect he has for end users and their opinions.

Second, I find it shocking that a senior IBM executive would use his site to comment on an individual blogger in this way.

Rod made a case that could be argued. Like most arguments, his wasn't watertight, and smart people could (and do) differ. However, the reaction was over the top.

Can we get to an online environment where it's OK to disagree and, instead of attacking people, it's the quality of our arguments that speak for us?

Comments

[Ben Langhinrichs]

While the tone of some of the comments, including mine, may have been a bit strong, the original premise, which Rod modified twice after the comments started coming in, was not anything like reasonable. It was not a case of being less than watertight, it was virtually baseless. I can't see Sharepoint advocates being a lot more pleasant about someone making the exact same post about Sharepoint, and claiming that it could easily be replaced in a day by any competent developer.

I do have to admit, I've seen cases where Notes advocates have gone overboard piling on after some criticism, but this didn't really seem like a very strong case of that to me. I have not gone back and read all the comments since this started, so they may have gotten more heated, but the original post was pretty inflammatory.

The one point I do agree with Rod about to some extent is the complaint about Ed Brill, who plays fast and loose with his definition of a "personal blog". Ed probably should not have incited people with the specific series of posts about an individual, although I can understand why he would have posted the first time.

[Brian Benz]

Personally, I've seen (and had)much worse. It's the blogosphere, which is all about opinions. Give 'em and get 'em back. To me, Rod seems to be insensitive in posts and then very sensitive when reading comments....how does that work exactly?

[Dan Soares]

I read the original article by Rod and the comments he received. While I would agree that they were passionate, I'm not sure I would classify them as aggressive.

Rod painted a picture of Notes that was simplistic. His article revealed a lack of knowledge of the capabilities of Notes and if he has 2.5 years as an end user, his experience is reflective of a company where Lotus Notes is most certainly not used to its potential.

That lack of experience hardly qualifies him to write an inflammatory piece like he did on Notes.

That being said, I can't justify name calling regardless of the issues and I apologize on behalf of our zealous Notes brethren who might have gotten carried away :)

Dan

[cliffreeves]

I agree that onlne debates often make up for in aggression what they lack in scholarship. Knowing that. if you want to play there, then suck it up.

I'd add two points:
1) Just because it happens a lot doesn't make it laudable.
2) We should all be offended -- intellectually if not emotionally -- when the response is personal and doesn't directly address the issues.

[cliffreeves]

To Dan Soares: thank you. Good points.

[Bob Balaban]

Hi Cliff!

Where do you get "dangerous"?? Would that we Notes fanatics controlled a squad of techno-ninja-asassins bent on purifying the blogosphere and making it safe for IBM!
(Note to all easily-incited readers: That was a joke! See? Smiley-face here -- :-) Group hug!)

You know as well as anyone that when the behemoths (Microsoft, IBM, others) battle for big-stakes market share, an important part of the game is "hearts and minds". Controlling the language of the debate (or maybe I should say "debate"...) and the buzz is all part of the competition.

You (in your official Microsoft capacity) like it that there are people promoting the whole "Notes sucks" thing (and some of them sincerely believe it, too). You yourself sow little doubt-seeds (your comment about "even IBM isn't clear on the future of Notes" -- that's a paraphrase -- very old news, and no longer true).

Why be surprised that others do the same in their official capacities?

A bunch of Notes fans happened upon a rather egregious example of fact-lite trash-talking, and jumped on it.

Big deal.

Personally, I would be very interested in a real discussion on the theory and practice of application migration -- I think everyone (who really knows anything about it) would agree at this point that it's way more complicated than pulling data out of a data store.

Un-dangerous-ly, your pal,
bob
(currently employed at IBM, but my opinions are my own)

[cliffreeves]

Hi, Bob ... it's risky to guess at folk's motives and pleasures and you are abit off-track. Two things around Notes have interested me (albeit mildly) over the last few years:

1) IBM's difficulty in dealing with its Notes-Websphere (or Workplace)strategy. The conflict was public and IBM's posture has shifted pretty wildly over time. IBM is entirely responsible for the "Notes is dead" theme, but I have to admit to a guilty pleasure observing how poorly folks were equipped to deal with it. Now Notes seems to have an extended lease on life and Workplace has been re-positioned as "more of a brand." I think you'd have to admit that's a lot different from Steve Mills' story from Lotusphere 2002.

2) More recently I've observed that the Notes faithful swarms more quickly (and too often, meanly) to amplify good news and squash disagrement. That general approach is not untypical in blogs and discussions on many topics, but the reaction sees to me sharper and more extreme with the Notes community. My sincere recomendation is "don't do that. It makes you look defensive and threatened."

As to a healthy discussion on migration and coexistence, you should engage Gary as he's majoring on that. He and I have been preaching for several yeasr inside Microsoft: "don't get into a debate about Notes vs Sharepoint or Notes vs Exchange. Focus on practical and value-added coexistence for the majority of customers who have both. The products themselves will drive the direction of migration." The big difference between us as usual, though, is I've stuck to preaching it; Gary's actually doing it :-)

Best regards, Cliff

[Brian Benz]

Cliff, regarding your two points, I agree, as I do with most basic common sense. All I can say is......but but but Rod started it!(sniff) :)

One of the paragraphs that you posted above is a case in point:

"If I am right that Lotus Notes faces a real threat from a new generation of Enterprise 2.0 collaboration tools, then it is easy to understand why both IBM and people with an extensive personal investment in Lotus Notes / Domino are going to do everything they can to forestall that change; including shooting the messenger."

Or we could just shoot the messenger and get back to work :).

But seriously, I think that paragraph fits neatly into your point 2 about personal attacks. I don't make my living from Notes work anymore (though I do work for IBM), and even I was offended a little by this.

The implication is that Notes professionals survive only by trickery and/or the laziness of their customers to change. In a way, is he not questioning and passing summmary judgement on the credentials of Notes professionals and their customers?

A check of his credentials is simply a response in kind. And a logical one at that....

And as for his qualifications, how about the other direction....I've leased a car, I have a mortgage, so I've been a "user" of finance for many, many years....I've also written financial systems....Wow, looks like I'm ready to solve problems in the financial world, by Rod's metrics!

Ridiculous? YES! and that's the point.

[Andrew Pollack]

Dangerous? No more so than it is dangerous to shoot your mouth off in a way that threatens the way people make a living -- when you don't actually know what you're talking about.

To this end, Rod joins such illustrious but lazy writers as Dan Lyons of Forbes.

What goal does Rod have here? Either he simply doesn't like the product -- which is his right, of course; or he has some skin in the game for getting rid of it.

He posts as fact one of the most intellectually dishonest bits of writing I've ever seen that didn't come from Washington DC or the UN.

[Wannes]

I don't think Ed is not interested in end user opinions here. His point is that end-users should stick to what they can discuss about. The end-user product, the lotus notes client instead of attacking the whole product (server and client, future) withouth knowing what he is talking about.
I'd say Ed's right here and he wouldn't have left such a comment if Rod would have posted comments only about the client.

[Julian Woodward]

I remember working with Notes in 1994/5, and being told "the web is here, Notes is dead". It didn't happen, because the glorious dreams of web-everything didn't actually have much depth - just pretty (or not so pretty - remember comic sans?! :-o) screens.

Since then Notes usage has grown many times over. The proof of the pudding is in the eating.

Now, here we are, and the message is "web 2.0 is here, Notes is dead". Certainly it's a better web story than 10 years ago, and there's more depth to it. But then Notes/Domino is a better product than 10 years ago, and there's more depth to that too.

Things like security, scalability, identity management, mature application development frameworks, cross-platform support, etc, really do matter.

Sure, Notes/Domino is generally disliked by users primarily because IBM/Lotus have never sorted out the UI so it looks, well, rubbish. But it's a fantastically adaptable and well-architected piece of software, and it's deeply embedded into organisations BECAUSE it's so flexible and powerful.

So Notes/Domino IS in for a rough ride over the next couple of years, no doubt about it. But for someone with clearly limited knowledge of the software to suggest that there's a one-day migration strategy was deliberately inflamatory, and I'm afraid he got what he deserved. At least at one level he did: what he didn't deserve was so much attention ... and here I go adding to it.

The harsh reaction could be judged over the top, but Notes guys (incidentally, I don't work for Lotus or IBM, and never have, and I don't even work exclusively with Notes, but I do recognise a well-architected piece of software when I see it) have been on the back foot from Notes-bashers almost continuously since 1995, so the occasional lashing out at ill-informed nonsense blog posts is hardly surprising. If that's not the result that Rod wanted, then he's been somewhat naive. Could it even be that he believed the contents of that post ... dear me, I hope not.

[Richard Schwartz]

Cliff,

It is worth pointing out that some of the "piling on" that occurred so quickly on Rod's blog is due to a couple of facts:

1. His post turned up in search feeds that (at least) both Ed and I monitor daily. We happen to make use of the exact same Web 2.0 technologies that Rod advocates for, and those technologies brought Rod's "not watertight" (a charitable assessment, IMHO) to our attention quickly. Ed blogged about it. I didn't. I simply posted a response on Rod's blog.

2. Several people posted responses, and none of them were displayed. It turns out that Rod's comment system was broken and sent those first response to a junk folder, but it could have also been the case that Rod was moderating comments. The effect, however, of delaying comment posts, however, is that every one of the initial responders thought s/he was the first responder. (In a blog where it is well-known that the owner moderates comments, that might not happen because people take it into account -- but Rod's blog isn't well-known for that.) None of the initial responders had the benefit of seeing others' words, so each of them felt a need to express some of the same criticisms and opinions about Rod's proposal.

3. Then Rod began revising the post. Lots of people, myself included, do that when appropriate. Rod's update, however, merely served to inflame discussion. I immediately took issue with key elements of the update, which IMHO merely served to show how leaky this "not watertight" boat Rod was floating really was, and since those key elements were not there for me to criticize when I posted my first response, I posted again.

You say that Rod made a case that "can be argued". I say he made a case so weak that it can't be argued -- and furthermore he didn't argue it: he built a strawman. He stated as fact things that are not true (or at the very least which he has not even come close to demonstrating are in the ballpark of truth), and he built a case for a conclusion that he favors based on that false foundation.

By your own proposed standard, the quality of Rod's arguments spoke for him. They spoke very badly for him.

You say the reaction was over the top. I say that it was deserved in part, and clearly exacerbated by the broken technology that Rod used.

So, IMHO, this whole thing just serves to show that web 2.0 has a bit of a double-edge to it. When you put yourself "out there", you are inviting participation from a wide community -- and if you demonstrate a lack of knowledge in an area that you are commenting on, you can expect to be shot down. If you do it in a particularly smug way, you can expect the reaction to be harsh -- and if there are time-delays between reactions being posted and reactions being seen, then piling on happens and responses get harsher. None of this is news to you, I'm sure, with your long experience with how collaborative communities work -- and sometimes don't work. It's not news to me, either. I'm sure we've both seen all these phenomena in every system we've used -- from Usenet and mailing lists on up the line to soapbox forums and on blogs many times before this.

[cliffreeves]

Richard, Bob, Dan, Julian, Andrew, Brian ... thanks for the constructive comments. I appreciate it that you took the time to post. I agree with you at one level, that anyone entering the online world had best have a good case and be ready to encounter vigorous disagreement.

It's also important to recognize that Rod appears to be a pretty intelligent Notes user. He's also a customer, and he didn't start out intending to trash notes. In fact, his original thesis -- a reasonable one -- is that Microsoft and Lotus/IBM should be threatened by Office 2.0

He also pointed out that some Notes databases are just simple data. You are right that his technique doesn't address the breadth of Notes applications, but I think you may be missing two points:

1) Rod is representative of some users who want to get off Notes (I'm sure there are some saying the same thing about Sharepoint, or Exchange).

2) Some applications can be easily migrated.

I.e he represents a comunity and he's not completely wrong.

However, the response he provoked (and I still think that the Notes community is especially shrill in this regard) just pounded the guy with a combination of deep tech and insults.

You ended up with a post entitled "Lotus Notes - The Asbestos of Enterprise IT."

Now, anyone who comes up with that line has talent in my book, and frankly, that kind of tag-line is the last thing Notes needs after the one-two punch that Workplace and independent market share surveys have delivered.

I'll say again: "Tone it down. Being shrill sends it own messaage."

[Charles Robinson]

Cliff,

Not stopping when you're ahead, then being patronizing and claiming you're only trying to make yourself better understood -- all the while not recanting your now-widely-known lack of knowledge -- sends a message, too.

This hasn't been a one way street, and it's disingenuous to try to paint the picture that way. Rod came out swinging and wasn't quite prepared for the fight he ended up in. That's his own fault, and I truly hope he learns a lesson from it.

If you have an honest criticism of Notes or Domino, and it is based on experience and you can provide examples, that's great. I'm with you all the way. But to make a baseless judgement and beatifically claim you've solved the unsolvable... that's offensive to the point of being incendiary, and people were incensed.

It's only in Rod's most recent post that he has stopped the offensive and provocative rhetoric, and you will see that most of the people responding to him have adjusted their tone, too.

[Rod Stauffer]

>>In fact, his original thesis...<<

Don't forget that Rod made unmarked changes to his *original* post. Makes it difficult to judge the reaction to his original thesis, not to mention the validity of it. For a bit of that context, see here.

Understanding that others had already addressed the flaws of Rod's uninformed and inherently flawed pronouncement, I haven't responded to his blog. Haven't read the comments there either, so I can't, uh, comment on them.

- Rod (yeah, this is going to get confusing... ;-)

[cliffreeves]

Thanks for posting Charles. I'll make just two points:

1) You said: " ... make a baseless judgement and beatifically claim you've solved the unsolvable..." One might infer from "solved the unsolvable" that it's impossible to move off Notes. We know that's not true. But even if it is very hard (which is probably what you really meant) you just endorsed Rod's "asbestos" point.

2) You also said " ... that just offensive to the point of being incendiary, and people were incensed. By your own standards, his post was incendiary." Let's be clear: to some people (especially the Notes faithful) Rod's post is incendiary; to others it might be merely argumentative; to yet others, it may be flawed but reasonable.

You've justfied your collective response, and you seem to believe that you've nailed this guy and crushed what you perceive as his dumb observation.

You're pleased that you've got back-pedalling like crazy. Great. Chalk one up for the power of the deeply-knowledgeable.

If you wanted to address his point, IMO, the right way to do it is with facts rather than insults and hyperbole -- even if you think he deserved it.

Rational and confident teams don't swarm like fire ants and, in my opinion once more, all you've really done is highlight your paranoia

[Ed Brill]

Cliff, as long as you are the self-appointed blog tone police, I am puzzled why you did not chime in on GaryDev's blog when he wrote "I hope they get a good turn out but I wouldn't bet on it." or Jim Bernardo's blog when he called me "Ed Shrill" , or for that matter, your own tone when I made a factual comment about your comparison of LCS to Workplace a few weeks ago.

I think in this case, Boothby's unwillingness to answer any of the direct questions he's been asked, and instead to keep attacking the product with ever-increasing derogatory terms, changing posts from original wording without indicating such, and most importantly, his sense of entitlement in blogging about a product he has never coded on or deployed, it can only lead to people being angry.

I would absolutely have dropped the whole thing after the first link if he hadn't gone modified the first posting to make it deliberately more offensive, and then written the second without answering any of the basic questions asked in the first.

Put another way -- If you still were on the yellow team, how would you have reacted to someone describing Notes as "A development environment for highly specialized, very expensive Domino Developers" that produces "crude web pages"? Don't you think you'd be a little defensive, too? Or would you just assume your one-time favorite "WebSphere position"?

[cliffreeves]

Ed, you immediately started out with a snide and personal point: "as long as you are the self-appointed blog tone police"

Actually, I don't think I've taken that role at all. I have an opinion that meanness is unnecessary and usually ineffective. I've criticised the approach and not the individuals.

Gary's post is likewise a reasonable opinion and not personal. Why on earth would I find that offensive?

The reason I didn't criticise Jim was because I honestly didn't see the post. While it's clearly personal, it's not vicious or even mean. I don't see that as much of an attack. Do you?

In the LCS post,I pointed out how surprsing it was to see simple integration between different vendors (Lotus Notes and Microsoft LCS -- and I credited both products for that) and how equally surprsing it was to see poor integration between products from the same vendor (IBM Workplace and Sametime). You replied that Lotus Sametime and Notes work really well together. I pointed out -- with what I thought was gentle humour -- that you seemed to have missed the point of the article. I still think that. For anyone interested the post and our discussion here http://cliffreeves.typepad.com/dyermaker/2006/08/integrating_mic.html

I certainly didn't search the web for some way to attack your credibility.

So, Ed, I'm sorry but I don't see the similarity here with any of this discussion.

[cliffreeves]

I'm sorry, Ed, I missed the end part of your post. You asked a fair question: what would I do if I were still on the Yellow team?

I'd like to think I'm older and wiser now (but maybe only older) and I would have argued the functional and usage points that most people made. I woudl also like to think I'd have acknowledged the obvious: that simple databases can be moved easily and in some organizations there are lots of them.

I like to think that I would not have done what you did -- which was to discredit the guy personally.

I don't know if I woudl have been mature enough to do that but I do have the dual advantage of hindsight and distance.

You might want to consider the value of the second -- or not. I am not the blog police :-)

As to the "websphere position" someone reminds me of that about once a year and I still think it's funny.

[stephen hood]

How quickly we forget...

http://www.edbrill.com/ebrill/edbrill.nsf/dx/businessweek-combat-over-collaboration?opendocument&comments

55) BusinessWeek: Combat Over Collaboration
Cliff Reeves on 4/11/2005 12:11:00 PM - email

@48) Ed, thanks for the response, and thanks also for hosting a blog which at least tolerates people who disagree with you. My hat's off to you for that.

Despite your best efforts to convince people that Notes was a dead - end :)

Now you could have highlighted that past post instead of mainly focusing on Rod's somewhat self serving "highlights". IOW, given what you said I wonder why you wouldn't give Ed the benefit of the doubt but are so willing to quote Rod's interpretation. Just asking. Especially given the general lack of intellectual rigor of Rod's post, I would have expected the opposite from you. I don't think I've ever seen so many logical fallacies committed by one person in one place as Rod. The real issue to me is that people spreading technical misinformation and making technical statements above their reach give well intentioned IT people a bad name when it all blows up. But you found the Notes community reaction more interesting. Pointing out that Rod was "just a user" given the nature of what he was proposing isn't personal. It just pointing out he would hardly be a qualified source for others to base their decision upon. Highlighting Rod's comment that Ed has no respect for his users was just simply unfair and how did you put it...

2) We should all be offended -- intellectually if not emotionally -- when the response is personal and doesn't directly address the issues.

Cliff, it's been my sense it hasn't been over simple disagreements but usually in cases of deliberate misinformation, dragging up old old stories, people intentionally playing stupid, etc.

Btw, I'll give you the benefit of the doubt that you don't know that some of your colleagues refer to Ed Brill as Ed Shrill - publicly on their blogs - like Jim Bernardo.

Here's a sample of Jim's work.. http://bernardoworld.spaces.live.com/PersonalSpace.aspx?_c02_owner=1

If you don't know Jim or if that's the wrong Jim or Jim no longer works at MS then I apologize in advance. If you do know or now that you are at least aware of his post ... isn't that personal? And yet I've yet to see a posting that takes "offense" about his behaviour. Can we expect to see one? Not a response buried in a comment but a headline post about how it's dangerous to disagree with Microsoft? Just asking. See your point 2) above. Again if that's not the same Jim then I apoligize in advance for being wrong.

P.S. All of the above was written up last night before your response to Richard, Bob, Dan etc. I wanted to let it sit before posting. Funny that in the meantime you just happen to use the word shrill. Would you have written the same post if you didn't work for Microsoft? Just asking.

[cliffreeves]

I hadn't seen Jim's blog,but to be absolutely honest, I believe I coined the term "Ed Shrill" some time ago in a conversation with Jim. Or maybe soemone said it and it stuck in my mind.

TRegardless, there are many things I say in private to friends that I don't blog about. That's either hypocrisy or good judgment. Maybe both.

Even if you don't buy the value of civility (" .... but this guy deserved to get pounded so we pounded him!") then consider the effectiveness of pouding people.

Do you think that's effective in either recruiting adopters, or dissuading defectors?

I don't think so. I think the only people it convinces are the believers, and the rest see it for what it is: the overreaction of the threatened.

[Charles Robinson]

1) Asbestos is dangerous and kills people. Notes could be argued to be dangerous in certain contexts, but it doesn't kill people. The analogy is absurd. Not only does it connotate that Notes is difficult to remove, to me it also carries the implication that it *must* be removed for the health of the organization. I won't apologize for finding that inflammatory.

2) Your quotation marks are in the wrong place. I never said "By your own standards, his post was incendiary." I just want to make sure that is clear to anyone reading. I don't know what your standards are and made no comments regarding them. Not a big deal, I just want to be quoted accurately.

I am a bit perplexed why you think I was trying to justify my collective response. I sincerely apologize if that's where you thought I was headed. As far as I am concerned I have done nothing wrong and have nothing to justify.

Had you read my entire collective response, which is spread across a few blogs, you would see that I didn't just use "insults and hyperbole" in my exchange with Rod, I responded with facts just as you suggested.

I'm not paranoid, irrational or threatened. I have no stake in this argument other than I won't stand idly while someone attacks my livelihood with blatant lies.

[cliffreeves]

Charles, thanks for posting.

On the subject of the misplaced quotes, I apologize. Careless cutting and pasting. No harm in intended and as you point out, no harm done.

You pretty much repeated what everyone else has said: that Rod's post was so inflammatory that he incurred the full wrath of the Notes-knowledgeable community. Forgive the gender misatch butI think thsi is a case of: "The lady doth protest too much, methinks."

I think these reactions makes my point about paranoia, but to your points in particular: "Asbestos is dangerous and kills people. Notes could be argued to be dangerous in certain contexts, but it doesn't kill people. The analogy is absurd .... it also carries the implication that it *must* be removed for the health of the organization."

Nobody sees the Notes:asbestos analog as suggesting that Notes kills people. It does sharpen the main point though, that even if you wanted to remove Notes, you will find that Notes is expensive and difficult to remove.

You also said: "I'm not paranoid, irrational or threatened. I have no stake in this argument other than I won't stand idly while someone attacks my livelihood with blatant lies."

Attacks your livelihodd with blatant lies? Yikes. I think you may be too close to this issue to see where the real problem lies, and it's not Rod's post.

[Dave Madison]

Cliff makes the point repeatedly that ad hominem attacks on those that dare to question the value of Notes do nothing to foment an intellectually honest conversation. Yet the Notes defenders and evangilist (or should I say Crusaders?) continue with attacks and seem to refuse to engage in a discussion of the topic at hand. I think we can all agree that were points to Mr. Boothby's arguments that were overly simplistic and perhaps lacked the insight that life long Notes toilers would have. But, that does not belie the broader point-for those customers that WANT TO, for whatever reason, how hard, or easy is it for them to migrate off Notes. From all that I have read and seen it would seem people like Cliff and Gary have the customer's concerns in mind first and foremost. They propose solutions like coexistence and gradual adoption of alternative solutions, all the while not putting the existing Notes platform at risk. With comments like from Mr. Robinson where he says he will not tolerate someone "attacking his livlihood", it would seem to a customer that Notes consultants and perhaps IBM themselves is more interested in what benefits them, not what benefits the customer. The overaching theme to many of the posts from the Notes community when this comes up seems to be that customers are stupid for even considering migrating off Notes. Reminds me of the classic scene from "Cool Hand Look", except the role of Luke is played by the customer wanting to get off Notes (escape) and the part of the Captian is being played by the Notes crusaders:

"Captain: What we got here is... failure to communicate.
You run one time, you got yourself a set of chains. You run twice you got yourself two sets. You ain't gonna need no third set, 'cause you gonna get your mind right."

[Ed Brill]

@Dave, the question is really one of why do those customers want to migrate? Is it because they themselves woke up one morning and decided they had other options, or were those other options proposed/suggested/pushed/marketed by some outside vendor/consultant/hype?

I believe the reason the Notes community is rather sensitive about these kinds of discussions, and it was certainly true in this case, is that the compelling business reason to migrate is often not demonstrated.

If Notes/Domino is evolving and adding Web 2.0 types of features (ironically shipping a weblog capability right in the middle of this discussion), and federating its client-server roots in the next release, then what is the real impetus for migrating? Gartner maintains that most Notes migrations are done out of emotion or politics, and certainly from where I sit, they are right most of the time. Is it no wonder the community around the product gets a little defensive? It's not the position I'd prefer to be in, and it is tiring to play so much defense, but it's also true that when Notes is given a fair shot at demonstating its value, it can shine like nothing else.

So it is patently untrue that the community or IBM are most interested in what benefits them, not the customer. In fact one of the ironies of the discussion on Mr. Boothby's site is that instead of telling him don't consider migration, my first response offered him several other ways of extracting data out of Notes (through Domino XML [DXL] or even OLE/COM or integrating Domino apps into new apps via Web Services in Domino 7). Clearly those are features that only benefit Domino/Notes in the context of interacting with other systems and technologies. Notes next release even consumes web services from other systems. Those sound like ways of extending investment rather than throwing it away on a whim, which is an approach which will probably do right by most organizations in the long run.