What if Notes & Domino didn't exist?

Or to put it differently, you go out on your own and start a new company selling widgets.(Textbooks need a new mcgufin as Alfred Hitchock would say)

What do you do for email or a website or a database or a portal or a financial system or a spreadsheet or word processor even?

When posed with this question I thought, great question!

The answer is not important. No, really, it isn't. The thought process is.

Maybe this is why Google, Apple and some creative agencies thrive, because they see things from this angle outside the box.

In doing so, we can all learn more about who and how we are selling solutions to clients.

Messaging or rather communication DOES matter, email, IM, UC, Twitter, Phone, PDA, voicemail, blogs, wikis, postit notes, FEDEX, semaphors, television, radio, telegraph, morse code or smoke signals we keep evolving so should our solutions and always be looking ahead of the curve.

This is why I prefer Lotus solutions, because pushing future ideas is always a better way to live, even with occasional mistakes, than not pushing any advancements at all.

So what would I be using if Domino didn't exist?
Probably whatever existed that let me share my data, projects, funding or functions among all my employees or clients in a secure, yet open, way and did it all on a personal level so my databases or mail files or whatever would not or could not affect others in an adverse way.
Something which Hosting is getting closer to accomplishing slowly but surely.