In speaking with a few people(shielding them) and reading some blogs lately(again protect the innocent) I see more interest in Lotus Foundations. Excellent news, especially for my portable server but what is the interest?
Some see it as an SMB toehold against Microsoft.
Others see it as a chance for Linux(in the Nitix form) to reach new areas of business.
Still more see it as another way to layer services or software on a solution.
I originally saw it as a DRP/BC (Disaster Recovery Plan/Business Continuity) appliance and still do given I am in a Hurricane zone.
We also see it as a home server setup for professionals(non-IT).
IBM probably thinks of it for some branch site, a la the way Nitix positioned itself previously. Except that was for Exchange because you NEVER want to go over a WAN to an Exchange server, so it was the right idea.
However, Lotus Domino has always been excellent over the WAN and thus it does not find itself in the same MUST need class.
While I certainly can see the possibility, the problem for me, and possibly for you, is putting Foundations in a Branch office will not help connect it to your existing Domino infrastructure today. Future changes in software may allow it, unknown.
Thus you would need to have an entire infrastructure of Foundations Servers and I am not sure that will work for everyone.
The world works in funny ways and my clients, yours or IBM's all see it differently. This is one reason why Business Partners exist, we go to market where IBM can't, and why we need IBM, to help seed the market and promote the opportunity and product lines. Maybe in South Florida or Brazil or New Zealand or Manchester some one does need Foundations and it works for them and that's what it's all about. It's not about selling IBM hardware, it's about software, services and connecting with new/young business, in my mind.
I also see Foundations as a consumer play, IBM doesn't or maybe is still not ready to jump back on that band wagon so quickly. Why doesn't IBM offer it through Office Depot or Walmart for instance? Aren't the people you want to find just setting up their offices? Interesting enough this is one possible plan of distribution for the Mycubus line of designer computers.
I understand in Africa there is a store which caters to entrepreneurs and startups and Foundations sells well there. I think my solar server would sell better possibly, but I digress. It's an interesting idea. As I myself expand offices I am finding so little out there to help people looking to setup/kit out an office from furniture to electric to computers to telecom.
So can Foundations take on the world, like Symphony has? Only if IBM backs it the same way and I wonder if it will happen.
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Showing posts with label Lotus_Foundations. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Lotus_Foundations. Show all posts
Wednesday, January 28, 2009
Friday, August 8, 2008
Fudbuster Friday #1 - Microsoft Press Doc
Great news, I was able to secure a domain, fudbuster.net, now to find a host.
Anyway, where to start, Microsoft leaves a trail a 5 year old with a Google search bar can find.
I thought I would start inside the beasts stomach, the Microsoft website.
http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/presskits/uc/docs/MoveWP.pdf
If you see this document on your customer's desk, just grab it and tear it up. It's blatant FUD beyond imagination.
According to Microsoft and their partners, Casahl and Excipio Consulting,
The Top 3 Reasons Why Companies Still Run Notes/Domino (Their line as #Q my reply as #A):
1Q)Inability to get budgeting approved for the migration
1A)This has what to do with running Domino? Nothing.
2Q)Lack of an accurate Domino database inventory to estimate the conversion effort
2A)Funny, last I checked, since Release 1 you could get a database listing of all your databases, it's called the Database catalog and you should use it. If you aren't already, look at the tools which came out in R7 to perform analysis on your network for consolidation of servers, which you will want to do as you can scale into the 1,000's these days per server.
3Q)Technical bias by the IT staff
3A)So the fact that your own IT people prefer it, because it has technical benefits and is superior to other solutions is a reason for you to get rid of it, Mr. CEO. So who do you trust, Mr. CEO, Microsoft who cares about your money they will steal from you or your own staff that manages everything in your company and cares about your costs?
The document also goes on to say:
Excipio and Casahl have interviewed numerous clients and compiled the most
common business challenges faced by organizations with legacy platforms. For the sake of argument, given the document is about IBM vs. Microsoft the implication is clear, Microsoft thinks Lotus is a legacy system and expresses it to anyone that will listen to them.
1Q) The platform is perceived as too complex with too much potential exposure
1A) Potential exposure? to what? Is this compared to Exchange and Outlook which have suffered some major problems over the years because of Microsoft's excellent security. One example of recent issues with Exchange 2007 and Outlook can be found in July 2008.
2Q) Lack of a legacy platform’s ability to change with the business
2A) Let's see now, what part of ODF,Java,RAD, J2EE and the Eclipse environment is not about changing with business and technology times? Business lines can have any application they wish, and it will be fully portable for offline usage as well, built in. Can your Microsoft program do that?
3Q) The organization’s Inability to get meaningful information the appropriate
people in a timely manner
3A) I love this, a grammar typo in their public press document. hmm, Word's grammar checker not doing too well is it? If you have a file, a database, a browser, or a phone you can access the data you require in a format desired. and if you want it to look different, do it yourself or get your staff to do it. There is no great secret to creating a view.
4Q) Existing systems operate on costly, outdated, or unsupported platforms,
thus the systems are unreliable
4A) The funny thing about this line is they are usually talking about Microsoft's own systems. Costly, yes Windows is for sure. Unreliable, definitely more than other OS's. Outdated, also for sure, Windows 2000? End of Life. 2003? End of Life Coming up soon. Now let's say you were not running on Windows but AIX or As/400 or Mainframe or Linux, and almost all of these are cheaper and faster and scale higher than Windows Server. Clients prove it all the time if you read various posts , blogs and forums.
5Q) “It’s always worked this way, so why change?”
5A) Excellent question? What is so bad about a platform that provides email, collaboration, clustering and document archiving all in one server?
6Q) Operating costs continue to rise, while the value of the legacy systems continue
to decline
6A) You got me here. Tax purposes allow you to depreciate your purchases every year so yes the value goes down. Costs don't go up, aside from the CIO salary. If you haven't noticed most companies provide an annual raise of maybe 1-5%, but it has been rather nominal. Electricity has gone up? Great! Consolidate your servers, pull some back to a central data center, your server can scale higher, right? If you aren't seeing 2,000+ on a server you need some help, email me immediately.
Try doing that with Exchange, there's a reason Lotus Foundations servers also come in an Exchange version, because it does not deal very well with remote activities.
7Q) The feeling that the vendor appears to “hold us hostage” versus more cost
effective alternatives
7A) Vendor lock in? Lotus? How? With what? Lotus lets you run on almost any platform(some variations of Linux excluded), not just Windows. Sametime, Quickr run on multiple platforms as well. And they integrate better with Office than Office integrates with Office.
Well, there is a lot more to this article than I want o put in this posting, maybe this one piece can keep me writing for a few weeks. We didn't even get to the money part yet.
Feedback is always appreciated, and my services are available if your company finds itself in need of defending Microsoft FUD.
Anyway, where to start, Microsoft leaves a trail a 5 year old with a Google search bar can find.
I thought I would start inside the beasts stomach, the Microsoft website.
http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/presskits/uc/docs/MoveWP.pdf
If you see this document on your customer's desk, just grab it and tear it up. It's blatant FUD beyond imagination.
According to Microsoft and their partners, Casahl and Excipio Consulting,
The Top 3 Reasons Why Companies Still Run Notes/Domino (Their line as #Q my reply as #A):
1Q)Inability to get budgeting approved for the migration
1A)This has what to do with running Domino? Nothing.
2Q)Lack of an accurate Domino database inventory to estimate the conversion effort
2A)Funny, last I checked, since Release 1 you could get a database listing of all your databases, it's called the Database catalog and you should use it. If you aren't already, look at the tools which came out in R7 to perform analysis on your network for consolidation of servers, which you will want to do as you can scale into the 1,000's these days per server.
3Q)Technical bias by the IT staff
3A)So the fact that your own IT people prefer it, because it has technical benefits and is superior to other solutions is a reason for you to get rid of it, Mr. CEO. So who do you trust, Mr. CEO, Microsoft who cares about your money they will steal from you or your own staff that manages everything in your company and cares about your costs?
The document also goes on to say:
Excipio and Casahl have interviewed numerous clients and compiled the most
common business challenges faced by organizations with legacy platforms. For the sake of argument, given the document is about IBM vs. Microsoft the implication is clear, Microsoft thinks Lotus is a legacy system and expresses it to anyone that will listen to them.
1Q) The platform is perceived as too complex with too much potential exposure
1A) Potential exposure? to what? Is this compared to Exchange and Outlook which have suffered some major problems over the years because of Microsoft's excellent security. One example of recent issues with Exchange 2007 and Outlook can be found in July 2008.
2Q) Lack of a legacy platform’s ability to change with the business
2A) Let's see now, what part of ODF,Java,RAD, J2EE and the Eclipse environment is not about changing with business and technology times? Business lines can have any application they wish, and it will be fully portable for offline usage as well, built in. Can your Microsoft program do that?
3Q) The organization’s Inability to get meaningful information the appropriate
people in a timely manner
3A) I love this, a grammar typo in their public press document. hmm, Word's grammar checker not doing too well is it? If you have a file, a database, a browser, or a phone you can access the data you require in a format desired. and if you want it to look different, do it yourself or get your staff to do it. There is no great secret to creating a view.
4Q) Existing systems operate on costly, outdated, or unsupported platforms,
thus the systems are unreliable
4A) The funny thing about this line is they are usually talking about Microsoft's own systems. Costly, yes Windows is for sure. Unreliable, definitely more than other OS's. Outdated, also for sure, Windows 2000? End of Life. 2003? End of Life Coming up soon. Now let's say you were not running on Windows but AIX or As/400 or Mainframe or Linux, and almost all of these are cheaper and faster and scale higher than Windows Server. Clients prove it all the time if you read various posts , blogs and forums.
5Q) “It’s always worked this way, so why change?”
5A) Excellent question? What is so bad about a platform that provides email, collaboration, clustering and document archiving all in one server?
6Q) Operating costs continue to rise, while the value of the legacy systems continue
to decline
6A) You got me here. Tax purposes allow you to depreciate your purchases every year so yes the value goes down. Costs don't go up, aside from the CIO salary. If you haven't noticed most companies provide an annual raise of maybe 1-5%, but it has been rather nominal. Electricity has gone up? Great! Consolidate your servers, pull some back to a central data center, your server can scale higher, right? If you aren't seeing 2,000+ on a server you need some help, email me immediately.
Try doing that with Exchange, there's a reason Lotus Foundations servers also come in an Exchange version, because it does not deal very well with remote activities.
7Q) The feeling that the vendor appears to “hold us hostage” versus more cost
effective alternatives
7A) Vendor lock in? Lotus? How? With what? Lotus lets you run on almost any platform(some variations of Linux excluded), not just Windows. Sametime, Quickr run on multiple platforms as well. And they integrate better with Office than Office integrates with Office.
Well, there is a lot more to this article than I want o put in this posting, maybe this one piece can keep me writing for a few weeks. We didn't even get to the money part yet.
Feedback is always appreciated, and my services are available if your company finds itself in need of defending Microsoft FUD.
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