Is Your Company #DominoForever or Exiting Stage Left?

A good friend of mine sent me a link to this post from David Giller and I recognized much of what he posted (crowdsourced) happens in all industries and businesses.

But for those on the cusp of debating "should we stay, or should we go", read on.

"Too little, too late" is what I hear and see from people and my reply is, quite honestly, well, there is not too little now thanks to HCL.

Too late is a relative term in an Enterprise. If you decided today to change your course, it would be months, possibly years for some of your larger companies, before you even took a step forward with a new partner or vendor to architect where you are going.

There are also the costs involved in any big project, and this would be a big project. Ask yourself, or your executive, do you really want to spend money on swapping one mail system for another?

A rough estimate I use with customers asking is, at a minimum, the cost to migrate will exceed $1,000 per user/email address moved.

The number doubles if you are big enough and need both worlds maintained in parallel. 

The number triples if you also "must have" coexistence so your calendaring and scheduling can work together.

And I did not even get to your licensing and hardware purchases, that is if you are not going to a Cloud solution.

If you are going to a cloud solution, don't forget the costs and time involved to get your security, Directory, and single sign-on parts to work and upgrade your telecommunications because that bandwidth is going sky high next.

Okay, enough scary tactics, feel free to argue with me, I am all ears to anyone who says I am lying. Maybe my numbers are off, if anything, they are low. Seriously.

Back to Mr. Giller's post, here is my SCNDT (Sametime, Connections, Notes, Domino, Traveler) version of some of them. You need to recognize and fix these before you face the end of the road:

• No business teams are providing requests for new applications, if they ever did, and you find you are not being involved in the meetings about the future of business applications.
• When was the last time someone asked, and you got approval, for application enhancements?
• When was the last time you DID NOT SAY "give me a few days/hours I will come up with something". And instead explained to your boss how this would be a serious enterprise required application that should be on the next IT budget meeting. If your apps are not Enterprise need, your infrastructure is not either.
• Your admins left or were moved along and it is now up to the help desk or the developers, if any are still around, to maintain the environment. Would you let the pizza delivery person fix your Porsche?
• Rolling out SalesForce? ServiceNow? Not integrating them with Domino? You have lost a huge opportunity because you know what? Both of the former requires a small army to customize it so it is useful. You already had much of this at your fingertips. 
• Your company may say they want "best of breed" or the latest app in the Cloud, but you know your company and why that is probably not the safest most secure way to implement something that really could have been built on Domino.
• Someone complains about the high cost of maintaining the Domino Infrastructure.
• Ha, April Fool's, no one ever complains about the high cost of the Domino Infrastructure, except Microsoft and Google.
• Executives say they want O365 but really have no business reason for it. the Outlook they use at home is not the same as in business. Directories and lookups, calendars, public/private information, multiple depositories for files are just some of the "functions" they have yet to use or think about. 
• Look at the companies that tried to blame their problems on their email system and moved away from Domino only to die a miserable death soon afterward or fall into a serious free fall. Hello Comcast, BlockBuster, and Qantas Airlines to name some famous ones.
• If your executive that has backed SCNDT all this time is now shying away, or leaves, who you gonna call? I am available.
• Have you tried to provide ideas for how your infrastructure could be leveraged to management? They are grasping at straws and need a light, no matter how small, to help them.
• You hear about database bloat. Look, you are the admin or developer and you should be trying to retire a database a day, that is about 250 a year and no one will argue with you even if you say you removed 30, 50, or 100. Be proactive or face negative reactive management.
• There is a lack of vision by the management to understand how to leverage the SCNDT platforms to streamline and automate processes – instead of simply replicating the same backward manual way things have always been done….in Excel. And Excel, which is over 30 years old, is what runs many sales teams and finance departments. Just. Stop. It.
• Some Microsoft tech complains about having to cover your servers when you are on vacation, you do take a vacation I hope, and you don't try to educate them, you lose the best chance of getting them on your side. Remember, no one ever says they love Exchange.
• Training doesn't exist. I get it. But you know what? Leverage the hell out of your intranet. Wiki, blog posts, status updates, if you are not posting something, then the executives think it doesn't exist and what doesn't exist, doesn't get funded, and disappears. 
• 1 great admin can manage a few dozen servers and between 1-3,000 users or more if given the right tools, for support issues and has minimal complaints and usually exceptional uptime. Learn your craft, read more blogs, go to user group events....The opposite of having bad admins is a sure sign the end is nigh.
• Management thinks that Domino data is simply “ONE OF” the other systems that we have (resulting in siloed data being dispersed across multiple systems throughout the organization, making 360 degrees reporting practically impossible). This one I stole from Mr. Giller's post because it is still true.
• If your organization cannot articulate their current or future business processes and expectations in a way that makes sense to a normal person, you may have a problem.
• Middle management is more interested in their job and budget than benefiting the company. Small mind = no advancement.
• Not leveraging Domino policies, Panagenda's Marvel Client or any of the configurable options that make user's lives better. I have been told by clients that Notes "should look and act like other apps" so they do not enable all the preferences. My retort usually is something like "Tesla didn't build a car, they built a car everyone wants because they included options people want and need." Yes, this is public enemy number one of a reluctant IT staff to maintain Domino.

</soapbox>

How Many Times Must I Explain Myself

Before I could talk to the boss. - Forever Man lyrics by Jerry Lynn Williams, as performed by Eric Clapton




















While driving to/from Tampa to visit John Vaughan for lunch. We were seeing a client and having 2 vendor meetings but due to server farm failure(not going to say it was a VM failure, but...) one meeting was postponed and I was able to meet up with John and it was nice to see him and I enjoyed the time, hard to believe we really only see some people once a year at Lotusphere.

One of my vendor meetings brought up something I stress quite a bit, which is, if you are not asking for enough money, you are not talking to the right people.

If you work in a company I know there are budget issues, but when something is strategic or world wide going to do XYZ, suddenly there is money. LOTS OF MONEY.

If you did this with your Lotus infrastructure, every year, you would not be faced with possible encroachment by other parties.

Yes, some will argue that is what creates the interest to bring in something new and cheaper. My reply would be you created your own downfall by not asking for enough money for anything probably ever. No, one can't go to the till every year, but at least every other year. Some argue with me once you set the bar so high you MUST go back every year else you become "old" and no longer deemed Enterprise worthy.

How much did you ask for to upgrade to Sametime 8.5? Connections? Domino 851?
How much did the Sharepoint "team" ask for...and how much did it cost in the end, sorry, it will never end, so a running total is fine.

See my point?

Now what did you use for an ROI? Did you? Or was it just another, we pay maintenance so we get it for cheap and we just need to schedule some down time this year or quarter?

When customers ask how much will it cost to do an upgrade I say the same thing every time and quote it per server. Simple yet efficient. Cheap? Well it depends on how many servers and how fast you want it done.

Sure a Domino server "could" be updated in 5 minutes I have posted videos of one in 3 minutes but the reality is there is backup time, there is reboots for OS patches from Microsoft or your hardware vendor or IBM systems, there is testing, there is possible website issues or email stoppages, Sametime integration, BES connections, FAX, backup solutions to test, and on and on. While I could bill for an hour, it is an unreasonable presumption.

Yet, many of you in corporate life manage your infrastructure, and thus your budget, on the "sure it takes 5 minutes" theory.

Scotty on Star Trek was famous for doubling the estimated time, yet miraculously always fixing everything in half the time, winning him praises and Saurian Brandy no doubt.

As you move up the food chain, money and budgets go funny. They become "Key Enterprise/Strategic Projects" or die a miserable death.

So don't just jump out there and demand a million or 2. Diagram the money. Plan for ROI. Get details you need.

Sametime 8.5 may save your company tons of money but do you even know how much? Do you know where to get those details? Long distance, phone bills, lines, equipment, time to delay a project because the exec you need is on another continent, webex costs, streaming media solutions that cost an arm and leg.

You can do this for any product but get the details, your boss will ask, and their boss will demand them if the request is to go in front of the capital expenditure board. EVERY request you make should go to this Board, within reason of course(don't try to buy everyone an iPhone as an example), otherwise you do not have an Enterprise wide solution, you have a legacy solution.

Read that last sentence again and think about your role, your job and your management.

Sad but true too often.

While many will say I am out of my mind, all I can say is think differently about your organization. No one ever got fired for thinking big, only screwing up big.

Fud Buster Friday #40A - Exchange costs less to implement

Read David's blog entries from Thursday about his trek in an Exchange migration away from Domino.

Part 6
Part 7
Part 8 which has final review

Some quotes:

Before Domino servers 38 including 3 BES servers (15 sites) after Exchange users(presuming he means servers here) 105 (14 sites)

I can’t stress enough how much more bandwidth you will need compared to a Domino infrastructure.

Microsoft Sales team promises a lot that they can’t deliver.
If you use Microsoft Engineering team to implement what the Microsoft Sales team has sold you, you will get proof positive on the previous point. Even the Engineering team will admit that they’ve oversold you.

What Costs Get Saved When Going to the Cloud?

Really, do you or your clients know?
Would you be able to provide a valid and true number, or at least a reasonable estimate?
Is Google/Microsoft/IBM or "Fred's Cloud" really a cheaper more efficient solution?
On what do you base this?

Ed Brill's post had some comments which I was going to reply, but instead wanted to expand my answer.

What is really being saved is the question of course.
No company stops needing their telecom, wiring, firewall, routers etc just because they go to the Cloud. In fact one could argue some of these INCREASE.
Nor do they stop needing their administrators or help desk or support staff. Although you may be able to drop a few people or move them to a different project, they can't all be user/password admins.

Possibly the costs of some hardware(the onsite servers), SAN/Drive space and some related items, plus NOS cost and licenses, and their support/maintenance contracts are what is saved by going to the cloud.

What other costs are there you ask that could get saved? Backup solutions and costs, archiving, spam filters, antivirus which all have fees or maintenance.

Need more? Electricity, Real Estate/Data Center Space, A/C requirements.

Still need more reasons? Leave some in the comments.
What am I missing or not thinking of right now?

I will put together an ROI for it all once I have inputs from everyone.

There is no price for headaches, they are priceless. Going to the cloud may limit the ones you feel today, but will create other ones potentially even greater or worse. (Worse would be when Fred's Cloud goes under)

Fud Buster Friday #26 - You Can't Measure ROI

Really? Did Google say that because free is the best ROI?
Did Microsoft suggest it because well, we all know the ROI from anything Microsoft is staggering....in their pocket, not yours.
Maybe your university professor wants to get the point across about ROI. And really it is a good point, but if you don't understand and know your customers environment you can't really produce a decent ROI proposal.

2 different clients this week have inquired about Lotus Quickr. I love them for it.
What they both want is a quantifiable ROI to justify the corporate wide installation, licensing and services fees.

So where can you find ROI? It is everywhere, but you have to know what you are looking for to start.

In both cases the easiest way was to explain that the postal service would lose a lot of revenue. Both clients mail out cd's, usb drives and other documents to their sales force around the world. At least 4 times a year if not monthly in some cases. Imagine the costs saved after 1 shipping is no longer needed. Now multiply it all year. Plus reduce the cost and time of packing, labeling, shipping, etc... not to mention the trees and waste saved by going digital.

Sounds ancient, almost hard to believe in this day and age companies still don't put more money and time into their online projects. Yet it's all true and it happens everywhere. Go find new clients and ask them.

Or in a different light, we removed about 500 pounds of computer equipment from a law office and they in turn got back much needed space and piece of mind. The cost was much cheaper than if they removed it themselves and faster too. Yet few companies see it that way. They would rather find the cheapest solution, spend months figuring it out and in the mean time waste prime real estate or warehouse space of theirs.

A third direction is telecommunication costs. Sending links, instead of full 50MB attachments reduces stress on your bandwidth, networks, disk space, backups and of course time. Not everyone or every place has T1, cable or DSL lines, modem speed is still average in many places. Remember that next time you try to rollout some beefy application with your client.

And thanks to everyone for the Birthday wishes and I am happy to say the move to the new office is finally completed. Look for this blog to be moved sometime in the not so distant future.

Sharepoint, The Cloud and the Environment

An article in Information Week, which appeared slightly different in print from the online version covered some pros and cons.

The software's Swiss Army knife approach helps companies create more useful intranets, set up document sharing, offer blogs and wikis, and build a richer online company directory. This boundary-blurring nature is part of its appeal..

J. Nicholas Hoover, the author of the article could be describing Domino but no, it's Sharepoint.

While IT manages master page layouts, business units can build one-off sites without IT's help. "This is why SharePoint has taken off like wildfire

General Mills Manager of .NET

So how do we counter this? What can we do? What should Lotus do?

Sharepoint is already under the covers, maybe even paid for in licensing, so why not use it? Sound familiar? It should, Lotus asks the same question, and has for years.

When you put Domino into your organization, you had, from early on, the capability to do so much more, but few understood it all or do today. The discussion databases that predate wiki's, the Team Room's that predate most collaboration software in the market, plus a built in messaging system and strong server options all provides a great package.

Now it looks like companies want to go modular. Server for this, a server for that.

Doesn't this go against the thinking of modern times?
Less power consumption, fewer servers, reduced carbon footprint, fewer Administrators, reduced expenses?

And now The Cloud hovers ever closer and may provide the myth of all the above.
You as a customer will experience all the benefits just listed, yet your provider/host of Cloud Computing just took it all on.

How are they doing with it? What are they doing to minimize it?

Does this interest you? Will it make any difference for you to go with IBM, Amazon or anyone else?