Things have certainly gotten better since Jim O'Donnell Published this story. The grades given to IBM/Lotus were:
- Overall Performance - C+
- Strategic Vision - D+
- Improvements in Notes/Domino - B
- Overall Quality of Notes/Domino - B
- Particular Features of Notes/Domino - B
- Product Mix - C+
- Marketing - D
- Pricing and Licensing Agreements - C+
- Technical Support - C+
- Relationship with BP's and ISV's - D+
- Migration to Notes/Domino - B-
- Knowledge Management Strategy - C+
Comment posted by Nathan T. Freeman12/17/2007 01:17:04 PM
Homepage: http://nathan.lotus911.com
It took a few iterations even after 2000 to get the "Strategic Vision" and "Marketing" arenas to improve, eh?
2000 was just before the Dark Times. It says something important that even with a D in vision, ISV relationships, and marketing, the product maintained a pretty steady share and continued to be successful for the last 7 years.
Comment posted by Carl Tyler12/17/2007 02:30:01 PM
Homepage: http://www.iminstant.com
"It says something important that even with a D in vision, ISV relationships, and marketing, the product maintained a pretty steady share and continued to be successful for the last 7 years."
I think some of that was actually down to those loyal partners that stuck with IBM/Lotus during the "dark times", and those customers that were smart enough to realize there was more value in their Notes deployment than just it's email capabilities.
It was also down to a very small percentage of IBM/Lotus employees that were kind of putting their heads on the block by continuing to bang the Notes/Domino drum when the smart people looking for promotions were pushing the virtues of Workplace, I think we all know who we should be thankful for to in that regard.
I do often wonder if the cost controls that many companies implemented after Sept 11 2001 also helped Domino. There was a general reduction in money spent on new projects and outside consulting projects, which in an obscure way held back many Notes/Domino migrations that may have taken place, with customers choosing to just maintain what they already had in place.
Comment posted by Stuart McIntyre12/17/2007 11:24:28 PM
Homepage: http://collaborationmatters.com
Good points guys.
I certainly remember being at Lotusphere Berlin in 2000 - held during the worst of the Al Zollar era. The main "highlight" of the keynote was the provision of Domino content to WAP phones (how many people really ever implemented that solution), very little else of real value to the Lotus faithful.
I think if anything the marks given above are kind to the Lotus management of the time.
Stuart
Comment posted by Axel12/18/2007 10:33:16 AM
At that time horible apps where developed. I got some of my paychecks for maintaining those. I think on average, we as a community understand the concepts better, more thinking about maintainability, not to forget open source apps to steal some ideas.
Never cared much about marketing battles.
