1. a guy named Rod Boothby just blogged about some ways to migrate from Lotus Notes to a more „sophisticated toolset“. He calls it „Enterprise 2.0 / Office 2.0“, whatever that means. Not a revolutionary article, just some thoughts are in, no more, no less. But the following reaction striked me:
2. Ed Brill, one of this guys at IBM with a long title (Business Unit Executive, Worldwide Lotus Messaging Sales, IBM Software Group) and a longtime Blogger is getting really cheap on Rod, by trying to question his reputation and the whole thoughts behind Rods blogposting: Rod Boothby on Notes, part two — second verse, worse than the first. Instead of trying to discuss the things with humility and coolness, he attacks Rod and ignore his arguments behind that migration scenario. That is what differentiates an expert 2.0 from a manager 1.0. (see also Is it dangerous to criticise Lotus Notes?)
That is not the way to speak with your customers (or lets say potential customers) out there, Ed. Why dont you speak about the future developments of such groupware collaboration monoliths = LN? Is there something to focus on „office 2.0“? How will IBM help their customers to get better tools? Man, you dissapointed me so much!! You dont have to behave like a junk car seller.
So, can we say that Lotus Notes sucks? But sure, as it looks like that even the managing guys at IBM do lose their temper if some Bloggers question the future of their products.
But one last thing, if we are already mentioned this strange „enterprise 2.0″/“office 2.0“: a one comment reads as following:
… This is how IBM thinks. They think that they rule the world, like the dinosaurs. We all know what happened to the dinosaurs! Are any of these guys realizing what harm they are doing to themselves by attacking their own end users? Why are they not listening? The real problem is that IBM and other large software companies are still talking about their great technology and how it can do anything and has been doing it for over 10 years. Good for you IBM! This is old technology and we don’t want it any more. … The power of Enterprise 2.0 is that a simple application such as a Blog and RSS feed can replace an old system at the fraction of the cost, with little or no implementation time and this is what many companies like IBM are now afraid off. This is why these OLD IBM’ers are so angry with you Rod. They know that they are a dieing breed and they will no longer be able to have their 20+ year jobs and get paid $400 an hour + expenses to consult you. How can you innovate if you are working in a time capsule for 10-20 years?
In large organizations like yours, it is up to the business units to request new solutions. In large organizations like yours however, the IT team is also the one to recommend and implement such systems. This same IT team is used to running their old IBM systems. This is what they know. This is what the CIO knows. So, in order for a large enterprise to move to Enterprise 2.0 /Web 2.0 technology, their top business and IT management need to see the benefits first and only then this can happen. The good news is that most new workers that are fresh from College know about these wacky things like blogs, wikis, social networking, RSS, web based email, video, etc, etc and they will eventually be the once to request and recommend such Enterprise 2.0 systems.
I would love to get a small group of end users and do a usability test. Let’s put your Notes and our blogging, wiki, RSS, Social Networking tools (oops IBM don’t have that one yet) and see what they will say. Let’s see how fast can you create a new workgroup, a new blog, add a picture, some video, tags, posting, get a new wiki folder, search for an expert within your corporate network. I guess that we could first do an IT test too and test how fast you can install this software on a single server and get it up and running.
Much oversimplified but true: every company has to look for reliable, secure, low priced, flexible, scalable and efficient IT environment. Do not simply believe the big companies like IBM / Microsoft. Think and look for yourself, what is out there already among the Web (dont buy into 2.0…) apps solving your problems maybe much better. Because it has a thing that many old-school apps do not have: an user proven „architecture“ (generally speaking) tested among many internet user. Dont think that your organisation is much different from the needs of the internet users out there. Compare it. Not the perfect built application has to be the best. The best is what the user serves at best. Do not buy into a SW like Lotus Notes, just because you could do and build „everything“ with it. You dont need everything and you dont want to buy everything! So, maybe one of this „cheap“ Web-apps is something for your company, maybe its still the old school MS Office, Lotus Notes or a huge monster developed by your IT department (i could immidiately name some use cases, where e.g. WordPress beats the shit out of Lotus Notes).
via vowe
