IBM Eye

Daniel Lyons writes a rather rancorous piece about IBM’s refusal to acknowledge defeat in the messaging wars: IBM In Denial Over Lotus Notes.

The marketing folks in IBM’s Lotus division are starting to sound like the Black Knight in Monty Python and the Holy Grail, who insists he’s winning a fight even as he loses both arms and legs: “‘Tis but a scratch,” the Black Knight declares after one arm is lopped off. “Just a flesh wound,” he says after losing the other. “I’m invincible!”

Yet again, we face another ill-informed rant about the oft-reported death of Lotus Notes. Hence I’ve decided to dedicate a separate category of my blog to discussions about the rhetoric being expressed on this topic “Notes is dead?”. That’s a question, not a statement - and actually more a question in incredulity.

I honestly don’t think Lyons gets IBM’s messaging strategy - although I do admit IBM hasn’t done a fantastic job of explaining that to the marketplace over the last couple of years. All that changed this year in my opinion - with a very clear message going out about where Lotus Notes fits into the overall Workplace strategy and some very good indication on what the ongoing roadmap is. If Lyons still doesn’t get it I don’t think it’s IBM’s fault this time.

Lotus Notes is certainly not dead - and while I am not arguing any points about whose version of market share is more correct than others (which is all Lyons seems to be able to do), I will say that throughout 2005, we have seen a significant increase in interest in Lotus Notes and Domino products from all market segments, and we have a lot of business partners actively migrating customers from Exchange to Lotus Notes - some who were even previous Notes customers who realised the mistake they made in moving to Exchange.

Lyon’s even takes aim at the Lotus business partner community:

Yet IBM still claims Notes is the “best-selling” e-mail product on the market. And the rah-rah Lotus faithful–consultants who make a living by maintaining Notes and writing specialized Notes applications–promote this version of reality to their customers.

… and …

Notes consultants have resorted to bashing market researchers who say Notes is slipping, suggesting on blogs that these analysts are extreme outliers who lack credibility and/or are shills who were paid off by Microsoft.

… ahh that old chestnut again huh ?

Of course, Lyons puts us all in a typical double-bind situation - if we fail to respond, we are implicitly agreeing with his sentiment, and if we do respond, we are merely bashing the shills for standing up for what we believe in. Kind of like your wife asking you if this dress makes her look fat - failure to respond (or even just hesitation) is just as bad as telling the truth (regardless of whether the truth was “yes or no” - you’re often damned either way).

I would suggest to Lyons that while there are consultants around who make money out of Notes, and hence have a financial interest in its longevity, there are still plenty of other people who sincerely believe that the technology is simply the best out there for what it does - it solves real customer problems, adds significant value, and does so in a reliable and cost effective manner. The technology works and works very well.

Now I’m starting to sound like Lotus marketing - which I’m not - but if I were, we wouldn’t be having this problem because I would have been spending the GDP of many small countries in an effort to out market Microsoft … something I think IBM still doesn’t do well enough yet. But that’s a discussion for another time!