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Had the opportunity of attending a Lotus user group meeting in Melbourne today, where Ed Brill spoke of the current situation surrounding Lotus Software and expanded on the future roadmap for Lotus Products.
Ed had a couple of very interesting things to say, especially around the promotion of the Lotus Brand, and putting the Lotus name back in front of end-users. Interestingly, this came from a marketing effort where IBM "leased" CNN for the day, promoting the release of Lotus Symphony.
Thank heaven - Lotus is being marketed again. I can understand where the strategy is coming from, that is: the need to raise Lotus' profile with consumers, and by employing a FREE software offering, the strategy appears to be working with over 250,000 downloads of the product. This obviously leads to the conclusion that there were even more site visits (click-throughs) given that not everyone would have downloaded the product.
The release of Symphony finally signals the end-of-life with regards to SmartSuite. I find this a little sad, because Symphony is still not as fully featured as the software it is going to replace, and while I can live without 1-2-3, I am REALLY going to miss WordPro. As my word processor of choice, it has become more difficult since the release of millennium (9.8) to exchange documents with Microsoft users, and I don't see how this is going to be alleviated with the move to open-source when the reality is that critical mass is still with the redmond juggernaut. Microsoft will obviously to continue with their own proprietary file format and see no need to embrace open standards (have they ever?).
Pound for Pound WordPro still is as capable as Word 2007, and even has some features that make it a superior product in many respects, but in the eyes of a "standard" end-user features don't matter, look at what happened to 1-2-3 and Word Perfect.
Which leads me on to the other "star" of the day. Notes 8.
At one point Ed placed a slide on the overhead containing side-by-side screen shots of Notes and Outlook, and asked the question, which is the Outlook client?
This is where I shifted in my seat. I don't like Outlook. I use it occasionally. I teach it fairly frequently. It's an email client. And it's not even a very good one.
Outlook is basic. It lacks features. It requires other software to be installed on the user workstation - and a vast collection of servers in the background - to provide anything even remotely approaching business functionality.
But it's pretty. It has two or three features that Notes doesn't. Are those features ESSENTIAL to the operation of an Industrial strength communications package? No. They are "nice to have's". But those are the features end-users talk about. And decision makers are end-users.
Moving to the "lets get rid of the Lotus Notes is ugly and doesn't work like Outlook" model, IBM have removed some features of Lotus Notes that made the software easy to use, and once I pointed these features out to users during training (I'm now in the tens of thousands realm after 12 years teaching Notes) it is not uncommon to hear comments of "Notes is better than Outlook".
The disappointment for me came during question time, when Ed revealed that the "Selection Bar" (aka "Gutter") is not going to make it back in 8.01, I'm going to have to wait until the end of next year for 8.5.
So, while I can presently jump up and down enthusiastically about Notes with an Outlook/Exchange shop considering a move, I can't honestly say with any conviction to any of my current clients that the upgrade to 8 will make them more productive. There are just too many things that have been removed in the pursuit of an Outlook style interface.
Overall, a great presentation Ed, and thanks for taking the time to visit down-under.
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