IBM Lotus preps small biz software appliance
It's pandemonium out there. Cats are living with dogs. There's chocolate in my peanut butter. Software units are selling servers and calling them appliances. Late yesterday, IBM's Lotus collaboration software unit, one of the key pillars in the company's Software Group, lifted the veil a bit on its next-generation of Lotus …
Why is it when I see the words "Lotus" and "Idiot-proof" in the same sentence I burst out laughing uncontrollably?
... as do most folks reading this.
IBM should have lost the name(s) soon after purchase ... Trying to keep the platform solvent "as is" is probably bleeding more money than they can recoup in the long run.
It's been .. what? ... 12 years or so? Are they showing profit yet?
Good luck to them, but IBM don't have an exactly brilliant reputation for software - Lotus Notes as an email client is awful (yes, Lotus fanboys, version 8 is an improvement, but it's still the worst email client in the world). Clearcase should have been staked, beheaded and burnt a decade ago, ideally throwing most of the rest of the Rational suite on the bonfire while we're there. I'm so glad I left my last job, simply because I don't have to use Lotus or Rational any more. I know of people who have taken pay cuts, just to get away from them.
I know I'm being optimistic, but does IBM actually have any good software at all?
Paris, cos I needed a question mark
Well, it's obvious that none of you have had to maintain an email server. Unfortunately, some of us have to, and Domino beats anything else on the backend hands down.
I will admit to the client not being "pretty" but it works. I have yet to see one thing in Outlook that Notes can't do.
BTW, I have been asked to look into switching to Exchange 2007. While I can find plenty of entries for not installing Exchange, I'm having a tough time, other than MS's own marketing as to why I should? Anyone want to help me out here?
Are you kidding? Lotus has been showing double digit revenue growth for at least the last fourteen consecutive quarters.
@AC 15:28 Don't do it. Exchange is an over-architected pig of a product. And if you're forced to, and your AD has problems, fix them first. Otherwise you'll spend six months unravelling the mess.
The only argument I can see is that if you're the decision make in a reasonably large sized company, your own little empire will grow of necessity with every MS server product you decide to deploy, which some people see as enough justification.
We recently installed the first version of foundations on a custom build server and I have to say how easy it really is. It was up and running in less than half an hour and was very straight forward.
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