Danish IT-Blogger rips Notes
In Denmark, the now notorious IT-blogger Dorte Toft, who was instrumental in pushing the entire IT Factory house of cards to the floor, has just published an article entitled "Ailing IBM-product" in which she rips Notes quite a bit through som very unsubstantiated argumentation.The article (in danish) is here .
It is flawed to put it mildly, and makes a ridiculous connection between a very succesfull product from IBM, and a company, which have been building on websphere for ages.
Among blatant flaws ...
It Factory built its existance on Lotus Notes software. A product, that in 1984 was bought by IBM. Lately, IBM has seen several major companies leave Notes.
Bought by IBM in 1984? That's fairly surprising to me. I seem to recall it was 1995.
Dorte Toft then yaps a bit about what Notes really IS, without really adding any substance to the article. I like this bit, which I really can't seem to map into my understanding of Notes development.
But Notes was also a collection of Lego-blocks. Partners all over the world, and among them the original IT Factory, built new solutions to the customers. Partners connected selected "blocks", added extra blocks, and "glued" it all together to for a combined solution - an application.
She also tosses in a bit of FUD here and there.
The last 5 years IBM has seen one major corporation after another leave Notes, which is now down to an approximate 20% market share, after having once having dominated the market. There are still about 100 million Notes-users, however.
Odd ... since this IDC report claims 40% market share in 2006, which means that Domino market share has dropped 50% in - what - 21 months? And all that while IBM claimes 14 quarters of consecutive growth in the Lotus brand in April 08 and 140 million seats.
I'm amazed by the quality of Dorte Toft's research.
Or how about
The software is complex and was for many years not very user friendly. The price far exceeded what Microsoft wanted for its bundle, containing Exchange and Sharepoint-server.
Ehh ... no! Not the last time I checked, which was only a few weeks back, when the MS salespeople last hammered down my door. I'm sure you can create some pseudo-environment in which the MS platform may appear to be cheaper. But in real life, and when actually using the features supported by the Domino/Notes environment, I have yet to see that happen.
I don't really get what this article is about. It claims to be about an "Ailing IBM-product", then proceeds to reference Notes in relation to IT Factory, which - as far as I can remember - has been predominantly a websphere shop for the last couple of years.
In danish, Dorte "Det er en OM'er" (Try again).
I understand that IBM are already careful in relation to anything IT Factory related, but shouldn't they at least comment on this? Building on the entire IT Factory story, Dorte Toft's blog will very likely be accepted as "de facto truth", even when it is as poor and ridiculously weak as this. That can easlily affect the marketplace and put any and all Notes/Domino installations under pressure, based on nothing but FUD and falsities.
That would be a shame!
Notes Domino IT Factory Dorte Toft Blogging IBM 
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December 12th, 2008