"shooting itself in the foot"?
I agree shubin, I don't understand the interface whiners. I grew up with Commodore in the 80s, worked on Macs in the early 90s in high school, Windows 95 came out in the middle of my post secondary training, and have played a bit with Linux, and had quite a chuckle when I first saw the Fischer-Price skin for XP, so it's a mystery to me why a unique interface would be a show stopper. Why is whatever Microsoft does *currently* considered The Standard? Sure they have huge market share, but that still shouldn't mean that if it's not just like Microsoft that it's bad, or else Lotus isn't the only brand with problems.
"there is no inherent reason why all of the aforementioned leading/bleeding-edge functionality should be a derivative of your email environment"
Email is just another database in Notes. There are a *lot* of places that use Notes without using it for email. Calling it basically an email system with some extras thrown in gets you off on the wrong foot, and makes it less likely you will ever understand its full usefullness. Sandra is right, it is an application development platform. One of the applications you can build with it is email, and a great one is included. It's always been ahead of it's time no matter if you are looking at the security model, the standards supported, the 2 way openness, or the fundamental architecture.
Now that the Notes 8 client is based on Eclipse (and the UI has had a total overhaul), 3rd parties should have a field day. Now that an OpenOffice variant is built in, bean counters should take a second look at license cost reduction. Now that Sametime is included, any privacy conscious business currently using a free consumer IM system should really give their heads a shake. Because it works on Windows, Mac, and Linux, anyone considering a switch away from a total Microsoft shop should investigate it. With the upcoming Quickr, even if your desktop runs Windows, you may never even need to use the file system. In fact because any Notes application can be presented on the web with the flick of a switch, a browser is all that is really required.
You seem so drawn towards saying good things about Notes, it's sad that you can't shake the rumours and gossip and baseless *feelings* and just write a positive story. Anyone who does any serious investigation is not going to make their decision based on vague perceptions, they are going to choose the superior technology. Otherwise why bother looking into it? Or writing a story about it?