A load of mixed messages
I wanted to rant about this survey - who was surveyed, done a year ago - but decided to take a second breath and post some thoughts. I just say look at Gartner for a more balanced view.
Rebranding Notes was something IBM tried to do a few years back with something called Workplace, which a new client and backend - the existing Notes users did not like the idea, and there is the argument that if you force change, then change might be to something else. It was withdrawn, but parts of it have been used - eclipse based client you can run on any O/S (why not go to Linux), DB2 option as backend
Notes/Domino has a great back end with stuff IT administrators like - clustering, security, platform independence - but users only see the client and the term 'Outlook lust' was coined. IBM have responded to the market and if you look at the 8.x client, you will be see it looks much like Outlook including stuff like menus, flags etc.
It is strange how email client choice produces so much emotion - the reality today is that they are very simliar, and changing horse will cost a lot for no gain (see Gartner)
As the article says, the argument has moved on to to web 2.0 / collaboration tools of which email is a part, and IBM's embrace of open standards and working with other companies will stand them in good stead against the closed shop of Microsoft.
P.S. is there that much difference between the Microsoft Windows Vista and Microsoft Windows 7 branding - it's still Windows with the baggage that brings
P.P.S And I wish Exchange Admins luck with their Exchange 2003 upgrades - new servers, new o/s, migration and new back-end to learn - we are currently doing silent upgrades on same o/s and servers :-)
Biting the hand that feeds IT
