ESCAPE VELOCITY

1 - Interesting that all your links to a certain site go to the home page instead of to their intended destinations -- but they do if I right click, copy the link location, and paste into a browser.

2 - I'm with you Nathan

truly sick to death of constant bleating based on other peoples marketing and seriously marginal issues.

Unfortunately its been going on for years...probably mainly due to MS FUD and IBM's mishandling of marketing in Notes earliest days and the websphere debacle.

Nobody seems to have noticed recently (other than you) that while IBM still haven't implemented an MS rip-and-replace model (oh so profitable!) Notes supporters have managed to make a pretty good living now for more than a decade - starting from 1994 in Australia.

the other irritating thing is that those same people who complain so loudly also (off line and invisibly)will tell you what a great and truly flexible platform it is... the cruel irony

3 - @1 Richard you're right, it's redirecting based on the referrer. That's elegant.

BTW Chrome brakes it and goes to the page linked.

4 - Thank you, Nathan. I finally decided a few weeks ago that I would no longer comment on the flame-bait threads on vowe.net. It's been hard to resist -- yesterday's "rampant, baseless speculation" really set me off. Instead of commenting, though, I spun up a new blog entry that factually showed how baseless it was. { Link }

I also like how my colleague Sarah Lachance took that discussion about FTI search of attachments on the Mac client back to the IBM forums, where exactly three other people had complained about the problem. The intersection of Lotus + Mac fanboy tends to produce some loud results, but they are, as you say, highly disproportionate versus the overall issues in the market. That's not to say this issue should be ignored...far from it. But there's a thoughtful way to discuss and express concern, versus the "this must be fixed immediately" or "this product is a joke" smugness that instantly emanates when such criticisms arise in certain corners.

To some degree, we are all being gamed. A few weeks ago, Yancy adjusted the "Hot blogs" algorithm on PlanetLotus.org. Now, only "Lotus-related" posts would count for making that list. All of a sudden, vowe.net resumed past operations of Lotus-sniping, and these little tiny, somewhat funny, somewhat disappointing bits of IBM sloppiness get blown up into witty one-liner blog entries with no actual commentary. In at least one case, the word "notes" was used unusually in a non-Lotus-related entry to trigger the Lotus-related word count on PL. Maybe the vowe.net readership isn't quite as big as everyone believes it is, and the traffic from PlanetLotus is needed as some sort of validation.

Someone asked me yesterday about how I was getting along with Volker Weber lately. I said, I count Volker as a friend, but of late, I've been doing that silly American thing and letting business interfere with our friendship. I don't endorse vowe.net -- quietly dropped it from my blogroll months ago -- and simply stopped getting so excited about it.

And in the meantime, we had another record-setting quarter for Notes, shipped a great 8.0.2 release, came out with Lotus Protector, updated Lotus Symphony, and have more exciting announcements in store this month. The community has contributed to every single one of these positive efforts -- the focus on performance of the Notes 8.0.2 client came directly from and was validated by bloggers and readers as a major constituent (I personally signed up over 100 beta testers for 8.0.2). So, I'll keep going, even if one grouch-in-the-corner website wants to keep going, too.

5 - @3 - He's been doing that for years. It's the same reason he deletes any comment with my email signature. Oh, and the Lotus 911 fixed IP is barred from even reading Vowemart.

I think even an American would recognize the irony in the consummate critic attempting to suppress all criticisms. When you think you're the emperor on your post-modern throne, the last thing you want is for someone to point out that you blog naked.

6 - I knew about the comments and the email but didn't know we was redirecting links.

Ah well, all Empire die someday!

7 - I was reluctant to comment when I first read this post but now, since Ed opened the path, I think is ok for an IBMer to comment. I have to say that this is an excellent post. People ( some people at least) try to use any possible ( and impossible ) argument to trash talk about Notes and Lotus. As you say, there have been times in the past where IBM moves could have helped this Notes bashing, but the evidence is out there that the trend has dramatically reversed. What do we need to do in order to make more people understand it ? A billboard on top of the Sears Towers maybe ? You get it Nathan, and I know lots of others that do, but it seems there is someone who thinks bashing Notes is useful, and maybe for the website hits it is ( btw, since you surf there, have you bought the shirt ? ).
RoB

8 - I must say, I got tired of the negativity of that site and a few other sites that would 'piggy back' that negativity for some while. For a while, it was nice to have someone who took the time to test other platforms and provide some information about issues that I might not find out on my own. But I would say in the last 3ish + years, it has turned into just taking 'pot shots'. The reason I say this is due to many factors: "one liner" negative posts with no explanation, anti-american sentiment which has clouded logic, posting in English when he wants to take a shot, but posting in German when he doesnt think we would care to know, etc...
Maybe there is a Napoleon complex issue, I don't know. But more importantly, I don't care.

9 - I haven't subscribed to his "blog" in well over a year now. Mostly because I can't access it from work! But even before that I was mostly unsubscribed. So, fortunately, I only saw that he had a "hot" post on Planet Lotus. Which is funny, by the way, because I thought that site was only for "bloggers"!

Good post, though, Nathan. I'm wondering if he even reproduced the problem since he's not a Notes user...

10 - Well, I wouldn't call Mac users "marginal." Them's fighting words.

I do agree his quote is politician-grade truthful.

However, so the full text index of a local replica on a Mac doesn't work 100%, but what about the ability to Spotlight search mail? That's part of 8.5, at least thus far.

The reason why we can seem "whiney" bunch at times, is because, IBM does listen. Compare 8.0.2 to 8.0.1 for instance.

Not that we get our way all the time, but the important thing is that customer-user centric design approach is here to stay.

11 - He deletes your comments? How adult. Well, just in case he deletes mine on his latest pearl of journalistic integrity { Link } , here it is in its entirety:

"Dude.

Are you sure you don't have an agenda? I know, you're German, and that somehow makes you more "honest" than the rest of us (although most Germans I know aren't constantly negative... just tend to be more matter-of-fact than Americans), but where I come from, it's generally held that journalists are supposed to be not only honest but objective. Report the facts, and let the audience decide for themselves. Constantly raining on a single vendor's parade, on the other hand, gives me the impression that you're harboring some sort of grudge... that there's some deep pain you're trying to soothe. If you were truly honest or objective, sooner or later you'd find at least one feature or accomplishment to praise.

Please note that I'm not asking you to change what you write... this is your site and you can write whatever you want. But when you spout stuff like this with no possible positive result, don't be surprised if a few folks like me who are obviously less objective than yourself see it as petty, childish, and downright annoying."

12 - I believe the term that you're looking for is "sniping douche"...

The Vowe.net BLOG has turned into the TMZ of our community. And the sad truth of the matter is the fact that 1) just like the gang behind TMZ/etc., he gets that shit like this brings in the hits and 2) I have to assume at this point that he generates such content to specifically lure that traffic.

Remember, getting eval/review hardware, software, and advertisements is based on hitcounts...

13 - Mac users, for any non-consumer business software, are totally marginal. I use a Mac and I respect IBM's decision to support the platform, but as anyone who develops software will tell you, achieving 100% feature parity accross multiple operating systems is a damn hard thing to do. If one of the three OSs that Notes supports must take a lower priority, it should be OS X.

14 - @10 - I'm not calling Mac users "marginal" in the sense that they're unimportant. I mean in the sense that they're "at the margin." The latest figures I can find for Mac market share is around 8%. Of ENTERPRISE market share, I'm sure it's substantially less.

Apple makes great computers. They also make great audio players and great phones and a great operating system. But they do not play well with others. They're famous for it.

That means their users suffer for it. I wish it weren't so, but the need is on Apple to open up in order to empower ISVs to deliver on their platform. If they don't do that, then the cost of using a Mac extends to more than just paying extra for hardware.

15 - Funny - I read the marginal bit as primarily meaning people who index attachments (since it is not defaulted, at least at our place), not Mac users.

16 - what I love most (and by that I am being sarcastic) is how people in our community bitch and moan about marketing and this and that ... and never offer a single solution that is based in reality. I am sorry, but when people just bitch about marketing, it screams of a lazy and bad business. No one should expect IBM to hand them leads on a silver platter. IBM is a public company ... out to make a profit. If you want them to work with you, give them something that impacts the bottom line and they will go out of their way to help you. Stop bitching, start doing.

17 - "A marginal set of users miss out on a marginal aspect of a severely underused piece of functionality that has no competitive counterpart"

That analysis is Exactly correct and spot-on Nathan. Thank you for saying what I was thinking when I read those other posts. The fact that there even exists Notes software for Mac at all should be LOUDLY applauded.

18 - Thanks for the "link love," Nathan.

After I posted that, and read the comments that it generated, it got me thinking about what other people may think about Lotus, simply based on blog posts. Peter's comment has merit. But how do you balance that with valid issues with IBM/Lotus or the Lotus brand? Tough question, I think.

I certainly don't have any answers, but I am glad that Peter made me think about it. And, based on the comments you have generated here, it is a worthy conversation.

19 - Nathan - you know that it is hard work to wear so many faces. Volker seems like such an ambitious fellow being that his personalities are all very unique and interesting. It's hard to anger so many people using so many different social methods.

20 - @18 - It's a fair question. And I think there's a lot of venues for legitimate complaints. I wouldn't even be one to say that a blog is a bad place for it. But here's a few rules of thumb...

1) As every good manager knows, you praise in public, punish in private. That's motivation 101. It's no different when you're trying to motivate a vendor -- because companies are made up of individuals, and those individuals have emotional reactions like anyone else. Public shaming should be a measure of last resort, not the first thing you do when you have a question.

2) If you want your voice to be prioritized, then you have to demonstrate leadership. There are several ways to do that, but the two most obvious are to either be a revenue leader -- by driving real business, or a thought leader -- by driving real public-facing value. Blogging in general is a thought leadership approach, but there has to be VALUE to it. If you only blog to gripe and talk about the weather, then what value did you create? How are customers and users made better off by your participation?

That's a question that every author should ask themselves, by the way: how have I made readers better off when they give me the gift of their attention? If you don't have an answer, then you're probably not getting it done.

3) The key thing about Peter's comment is that it draws attention to the fact that public negativity has real world consequences. When a person says "I can't find Domino work in the UK. IBM sucks" over and over again, they're creating a self-fulfilling prophecy. Of course YOU can't find Domino work in the UK -- you're busy talking some people off the platform, while you're busy alienating others who are loyal to it. How could you possibly expect such an approach to have a positive outcome?

21 - yeah.

{ Link }

Love it.

John, next time we meet, look me in the eye.

----* Bill
Premier BP since 85, BP since 01

22 - @John & Bill - take it to email, fellas.

And Bill, I think you made a typo. How could you be a premier BP in '85, but not a BP until '01? Did you mean premier in '05?

Not that I'm disputing anything. Just trying to parse that signature.

23 - For a small but loud number of IT 'professionals' (and would-be professionals), Notes is the whipping boy of the industry; they know they can get a smirk from the back of the room by attacking Notes.

After more than a decade of working with Notes I find there are a small number of features in it that irritate me, but they are monumentally dwarfed by the excellent feature it has -- features that put it into a different league from the competition. And I say that as someone who no longer works as a Notes professional but who still uses it on a daily basis. I also work extensively with linux, windows and os x, and develop in another cross-platform toolset, so I'm not praising Notes out of any financial incentive, and I'm well aware of what the alternatives are.

Anyone who has nothing good to say about Notes is no expert when it comes to IT.

24 - Anyone who has nothing good to say about Notes is no expert when it comes to IT.

@23 I don't think anyone would argue with that

25 - @24 Oh believe me... I know a few who would.

26 - @24 - The logical corollary, then, is that someone in IT who doesn't say anything good about Notes is not an expert.

27 - @26 Yes. Why are we going round and round on that? Bernard said it, we agree.

28 - For years I am angry no more. There was a time I really were. Its a waste of time.
What did those gentlemen expect? To get endless 3000$ a day training contracts by just showing people notes admin stuff and a few @formulas. Or consulting contracts to inform people that Notes is better, because its simpler and leave them alone?
Technical, organizational and economic progress is a complex beast. Partial faillure, risk, disadvantages that in the end are outweighted by advantages are part of the process.
Allways accompanied by nay-sayers who prefer to specialize themselves in producing simple, need and plain wrong propaganda than to enter in a serious debate.