The Blogosphere does not spin
Adam takes on my objections to the Sametime gateway at his blog and on Chris Miller's IDoNotes podcast.
Before I start dissecting the response, let me be clear about something: the federation concept of the Sametime gateway is fantastic. Yes, I get why this is important, and it's great that it was part of IBM's design spec. IBM did a great job with this requirement. Making the gateway a true enterprise proxy with policy control was absolutely the way to go, and they nailed that objective completely. It is absolutely the best thing about the gateway, hands down.
Question 1) was "why the DB2 requirement?" Adam states in his blog and on the podcast that he's still looking for a definitive answer. Okay. I look forward to hearing it.
Question 2) was "why the WAS requirement?" Adam's reply is "...because we have spent the last 3+ years extending WAS to be a first-class SIP application server." Again, okay. The answer is you'd already built the actual IM gateway/proxy. I'm not sure that gels with the later statement of "... while both Workplace IM and Sametime Gateway are built on WAS-based SIP infrastructures, these are different applications. The Workplace IM application was not reused, as the gateway provide different functionality." But I can let that go. The important point is that the decision for the WAS basis for the product was that you'd already done the work. Fair enough, but it means that DOMINO WAS NEVER EVEN CONSIDERED. And you should say that. Because now that you've required this J2EE/RDBMS infrastructure for a proxy server for a product that is run on top of Domino in nearly every implementation around the globe, it sure sounds like DOMINO COULDN'T PROVIDE WHAT YOU NEEDED.
(Side note: Adam, Domino has clustering. And it sits nicely in a DMZ. These are not differentiators for Websphere. If I knew what "protocol extensibility through the channel framework" I might be able to reply on that one. But when you emphasize clustering and DMZ security as a reason for choosing Websphere over Domino, even though there was no such actual choice, you sound like someone from Microsoft.)
Question 3) was "what about the needs of the SMB market?" Adam's reply is "...in future releases, we will be working to simplify and streamline the installation process (and we are planning to have an update to the gateway available in 1Q next year), and are also investigating an appliance (or at least a software appliance) version that would reduce, if not eliminate, the need for WebSphere and DB2 configuration." Well, that's nice. But some of the lines that jumped out at me from the replies include...
...we were levaraging the same work that could be used to meet other requirements, such as those of telcos, which could require carrier-grade solutions scaling to the millions of users.
...he same platform that is being sold into the telcos as a carrier-grade Service Logic Execution Environment, so that's saying something.
...look across at different solutions we're offering at IBM, mainly solutions that we can go out to carriers with or telcos with as a SIP infrastructure
...also go out to servers for carrier-grade solutions for other purposes
Maybe it's just me, but 4 mentions of making the product "carrier-grade" is indeed saying something. It's saying that the target market for the product is extremely large shops. Which means that the concerns of the SMB market weren't relevant to your design center. Honestly, there's nothing wrong with that. It would just be REALLY, REALLY nice if, now that this product has shipped, someone there thought "wouldn't it be nice if we could produce a solution that would encourage ALL the 120 million+ Notes users out there to leverage their IM entitlement, and implement Sametime as a communications tool outside their own company?" If I'd been offering manager, that probably would have been the FIRST question I would have asked, but maybe that's why I don't have that job.
Look, if it sounds like I'm being harsh on Adam, I apologize. The reason I'm worked up is because it's circumstances like this that lead to the whole "IBM is abandoning Notes/Domino" meme. When an Offering Manager from IBM responds that a new product was built on WAS because WAS provided capabilities that Domino did not, when the actual reason is because IBM had already invested 3 years in building a SIP Gateway for WAS -- well, that's just going to feed the Microsoft fire. I'll admit, you probably couldn't build a carrier-grade solution for this gateway on Domino. I doubt AT&T could build some sort of global call-center with Domino as the underlying policy control & logging platform. But that doesn't mean that you couldn't support thousands of users on a platform that is already widely deployed and is, what, 90%?, of the Sametime user base. You could do it, and we all know you could do it, and if you're NOT going to do it, can we just hear that it's about the development investment and not the technology?
I am absolutely certain, Adam, that you don't think Domino is a weak platform. But the way that you position IBM's investment decision in technical terms ends up inadvertantly torpedoing Domino. I know you don't mean to, but it's still the point that the competition grabs on to. "See.... even IBM doesn't think Domino is capable of running enterprise systems. It couldn't even suffice for an IM proxy server!"
P.S: A general tip: it's not good interview technique to talk over each other.
Comments
Posted by Phil West At 02:08:45 AM On 12/16/2006 | - Website - |
Posted by Craig Wiseman At 08:59:41 AM On 12/15/2006 | - Website - |
What do you call the $3.3 BILLION IBM paid for Lotus? Chump change written off over 5 years?
Posted by Colin Macdonald At 04:28:57 AM On 12/15/2006 | - Website - |
Posted by Nathan T. Freeman At 08:38:05 PM On 12/13/2006 | - Website - |
Posted by Chris Miller At 01:18:17 PM On 12/13/2006 | - Website - |
Actually, 100% of the Sametime user base has a Domino server. The Sametime server will only currently run on a Domino server, so 100% of Sametime customers have atleast 1 Domino Server.
Posted by Carl Tyler At 08:23:40 PM On 12/13/2006 | - Website - |
Lesson: Be careful what you write between the lines.
Posted by Kevin Pettitt At 01:40:03 AM On 12/14/2006 | - Website - |
And good point Kevin... A previous company I worked for was guilty of this same issue. The sales team was focused on the big sales tickets...and those usually included (for services) the current hot flavor of websphere and lately, content manager. This is all despite the fact that the domino developers where constantly reselling enhancements/new projects to the clients and the salespeople where making a nice penny off of these contracts. In addition, the domino group was the largest services group in the company because of how busy we were. Some salespeople even told current (Domino) clients that Domino was a dieing technology.
Posted by Gerry Shappell At 09:32:12 AM On 12/14/2006 | - Website - |