Okay, I'll Bite: If I were GM
An excellent question at Volker's site -- one worthy of deliberate response. And since my afternoon is shot while I recover from a root canal, I'll take a stab.
(continued...)
First, let's talk about things that could be done within the constraints laid out by Volker...
Alan has some marvelous ideas on product consolidation. There's some complexities around execution (eg: Traveller has some 3rd party license clearance issues, so it's probably impossible not to call it a separate product without seriously encumbering Domino itself in some way) but the only product shift he suggests that I'd have any serious reservation about is not keeping a standalone Symphony. (I might continue to leave the productivity suit open and free, while only selling support via Notes licensing, not through support contracts under the Symphony name. That might solve both issues at once.) I think there's a decent chance this could be accomplished at a level local to Lotus.
In product strategy, I'd make a ridiculous push towards designing product for the SMB space. Foundations is a decent start. I would couple it with a similar product that's based around Sametime, and an integrated border appliance based on Protector. Foundations has some limited firewalling capabilities right now (or at least, Nitix Blue did,) so I'd move that to Protector right away. Since Foundations is also already a file sharing server as well, I'd just integrate that with Quickr immediately. (SMBs are going to feel that "email as document storage libraries" pinch too quickly without it anyway.)
I'd also make a point of integrating absolutely everything I did in the SMB space with a cloud offering. If you buy a Domino license, you can automatically register it with Bluehouse. When you do, you can now replicate your applications up to the cloud for a hosted offering. So as a Foundations customer, you could internally blog via the Domino blog template, and it would replicate up to Bluehouse and be hosted for general publication. The cool part about this would be that it would be incredibly easy to differentiate what's internal and what's published to the world -- it would simply be a matter of whether Bluehouse was granted access to the posting. Now duplicate that idea over teamrooms, activities, profiles, etc, and you see where this is heading. Foundations should be the gateway drug into Bluehouse. (I'd probably not call it "Foundations" anymore by the way. There'd just be Domino for SMB, Sametime for SMB and Protector for SMB. I don't know whether I'd keep the Bluehouse branding.)
And if you grow big enough that you don't want hosting of those elements anymore, no problem... your entire set of services could easily be transitioned to your own environment -- it's just a Domino app or a set of DB tables and a WAS server.
That makes it a two-way street. If you start in the cloud, you can transition some or all of your services in-house. If you start in-house, you can transition some or all of your service to the cloud. IBM shouldn't care. It should just be a matter of pricing strategy.
Another thing I'd do is redefine the way I work with ISVs. Ideally, I'd establish a grant slush fund for applications on any Lotus platform, including bounties for open source projects, as well as some type of commercial grant program. I don't just say that to get reader's here salivating over the prospect of free money, but to show a fierce reversal of ISV relationship management. The competition is absolutely stellar at ensuring that developers on a platform have easy access to cash. IBM has never been good at this, even when they say things like "we're going to spend a billion dollars on Linux and/or UC2." Platforms aren't made successful as platforms; they're made successful by what people actually DO on them. Notes/Domino never learned that trick, IMO. So I'd just shell out money to teach it.
If I couldn't do that, then I'd take the model for Redbook development, and create Redtemplates. Gather 5 or 6 talented developers together for a period of 6 weeks to build a very specific business app that would then be incorporated into the product. Their compensation would be credit on an app that actually shipped with the base product to millions of users. (Note: I've actually proposed this idea to Lotus.)
That would probably also mean overhauling the various partner programs to something that allows for partners that wear multiple hats, and distinguishes partners with exclusive blue relationships from partners that do business on both sides of the fence. Doesn't mean that the second kind of partner wouldn't exist -- just that there'd be some distinct benefits to doing ONLY Lotus work. (Personal bias definitely exists there -- I won't deny it.) Also, I'd stop having teams put partners and customers together. In any group like Design Partners, or beta programs, or the GCPC, I'd take a bicameral approach, with separate teams for Partners and Customers.
Those are what I'd try that I think might be possible within the proposed constraints. Outside the proposed constraints...
Move heaven and earth to convince Sam Palmissano that Lotus MUST have an independent brand identity from IBM. That having IBMGS cannibalize product accounts for services is tantamount to cutting off your nose -- but if you're going to do it, at least use anesthetic by defining Lotus as a separately managed brand, with entirely separate marketing strategies from the rest of IBM. I would base this on simple truth that Lotus products are the only things that IBM makes that end users actually deal with. (That's by Steve Mills' definition, by the way.) The brand needs to compete directly against Microsoft and Google, and needs a brand strategy that recognizes this. That is impossible while chained to the big business anchor that is IBM's brand. By not recognizing that Lotus is a business that could, by itself, be on par with Apple, Microsoft and Google -- IBM is leaving billions of dollars on the table.
This might necessitate having specialists within the sales force, by the way. But I think you could get away without it. IBM sales people won't mind selling Domino so much if customers are asking for it instead of them having to shove it down their throats with "LOOK! It's not the soul-devouring blackhole of suckage any more!" IBM just needs a sales commission plan that understands the economic meaning of "network effects."
Throw fire and brimstone on IBM legal. And pray that they feel at home enough to stop worrying about making sure that products don't ship. One of Lou Gerstner's famous comments to IBM's labs after he took the helm was "you people don't release products. They escape." This was because the only time anything ever shipped would be when marketing came down and said "we could sell this!" Well, if the engineers are to be believed, everything is now held up by legal. Microsoft did an incredible job hamstringing IBM software through their proxy of SCO Group by creating these enormous artificial barriers to product release based on legal fears. IBM's mantra has always been integration, and now the problem is that to even mention that you integrate, you need 17 kinds of clearances from the legal department. It's slaughtering innovation. As I remarked in an IM today it "makes me yearn for Apple's process, where everything's proprietary and patented and therefore they can deliver innovation unencumbered."
Try like crazy to get my boss to retire. I was reasonably impressed by Steve Mills' recent podcast, but everything about the man screams early 90s to me. I don't mean anything personal by that -- simply that he's been in that role for far too long, and it's time for fresh blood with a serious engineering background to take the reins for a while. The person in charge of IBM software runs a division that faces off against Microsoft, Oracle, Google and Apple. Why isn't there someone with the force of personality that's comparable to Gates, Ellison, Schmidt or Jobs? Buying into a software company is about buying into a vision. You need a visionary to pitch that. I'd nominate Ambuj Goyal.
And there's my ideas while having my molar drilled out. Hope there's some interesting ideas in there.
NOTE: You might notice there's not really any "redesign the Notes client like this" kinda ideas here. That's because I think, for the most part, engineering is headed in pretty much the right direction. Sure, given unlimited power, there's probably a few things I'd do differently, at least in terms of prioritization. But nothing that would be transformative. It'd just be "tweaking" so it's not worth mentioning here.
Comments
---* Bill
Posted by Mild Bill At 06:32:50 PM On 09/15/2008 |
No, really, I like the plan and I think the BlueHouse/Cloud <-> Owned infrastructure is going to happen, really.
Posted by Daniele Vistalli At 07:26:15 PM On 09/15/2008 |
EC
Posted by Ethann Castell At 07:49:10 PM On 09/15/2008 |
We need to numb your face more often...
Posted by Chris Toohey At 09:49:55 PM On 09/15/2008 |
Posted by Nathan T. Freeman At 11:23:28 PM On 09/15/2008 |
Couldn't resist. :)
Posted by Brian Miller At 09:31:35 AM On 09/16/2008 |
Posted by Nathan T. Freeman At 09:57:22 AM On 09/16/2008 |
Posted by Devin Olson At 12:56:48 PM On 09/16/2008 |
As to why they insist on demanding IBM BPs can not use IBM logo's, that one escapes me.
Posted by Keith Brooks At 03:53:00 PM On 09/16/2008 |
Many good Lotus BPs are services-driven and thus are not targeting licence sales, hence will never meet the Advanced-level criteria, even if they are great at deployment, consulting and support.
Posted by Stuart McIntyre At 06:44:28 AM On 09/17/2008 |