Thought for the day: ’If Microsoft had bought Lotus...’
Mat Newman August 21 2010 10:15:38
Just some random musing, If Microsoft had bought Lotus:Exchange 2000 would have been Domino, already integrated into Active Directory.
Outlook would have been dumped, the Notes UI modified and called "Microsoft Collaborator".
Microsoft Collaborator would now be on over 80% of desktops (that's MS's % seat claims + IBM's).
Microsoft would have saved themselves $ billions in development of Exchange public libraries, Outlook forms, OneNote, c#, j++, .asp, .net, sharepoint, etc...
Microsoft Collaborator would have had a button (just like MS Project and MS Access) to "Analyse with Excel",
Microsoft Access would have been dumped, and users given wizards in Collaborator to create databases.
Exchange admins in 2010 would have only been through 1 data migration (back in 2000 when Exchange became Domino based), rather than 4.
Microsoft Collaborator users would:
need less training, because every option on every screen would have a "wizard" to walk users through how to change things like the fonts and colours on every window,
be able to do direct entry into their calendar, and customise the colours and icons for every entry,
be able to Ctrl+Tab through all the open windows, just like every other application,
Millions of students at high-schools and universities would be learning to build applications on the Exchange framework (because it would be Domino).
And now the reality...
Microsoft would most likely have provided an outstanding migration tool to move Domino users over to Exchange, reaping themselves billions in revenues from all of the Windows licences they would have sold by getting Domino off AS400, AIX, HPUX, etc
The improvements in scalability, reliability, speed, extensibility, etc that IBM brought to .nsf and Domino would never have happened.
Would-have-been-Domino Admins would be tearing their hair out due to the increase in servers that they had to maintain, not to mention the massive data migration efforts required every couple of years.
Developers would be confused about which Microsoft development strategy and platform to follow today.
So the result...
I'm glad that IBM bought Lotus. We in the Yellowverse just have to come to grips with the fact that IBM have a product called Websphere and a strategy based on java, with a thorn in it's side that it also has Notes.
Our role is to work with IBM to make sure that the thorn gets pushed harder until it really hurts and stings and everyone within IBM feels it. When all of IBM "get's" Notes/Domino and finds a place in it's heart for the product, then big blue might realise it can have it's yellow-cake, and eat it too.
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