The sky is falling
Before we go onto the upbeat opinions and plans we've gotten from most developers, we'd like to share some thoughts from a developer who prefers to be left nameless. We've been covering Lotusphere for a very long time now, and each and every year, we get reports from certain readers, developers, and insiders who claim Notes is dead or Domino is dead or, at least, this is the year Notes and Domino are going to die.

So far, rumors of Notes and Domino's death have been greatly exaggerated. But it wouldn't be a Lotusphere without the Impending Doom Report and this year, we've got one from one of our favorite and most well respected developers who wants to be identified simply as "a Texas-base Lotus business partner." Given our most fervent journalistic Deep Throat desires, you know we couldn't let it go that easily, so we'll simply call him by our most secret of code names: Chicken Little.

For those of you who missed out on history class, Deep Throat was the name of the source that fingered Nixon to the Washington Post and started Watergate. Chicken Little's the character in the children's story who used to run around crying, "The sky is falling, the sky is falling."

Here's what our Chicken Little has to say:

The problems with my analysis and commentary is that its not going to win any friends within IBM.

One of my contractors went to the IBM Business partner training. Remember, this is the training that IBM gives to its partners so you'd expect them to be pretty open and honest. When I asked him if the training went well, here's what he responded with:

"Relatively uneventful. The product is not ready.. and won't be for another year. The version 2.0 that is out will only support about 40 people max.. and requires a considerable amount of hardware. The way it was positioned.. 2.0 is for proof of concept, 2.5 will be for pilot and 3.0 late next will be ready for production.. however they are doing a rebuild of the underlying technology for 3.0.. I have a CD with the presentations for you. "

40 users? On big honkin' hardware? Not even Lotus Notes 2.x back in the OS/2 days was that pathetic. I find the entire IBM/Lotus Workplace strategy incredibly wrong and poorly transparent.

The "reason" IBM wants users to migrate off of Lotus Notes is to force them into new pricing models. Why? The bottom line is that there are virtually no new businesses to sell Lotus Notes into -- all of the musical chairs between Notes, Exchange and Groupwise are basically over. For the foreseeable future, 99% of all organizations are going to stay with what they have for a messaging system. Without the new licensing revenue, IBM only has the maintenance fees, Notes related consulting and add-on products to support the entire cost structure of what's left of the Lotus and Iris organizations. I would think that's enough but someone within IBM apparently feels that its not.

IBM will finally succeed in doing what Microsoft/Exchange hasn't been able to do... and that's kill off Notes.

Pathetic...

Is Chicken Little finally right? Personally, I'm doubting it. But he's a very smart guy, so only time will tell. And now, on to some more positive thoughts from other leading developers...