To win against Exchange, Domino must focus on email and messaging, extending into regulatory compliance. If IBM were serious about making Domino into an Exchange-killer instead of a legacy application server platform withering away in the shadow of WebSphere, there would have to be an appropriate product roadmap and an aggressive marketing program, like a Move to Lotus 2.0 program.

The fact is that collaborative applications ("groupware") based on the proprietary Notes programming model originally developed in the 1980s are a legacy technology due to the rise of Internet standards based Intranets, like the Java and Web application servers, and IBM is therefore loosing market share because of Domino/WebSphere doublespeak and lack of focus on messaging.

IBM needs to either re-focus the product on email and messaging or the product will continue to gradually die of stagnation. IBM cannot both maintain the Domino story as "more than email", positioning Domino as a groupware development platform competing as a technology with Internet standards based intranets, and at the same time exclusively promote WebSphere as an intranet solution.

This fundamental contradiction, unless it is corrected, will be the end of Notes and Domino because it undermines IBM's credibility and opens the door to Exchange. If Lotus Notes and Domino are one day gone, it will have been IBM -- not Microsoft -- that was responsible.

Glenn S. Orenstein, President of Glenn Orenstein Consulting, Inc., is a Principal Certified Notes Professional designer. Visit his Web site at http://www.gorenstein.com or send him email at glenn@gorenstein.com.