Unlike the one-sided smear story on Lotus that appeared in Forbes last year, this article seemed to give Jeff Papows the time and space to reply to most of the allegations. This article and the follow-up stories in trade publications quoted too many people over too long a period of time to be dismissed as simply another sloppy hatchet job. Most perplexing of all is that the person portrayed in this article is so strongly at odds with the Jeff Papows that most of us know as Lotus and IBM customers and business partners.

The timing for this article is pretty bad. R5 is finally out the door and Lotus is trying to regain the momentum lost in the first part of the year from a delayed product launch. Lotus was finally able to concentrate on their business and move some product before the IT world hunkers down for Y2K in the last two quarters of the year. This "Papows problem" is an unnecessary distraction for Lotus. While all of accusations are directed against Mr. Papows personally, they will no doubt consume time, resources and mindshare to respond to. Jeff knows this and sent an email message to its business partners to try and do some spin control. In the interests of fairness, the text of message has been reprinted below.

As many of you are already aware, the Wall Street Journal published a negative profile about me this morning, raising issues that I would like to help you understand better. Beyond this note to you, our employees and our advisors, we do not plan any additional communications to be made on this topic via our Web site or other media.

First, I think it unfortunate that the editors of the Journal chose to focus on my personal background rather than on the major issues facing Lotus, IBM and our industry, which are of much greater consequence to readers than am I. I worked hard at every opportunity to redirect this article to relevant Lotus and IT issues.

During their research, the reporter and his editor reviewed with me the claims they had heard, and I proceeded to refute each point or provide explanations, providing the true facts of each matter and questioning the true motivations of their sources. In addition, a number of former and current associates and customers provided strong evidence that further challenged the credibility of this negative profile, yet little or none of it made it into the final article. Without going into a blow by blow account, it suffices to say that there are competitors of Lotus and IBM who will use any opportunity they can find to damage our market momentum and success. And it's unfortunate that the Journal gave them more credence than they deserve.