The Guardian published quite a bold article on Lotus Notes today …
… Lotus Notes is used by millions of people, but almost all of them seem to hate it. How can a program be so bad, yet thrive?
Imagine a program used by 120 million people, of whom about 119m hate it. Sound unlikely? Yet that’s the perception one garners in trying to discover whether Lotus Notes, IBM’s “groupware” application, is – as readers of Technology blog suggested – the “world’s worst application”. The discussions (at http://tinyurl.com/e4a56 and http://tinyurl.com/d9gdk) suggest that those who have used it are united: to the average person, Notes displays all the user-friendliness of a cornered rat. …
…IBM acquired Lotus, principally to get Notes, in July 1995, and has driven a series of upgrades. Fast-forward to today, and Notes has gained widespread takeup: users in the UK include British Airways, Toyota, Volkswagen, Standard Life Assurance and most major newspaper groups (including Guardian Media Group). But further investigation shows that its proponents tend to be administrators, and its detractors the end users. …
Read the article over on the Guardian website
I was involved in the Guardian article.
The whole topic is questionable and based around older, unsupported, versions of Notes that were released around the time of Windows 98.
Not only that but, in parts, it was factually incorrect.
Read my response at the link below:
http://www.lnug.org.uk/dx/survival-of-the-unfittest
“How can a program be so bad, yet thrive?”
Hmmm…. I ask myself that question all the time. How can Windows be so bad, yet thrive? How can Word be so bad, yet thrive?
Same answer for all of the above as is the answer for Notes: because as bad as they are, they still make people more productive than the best available alternatives.
OTOH, how can a newspaper reporter be so bad, yet thrive? There’s a different answer altogether.
-rich
@ Ben , Richard,
I do recoginise that this article is not the result of thorough research, but it does capture some of the perception out there …
I don’t even want to tell you how many people I hear every day saying that windows is rubbish. But it is a lot more then the Lotus side Peter.
Paul,
That’s the thing with Microsoft even more than with Lotus or any other software product out there. Everyone and I m,ean everyone has an opinion eventhough the majority doesn’t know why
and in abosulte terms : there’s a lot more windows / outlook users out there so the relative satisfaction / dissatisfaction can be higher.
But that’s not what this article is about 😉
It’s one thing to capture perception. But what the Guardian did was run a couple of “Notes Sucks” blog entries a few weeks ago, cherry-pick the responses to those that suited the article they wanted to write, and also cherry-pick a few anti-Notes opinions from a few web posts on other sites bothering to cite the refutations of those posts that have been made numerous times.
That’s more about creating perception than capturing it.
If there is any truth in this article, then surely MS ought to be afraid!
The opening paragraph states:
“Lotus Notes is used by millions of people, but almost all of them seem to hate it. How can a program be so bad, yet thrive?”
Based on what we are hearing/seeing about the future Notes Hannover release, the “attributes that millions hate” will be corrected, leaving a powerful and (now a)much loved product out there.
So, if a “much maligned” product can thrive purely based on technical merit, it makes you wonder what the new version will be capable of!
Ahh – Peter – this is one of these “small world” situations.
I was part of the team that put Notes into the Guardian around 2000. Fun.
And it looks like (from Jack Schofields blog) but hasnt yet been verified – that they’re still running v5. Most of the “horror” was with v5…
So.
If I ran an article comparing Outlook 98 or Outlook 2000 versus Notes/Domino 7, I can imagine that you wouldnt value that report much.
Similar story here.
I’ve sent eMails to the chaps concerned, but I guess they’re busy – I’ve had no formal response yet.
Just like the “NotesSucks” web site. Its old, old news. Two releases ago news.
ND7 rocks, ND6 got awards for UI (I know, I was shocked too) and Hannover is going to blow your socks off.
Where’s Exchange ?
Oh. 3 years since previous release. Another year till E12.
Whereis the next release of the MS collaborative infrastructure – Sharepoint. Ah. Not yet. No roadmap (but thats still better than the Exchange 12 one, right ?)
If of course Vista/longhorn on 64 bit ships on time. And doesnt get “reset” again.
Ah.
MS dont have a collaborations story to rival Notes And now that IBM has publically committed and demonstrated support – we’re all on a high over in the Notes Bigot camp. Double digit revenue growth for five quarters means that Domino is here to stay.
I only wish MS would catch up – perhaps by spending some of this $30b cash mountain it has – so the customers can benefit from real competition – not this eternal PR spin from Redmond.
🙂
(Oh. Might be in Holland in a few weeks. Fancy a beer ?)
—* Bill
http://www.billbuchan.com
@Simon,
NOt sure if “Hannover” is going to make the dramtic change you are aiming at. I’m sure you’ve noticed, but Microsoft is making changes as well Office 12 is coming 😉
@Bill
I agree with you on the comparisons, adn I am not defending the article as such. I do think it holds some relative remarks such as the popularity of Lotus Notes in the admin / IT pro community vs it’s popularity amongst end-users.
The story is not about exchnage and it’s release schedule as far as I’ve seen.
You know that I do not agree with your statement that MS doesn’t have a collaboration story. There’s enough external research that confirms otherwise (and not going to list the itemss this time)
Let’s do discuss this over a beer. Let me know when you are in The Netherlands and let’s meet up …
I wonder at how quickly Office 12 will be adopted in the enterprise? We are just rolling out Office 2003 (there was no benefit in doing it sooner), and it was only decided to do it now because the training requirements are low due to minimal UI changes. This is not the case with Office 12.
This is a really tricky area for MS. You are trying to migrate from personal productivity apps., to a rich clich suite. But that requires a monumental shift in perception of the user base. They are used to using them as personal productivity tools, they use them that way at home too, so suddenly trying to convince them the value of another upgrade, because of all the great, integrated, ‘collaborative’ features is tough.
Generally, MS customers don’t seem to be in any rush to adopt new versions.
@ Simon,
I do see your point. I would argue the speed of adoption is very organisation specific and I see that this differs a lot looking at different market segments and geographies.
Your comment very much relates to the cost (ofcourse) that comes with an upgrade but Office 2003 / Office System also brings a lot of benefits for example from an integration perspective with the rest of the collaboration environment (WSS/SPS/LCS) this has been reason enough for people to upgrade.
Office 12 will bring new benefits on top of and beyond this and we will see early adopters as well as companies who first come to terms with the benefits they already get from Office System 2003, maybe much like your company ..