IBM’s ‘Migrate to the Penguin’ Program: What’s all the excitement ?
IBM seems to take the cry for help by the Lotus Notes community serious by launching a new (or enhanced) program to lure Microsoft customers.
The move to the Penguin program is designed to convince organsiations running Microsoft Exchnage to migrate to Lotus Notes on Linux; a full ABM (Anything But Microsoft) initiative …
With IBM’s Linux-based email and other collaboration software growing at more than 200% year-to-year, the company today announced a new initiative to help customers move from Microsoft Exchange to IBM Lotus Notes and Domino on Linux quickly and easily.
The new ‘Migrate to the Penguin’ initiative is an expansion of IBM’s Move2Lotus program, which now includes more than 100 IBM Business Partners helping customers migrate to Lotus Notes and Domino and developing migration tools to help customers make the transition. …
I could ofcourse comment by :
So now
LotusMicrosoft customers know whyMicrosoftLotus business partners are suddenly so interested inNotesMicrosoft deployments — they’re being paid a head-hunter fee per user to do so! How does that impact the value to your business of the proposal which will so directly enrich their business?
(thanks Ed)
The migrate to the Penguin Program is an expansion of the Move2Lotus program so it seems. I assume organisations are persuaded to not only migrate from Microsoft Exchange to Lotus Notes but also from Windows Server to Linux. Many decisions and consequences and not at all an easy migration. When considering such leaps, organsiations should get all the facts on this …
A “bounty” of $20 per head with a maximum of $20.000 for the partner … It is my understanding that clients could do a much better deal with IBM directly… Discounts of up to 25% – 50% on the Lotus Notes software are very normal when migrating from a competitive platform (Ferris report page 11), this amount is far beyond the Penguin deal …
… although even greater discounts are common. For example, server software and client software are both eligible for additional discounts of 25% to 50% for customers migrating from a competitive software product, such as Microsoft Exchange…
Aperently these huge discounts haven’t worked (enough) … So why would this marketing program work, you tell me …
In the press release, IBM is also claiming a substantial number of competitive migrations to their platform :
In the last two years, IBM has migrated nearly 3,000 customers from Microsoft Exchange and other email and messaging platforms to Lotus Notes and Domino.
The figure can easily be confused so that someone would conclude that the majority of these competitive migrations are indeed from Microsoft Exchange to Lotus Notes. Fortunatly Mike Rhodin clarifies that this is not the case …
…We have had 500 migrations from Exchange to Notes last year, and Microsoft had it the other way …
Well … let’s wait and see what it brings ….
Some clarifications are required.
1) 1319 competitive migrations in 2005 (a number that wasn’t published as of the date of that interview with Rhodin (IBM’s earnings for 2005 hadn’t been announced yet). 1468 in 2004. Those are measured by customers who buy a Move2Lotus “tradeup” SKU. Pretty simple metrics. Not sure why Rhodin would have said 500, I suspect it’s a misquote of “1500” (rounded number). There are ways to track these. IBM publishes references at http://www.lotus.com/success and more in the internal reference system. Partners such as Binary Tree publish their lists. http://www.binarytree.com/website/msg/home.nsf/vcontentw/CMT+For+Notes–CMT+Exchange+To+Notes+Customers+Only!Opendocument There are most definitely customers moving to Notes.
2) The $20/user rebate is to the partner. It is published, standard and public. It is not tied to Linux on the client, it can be to Linux on the server. It is -separate- from the competitive tradeup pricing — a 25% discount — published and available as a standard part on the IBM Passport Advantage price list. By comparison, Microsoft to date has not published any public information documenting the “bounty” in place for “Notes Compete” (which I hear ranges from US$8 to US$50)… can you show me otherwise? As for Paul Robichaux’s criticism that this is a double-standard in some way, while I consider it fair criticism, this is different in that there is no “hidden agenda” — it’s public and any customer can find out about the rebate (and, thus, like “factory to dealer incentives” that are used in the American car industry, work with the partner to share the benefit of the rebate).
3) I’m laughing at how indignant the MS community seems to be about this tactic. So many issues have come up with Microsoft’s own migration practice — including an Application Analyzer for Lotus Domino 2006 which does absolutely nothing and hasn’t been withdrawn despite its architectural flaws. Training for partners on this broken and deceptive tool started (in the US) this week! I know you asked for Paul Mooney’s input on this tool once it shipped, but I don’t think I’ve seen you comment on his analysis of the released tool.
@Ed,
Thanks for your comment. I wouldn’t really call this a clarification because it raises even more questions
1) Competitve migrations
a) 1319 + 1468 is not 3000 😉
b) My point around the 3000 (or “rounded” 1500 per year) number is, that these are *total competitive migrations* as I understand it. Microsoft Exchange is a subset of these. Correct?
c) You are really saying that Mike Rhodin, an IBM senior executive (Mr. Workplace), made a mistake on a (the) competitive figure of his major competitor? In a period prior to releasing the IBM annual figures so sort of a forward looking statement?
Or … he was misquoted by the author of the article; an article you yourself quoted (http://www.edbrill.com/ebrill/edbrill.nsf/dx/express-computer-india-there-is-a-new-world-emerging-in-the-collaboration-market-one-that-is-born-on-the-web ) and also overlooked this “mistake” ? Since you quoted the article and I know by know you look at competitive stuff with a magnifying glass I have a hard time believing this …
d) Customer Evidence … yes Binary Tree. I see they also have an impressive migrate *to* Microsoft Exchange list : http://www.binarytree.com/website/msg/home.nsf/vContentW/CMT+For+Exchange–CMT+Customers!Opendocument
When I search for Microsoft Exchange on you’re the Lotus site (http://www-306.ibm.com/software/success/cssdb.nsf/advancedsearchVW?SearchView&Query=%5BWebSiteProfileListTX%5D=lotus+AND+(microsoft%20exchange)+AND+%5BCompletedDate%5D%3E01-01-2000&site=lotus&frompage=ts&Start=1&Count=30 ) it returns only 15 client cases out of thousands of migrations ?? Most likely the majority is on your internal reference site …
e) Success can be measured in market share I would say (http://www.rhs.com/web/blog/poweroftheschwartz.nsf/d6plinks/RSCZ-6JUUBD ) Let’s see how this turns out …
2) “the Penguin program”
You are guessing around Microsoft’s strategy and related “bounty” as you call it and say IBM is more transparent. Maybe this transparent approach will bring IBM the/ more success that the heavy discounts didn’t in the past … Thanks for your quote, I hope you don’t mind I changed the company name 😉
3) Application Analyzer
I have commented to Paul on this based on my own experience to date : http://www.peterdehaas.com/2006/02/butler_group_re.html .
I have given my opinion on the Application Analyzer in general over on Paul’s blog quite a while ago : http://www.pmooney.net/blogsphe.nsf/d6plinks/PMOY-6JMQHZ#comments
Lastly the group that has developed and maintains these toolset’s have their own blog (http://blogs.technet.com/collabtools/ ) and as far as I can see on their blog your and other’s valuable reviews have reached them and I am sure they will take action on whatever is necessary.
From my perspective the Application Analyzer is part of a much larger group of migration tools and should not be seen as “the holy grale” for migration. As IBM also Microsoft has quite a large ecosystem of ISV’s that provide tooling for this aspect :
– Propoison : http://www.proposion.com/
– Casahl : http://www.casahl.com/
– BinaryTree : http://www.binarytree.com/
– Quest : http://www.quest.com/
– Etc. (this triggers me that I need to do a post on this …)
OK…
1) Yes, it’s possible Rhodin didn’t have the final number yet — I only got them a week later, and it’s my product 🙂 Yes, more of my stories are internal references — for whatever reason, customers hesitate to become public references for having switched from Microsoft. The reasons for that are complex and have to do with MS’s monopoly position in other markets. No, the Binary Tree link you included isn’t just migrations to Exchange — that’s not what the page says (even if the URL implies it). ExxonMobil, Kaiser Permanente, and many others listed on that page are Notes organizations, and are listed on the page I linked to.
2) I am guessing around the “Notes Compete” program based on solid evidence — IBM is a Microsoft business partner, and I and my colleagues have attended training classes held by MS about “Notes Compete”. I can’t disclose the contents of those classes publicly, but Ballmer has been quoted as saying that such a bounty is in place… just that there are no public details that can assist a customer in evaluating proposals from Microsoft partners.
3) Yes, I remember that posting. Since the current tool has been proven, since its final release, to -NOT- actually provide valuable insights into customer environments, I guess I’m curious if you maintain that position now.
Odd. You seem to be complaining that IBM is following Microsoft’s lead in offering their partners some bonus for competitive upgrades ?
And IBM have approached this in an open and honest manner.
Lets take MS’s Business Partners’ Exchange practices. I know of at least one Exchange “gold” consultancy who have such a level of funding to support their practice that it almost funds one of their FTE’s. Something that is not made public, and something of course that IBM doesnt do.
Its apparently been happening for years. IBM doesnt fund partners by “stealth” in this manner. Open and Honest ?
And then onto the subject of Exchange itself. A product – Exchange 2003 – which is now three years old and its replacement is more than a year away. An eMail only, windows only email solution with well documented scalability and reliability issues.
One which the customer base finds increasingly difficult to upgrade – indeed – a conservative estimate is that 25% of the user base is still on Exchange v5.5 – unsupported, and unloved. Hence the Exchange Unplugged roadshow in the UK. And the well publicised “Wake” for Exchange v5.5.
Future ? Well, there’s a slight feature upgrade (and several feature downgrades – such as active/active server clustering and public folders) over a year away. Still, that doesnt stop the PR machine touting the beta software to the market. (The UK Exchange 2007 roadshow, for instance)
And of course you’ll have to introduce new infrastructure – windows on 64 bit – to actually make it work. God knows when all the third party applications – such as BlackBerry support – will follow that.
Doesnt look compelling does it ?
The truth of the matter is that Red Bull is just an attempt to muddy some very clear issues that MS have with Notes.
That is – there is STILL not a compelling application architecture (or architectures) that can even come close to beating Notes. So Red Bull is a misrepresentative (no usage logging), bendable (the XML file jiggery pokery) that basically shows the “easy to migrate” apps that you can move to sharepoint, using a third party migration product.
Thats why long-standing MS customers are still required to host Domino servers long after the email has been migrated.
Long standing, 70,000 user banks in the UK for instance. Thats not a migration that actually benefits the customer is it ? Surely a “proper” migation could migrate applications too ?
So thats what the $500m marketing campaign buys ? No new product. No new migration tooling. Just FUD-ware, and advertising ?
What on earth do you say to those customers out there who purchased 3-year software upgrade packages for Exchange 2003 ? “Sorry mate – we took your money but failed to deliver anything new in three years?”
And lets not even consider the recent “delivery road-kill” of Vista and Office 2007 slippages, or the Visual Studio 2005 “rush it out the door despite the bug-count so we can try and placate shareholders”.
Not a compelling argument is it ?
Compare and contrast. Lotus Domino releases about every 18 months, with quarterly feature upgrades and bug fixes. (And of course still hotfixes if required). Runs on many platforms, and of course on many clients.
Future ? Hannover tie-in to the linux client this year, a new Mac client (with universal binaries) released soon, etc, etc. Committed IBM support for Domino for the forseeable future. And of course Dominos legendary scalability, reliability, and security. Disaster recovery ? No worries. Out of the box. Oh – and Notes doesnt have the same securiry “issues” that have dogged Exchange and Outlook for years.
No wonder people with creaking Exchange v5.5. environments havent upgraded to Exchange 2003, and no wonder these customers are up for grabs.
Is this why your getting upset about IBM Lotus marketing suddenly getting as agressive as MS Marketing ?
I only wish Microsoft would stop shouting and start delivering product, so we could compete in a manner that benefits the customer.
Perhaps this is why Microsoft is the “least trusted” technology vendor ?
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20060330-6491.html
Or is it all the (new) lawsuits ?
http://www.reghardware.co.uk/2006/04/05/lucent_sues_microsoft/
—* Bill
P.S. I was in Holland last week but didnt have time to stop in Amsterdamn long to buy you a pint (of Heineken of course..) Next time.. You’ll be glad to know that a mutual friend demanded I meet with you…
@ Ed,
Maybe the BinaryTree link doen’t only contain Microsoft Exchange references; on the other hand the references on their site also don’t contain a timeline of any sort.
I would say Microsoft has an equal challenge of turning projects / customers into refrences. The list however is a bit longer than IBM’s ;-). I track the highlights on my blog : http://www.peterdehaas.com/case_study/index.html
You make it seem that in IBM’s case there are reluctant because they switched from Microsoft, I don’t quite understand that because I assume they will have a justified reason for it …
When I have put the new application analyzer in practice I will certainly share my experiences. What I would again like to highlight is that this type of tooling in my experience is part of a process and in no way “the holy grale”. Insight in the current environment based on a comon perception with the cleint is most essential. How that picture is created and verified comes 2nd.
@ Bill,
As always a pleasure, but I do not knwo exactly where to start / what point you are trying to make. I know you don’t like Microsoft’s technology / roadmap, etc.
I am not compaining about IBM following Microsoft’s lead. I am quite sure Microsoft is not first and defenitly not last in having competetive focus …It’s just not something to get very excited about …
Let’s indeed discuss the things on the list over a beer. I am a much better talker than I am a “blogtyper”. I am curious who you’ve met 😉
Peter
Your comments on the App analyser were honest. You have not used the tool and that is fine. I can see its part of a bigger plan, but the MAAD (or will I call it MAD!) just doesnt work but is still being used as a key tool in marketing programs. That is what really annoys me.
I agree with Bill (and I don’t always). MS have to focus on the code. I can see their trying, but their first, second and third attempt on the MAAD were useless.
@ Paul,
As I have indicated I can only comment by experience on the 2003 version of the Application analyzer.
When validating the outcome with NOtes experts on clients’ side we are always in agreement.
Again that’s my experience and as I have said many times it is only part of the process.
Because it is client specific and therefor confidential information I can not share it to illustrate things 🙁