IBM’s Lotus Notes is still used by many companies around the globe, but with the advent of cloud-based infrastructure those same companies are beginning to realise there is life outside Lotus.
Ironically, even IBM itself with its development of CloudBurst has got the bug. However, companies using Lotus Notes and looking to switch are not staying with IBM but moving to Google.
Now, you could be forgiven for thinking why are they moving away from a system they’ve been using for years to another company offering something different. I think the answer to that lies in the basic problem with Lotus Notes.
The latter still needs to be hosted on a normal computer. Documents created in the software are still stored on the business’s computers. Google Apps, on the other hand, are stored remotely on Google’s own servers. Moreover, each application is integrated with all the other applications, ensuring easy access and switching.
From what I gather, Lotus Notes lacks this integration facility; or if it has it, then it is seemingly inefficient. This means, in a highly competitive business environment, this can cause major problems.
To be fair to Lotus Notes though, the product itself has stood the test of time adding new features as and when needed. However, I don’t think the creators of the software really realised the impact that cloud would have in such a short space of time.
Even Microsoft was late getting off the starting blocks with its Office 365, and while I generally prefer using Microsoft products offline, the cost of both is huge.
Lotus Notes hasn’t necessarily kept pace and IBM is changing that (or hopes to with Notes Social Edition).
However, there are ways to protect those legacy investments in Lotus while modernizing the nearly 18,000,000 applications that run on the platform.
You might want to check out what GBS is doing (http://gbs.com/) – the have a number of solutions that modernize the Lotus Notes & Domino platform. In particular, its Transformer technology – http://www.gbs.com/en/transformer.
Two of your core statements, “[Lotus Notes] still needs to be hosted on a normal computer”, and “…From what I gather, Lotus Notes lacks this integration facility; or if it has it, then it is seemingly inefficient.”, are incorrect.
IBM Lotus Notes has, for some time, been delivered either through a rich client, or through a browser with iNotes. In addition, Lotus Notes has also been delivered either on premises, or through the Cloud, for some time, starting with LotusLive (now IBM SmartCloud for Social Business).
The latest iteration of IBM’s cloud delivery is SmartCloud Notes, for a rich client experience, or SmartCloud iNotes, for a browser-based experience. Both are integrated within SmartCloud Engage Advanced, which is a package that includes email, calendar, instant messaging, web meetings, and many other collaboration tools (https://www.ibm.com/cloud-computing/social/us/en/planspricing/).
And with IBM Docs now in beta, soon you can add web-based document creation, editing and collaboration. (https://www.ibm.com/cloud-computing/social/us/en/ibmdocs/).
I can hardly agree. If a company uses Lotus Notes only for mail and calendaring, than you may be right (from a users/cost perspective). But if a company uses Lotus Notes for applications – that’s what the system is mainly build from – than I’m pretty sure that “just migrating” doesn’t work. To any system. There are a lot of “successful” companies which “migrated” from Lotus Notes – but only PIM. The users are now working with the new PIM program – and Lotus Notes for the applications. So not a real benefit from a users perspective.
You’re talking about (missing/inefficient) integration. Well – here are some example scenarios about what you can do with Lotus Notes:
- Connect your calendar to your SAP HR system for automatic holiday booking/approval
- Integrate nearly any SQL Backend for data transfer/conversion
- Use your data offline AND encrypted
- Build sophisticated Web 2.0 web applications (if you haven’t heard about that google for “XPages”)
- serve as a data container and deliver that data to any external system through open standards like JSON, XML or whatever
- Build applications of your choice and run in on-premise and in the cloud
- whatever you could imagine…
The problem is, that a lot of people “outside” of the IBM Lotus world think about Notes 6 or Notes 7 and haven’t touched the current release.
Besides that: AFAIK Google was one of those companies with customers data loss…
http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-20037554-93.html
Regards, René
“IBM’s Lotus Notes is still used by many companies around the globe, but with the advent of cloud-based infrastructure those same companies are beginning to realise there is life outside Lotus.”
That’s a fair statement. Investigating all the options do help businesses make well informed decisions.
“Ironically, even IBM itself with its development of CloudBurst has got the bug.”
CloudBurst? I think that’s under the Tivoli line…the author should check out IBM SmartCloud for Social Business.
“However, companies using Lotus Notes and looking to switch are not staying with IBM but moving to Google.”
Links? References?
“Now, you could be forgiven for thinking why are they moving away from a system they’ve been using for years to another company offering something different. I think the answer to that lies in the basic problem with Lotus Notes. ”
Here we go.
“The latter still needs to be hosted on a normal computer. Documents created in the software are still stored on the business’s computers. Google Apps, on the other hand, are stored remotely on Google’s own servers. Moreover, each application is integrated with all the other applications, ensuring easy access and switching.”
“Hosted on a normal computer?” Well, my Lotus Domino servers run on the IBM i operating environment on top of IBM Power Systems hardware. That’s not a normal computer because it doesn’t fail. Ever.
Or do you mean a normal client computer? I can get my Lotus Notes mail on just about any device, from laptop to Android to iPad.
What’s wrong with business documents stored on the business’s computers? That’s what a server is for, right? What benefit does Google have over my IBM i on Power Systems servers?
“From what I gather, Lotus Notes lacks this integration facility; or if it has it, then it is seemingly inefficient. This means, in a highly competitive business environment, this can cause major problems. ”
As far as integration is concerned, and that’s what the “i” in IBM i stands for by the way, we’re all set. Even on the client side, Lotus Notes has plenty of integration capability built right in. I have plugins called Widgets that allow me access to many different applications/solutions, both on-premise (Sametime, Quickr, Connections, custom apps) and hosted. Heck, I’m sure I may have a couple of Google Gadgets integrated inside Lotus Notes. Integrated with one click. Simple.
“To be fair to Lotus Notes though, the product itself has stood the test of time adding new features as and when needed. However, I don’t think the creators of the software really realised the impact that cloud would have in such a short space of time.
Even Microsoft was late getting off the starting blocks with its Office 365, and while I generally prefer using Microsoft products offline, the cost of both is huge.”
Again, the author assumes that IBM isn’t in the cloud computing space or hasn’t heard the scuttlebutt about IBM Docs. If the author would link to a ROI sheet or a cost benefit analysis of Google Apps vs IBM SmartCloud for Social Business, or even on-premise Lotus Notes/Domino it would marginally help the credibility of these claims. Perhaps there’s a reason there’s no links, references or studies.
I see some strong comments from others. However I see also a strong move from Lotus customers to Google Apps. I have been in the Notes area for more then 15 years, in different roles. I switched 3 years ago to Google. My business is currently migration Lotus Notes customers to Google Apps
Lotus customers don’t want to move to Microsoft or can not move due to the cost of migrating applications to sharepoint. Those Lotus customers have now a good opportunity to move Notes (mail & applications) to Google Apps. Gmail is a perfect replacement of Notes mail and with Google Apps you have tons on out-of-the box collaboration options and also the ability to build simple applications with Google AppsScript, or host complex business application in the Google App Engine (with development options in a RAD). This makes also sense to Lotus designers who easily adapt Google AppsScript or a RAD environment for GAE.
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clear their motive, and that is also happening with this piece of writing
which I am reading at this place.