Lotus Notes

REVIEW :: Survival Guide for Lotus Notes and Domino Administrators

LINK :: Survival Guide for Lotus Notes and Domino Administrators (Hardcover)

I received my copy of the book this week in the mail. Full disclosure, I paid for this book with my money and have not been given it to review and don’t know anyone who wrote it. I know of the people, but have never met any of them. So with that out of the way lets get going.

First I expect the package to be larger than it was. I pulled the book out of the envelope, and to tell you the truth on first look I felt ripped off. The size of the book was a problem for me. I expected a much thicker book with more “stuff” in it. As it is called a SURVIVAL GUIDE it should thick and over 600 pages. I have many older Lotus books and they are thick and I love them.

I started reading the book, and to tell you the truth, I didn’t expect the heavy Lotus Notes section. It was a nice start and I will be using it to help me build some training for new Lotus 8 Users.I congratulate the team for taking on Lotus Notes 8, it’s not many times you get a good book that cover the Notes client like this. With so many new changes in 8 right now it’s hard to manage them all. The book covers it all very well. Hats off to that part of the book, the content here is super.

The Domino Admin side is nice covering some of the new features of Domino 8. The Domino Admin part is nice and beefy, but still is just a bit of a bounce all over the place with what I thought the title was trying to describe the book. Now don’t get me wrong, there is plenty of good info here in what is the last 2/3s of the book. While there is some great info, I don’t think the title was a good title for such a short and concise book.

I was expecting a bigger book and for the money it was way over priced. That book should be priced at $29 to be considered reasonable. It would have been easier to understand the size of the book vs. the price if it was priced a bit more in line with the size and content of the book. I could have also done without the hard cover. A softcover would have been better and would transport better in my bag. Please don’t get me wrong, if I had written a book and put my heart and soul into it I would want top dollar for it, but compared to other books about technology that are out today, it’s really not priced properly. I will expect this book to get down into the price range it should be but right now it’s still over priced vs. the size of the book. Have you understood that the size is bothering me?

On a scale from 1 to 10 I would give it a 6, mainly because of the size vs. price. There is nothing wrong with the content. I just expect more for $50 Retail.

I am a Domino Admin, I have over 20K Users and Hundreds of servers.I have been an Admin since R5 was released and have managed many environments and love running Domino on the IBM i. I just wanted to let you all know where I was coming from.

For all those in the Lotus Blog community who like to kick me for “NOT BEING AN ADMIN” can go ahead and get bent. I am of course tired of the holier than thou attitude that some people in the Lotus Blogger Community, it’s sad they like to marginalize me because I disagree with them at times. Anyone can review a book and they don’t have to like the books all the time.

Lotus Notes to Sharepoint Blog

I have been reading as much as I can about Sharepoint and why it just is no comparison to Lotus Domino Application Development. There is a blog out there that is pointing all this out and I think the person posting is at the end of his or her rope and posted this recently:

“My time is either spent doing a lot more configuration(in Sharepoint) than coding, or I am fighting the platform with code to try to bend it to my will. I like using technology to solve problems, not fighting technology to create basic business process applications.”

This is about all that needs to be said. Sharepoint is not a drop in solution for anything Lotus has to offer. They are just not the same in any way shape or form.

So if you are thinking about moving to Sharepoint from Lotus, or for any reason. Know there are much better solutions out there than Sharepoint I assure you.

LINK :: NOTES MIGRATION BLOG

Moving from Lotus to Exchange is costly and a step backwards

You don’t need to tell me anything about how much a move from Lotus Domino/Note to Microsoft Exchange/Outlook is going to cost these days. It’s going to be expensive. Even with a light investment in Lotus and only  few production DBs, an average company is not prepared for the cost involved. I pointed out in  a previous post that it’s idiotic and stupid to move from the IBM i or any installed technology to a different solution ( LINK ).

No some comments have surfaced on Network World that are interesting and true.

We stopped the move to Exchange

“I work for a 15k+ organization, and we stopped our migration to Exchange, in part because of the costs to migrate, but also because we found out we could save money moving to Domino 8.5. Our application developers are excited about Domino as a development platform again, and that alone will prove to be a huge ROI.”

Read the Article that sparked the comments.

I know of a company in Denver that I worked for at one time that has about 3,000 - 4,000 users who in my words . . .

Lotus did not fail them, they failed Lotus.

What does that mean David?

Let me tell you!

Lotus is not just mail. Lotus is many many things. Of which 20% is mail. The rest is Web Serving, Mail Archiving, Database Server, and Application Server all wrapped up into one. Many companies get Lotus installed and get t working then fail to use all it;s pieces. Sadly if you would have spent the time and money to develop some applications in Lotus Notes and deploy them your company would benefit from them. I even suggested a few years back that IBM give away 80 hours of consulting time to help the new company deploy an application so they could see the value. That 80 hours would have gone a long way in consulting dollars later on.

See if you just focus on the Mail bit you are missing the point. Microsoft is good at making sure you only focus on the mail and oh you want to do something with your applications? We can move those to Sharepoint. Well I am telling you it’s not that easy. Moving applications from Domino to Sharepoint is like expecting a VW Bug to out perform a Ferrari just because it has round rubber things and run on gas.

They are not the same. Lotus does all of these things well, and you can have them all on the same server if your smart bout it. In Microsoft world you can’t have your Exchange Server on the same servers as your Chat Server along with your Sharepoint Server. If you did you would be the oldest man in IT from lack of sleep and general frustration.

There are also the CIOs and IT Managers who read the propaganda Microsoft is sending them that says “Everyone is moving to Exchange” and they think, crap I don’t want to be left out….so they start moving to Microsoft, no matter what the cost, but the biggest question is what about the investment you already have in your current solution? How does the CEO allow that to get thrown out the window? You spent  and continue to spend to keep Lotus Notes, and yet a 4 to 8 times increase in cost is worth it for the benefit of increasing energy consumption, increase cooling needs and increase the number of servers you are going to have to deploy vs. keeping a few Lotus Domino Servers to manage large numbers of users and applications. Plus Lotus is not nearly as expensive as Microsoft’s solution. Plus how much is a .NET Developer license again? Lotus, last I checked, does not charge for the developer license. It’s apart of the client.

If you are thinking of moving off Lotus Domino/Notes to Exchange/Outlook/Sharepoint/Communications, ask yourself….is this the best way for use to spend money right now and would this money not be better spend hiring a Lotus Designer/Developer to increase our productivity and also increase the ROI we could be getting out of Lotus products?

Well this is good news:

LINK :: More firms switching from Microsoft’s Outlook to Lotus

Why isn’t IBM building things like this for the IBM i?

We need sales to go up, we need exposure to go up, we need education to go up and we need CIOs to know that the IBM i is the most reliable, dependable and most ROI system on the planet! Yet if you were to look at what IBM is doing to get that word out you would think they were the ones needing the education. IBM built this little video for Lotus and Mobile Collaboration. It make sense and it’s easy to understand. WHY WHY IBM can’t you seem to do this for the POWER Platform?

LINK TO VIDEO

Happy Birthday Planet Lotus

Happy birthday PlanetLotus.org and to Yancy. It’s one year old and is  hub for all things Lotus in the world today.

Open Source Lotus Domino

There is chatter in the Lotus Community about some people wanting IBM to open source Lotus Domino. There are two sides to this issue and I think that both sides have decent points. I fall on the side of NO, and IBM should do more to promote and sell the application server than they do now and make it really easy to get into small offices.

LINK :: Campaign to open source Domino

7 Things IT Managers Should Know about Lotus Notes - by Thomas Duff

LINK :: 7 Things IT Managers Should Know about Lotus Notes - by Thomas Duff

Duffbert, as we call him in the Lotus Community, has written a very nice article for CIO that explains what most companies are missing when it comes to Lotus Notes today. Not 10 years ago, today!

Lotus Notes has always been the step child of the email and messaging software and yet it keeps getting bigger. THere are many many IT managers I have known in the past who have never used it or seen it but have been told, it’s ugly and expensive. I was also told once by a complete idiot IT manager, that IBM somehow intercepts all the internal email using Lotus Notes and forwards it to IBMs Headquarters…..wherever that is? The sad part is he or she is still in IT and even dumber than ever. He or she shall remain nameless.

So I would urge you if you are in IT to at least give it a read. Microsoft’s Exchange/Outlook solution is extremely sad when you compaire it to what Lotus is offering you.

Life Hacker - Lotus Notes on the iPhone

Link :: LifeHacker - Lotus Ultra lite on the iPhone

I know I am a little Notes heavy today but it’s important. Lotus is supported on many platforms including the IBM i and today I think we have made a good step forward for the iPhone and Lotus on Mobile devices.

IBM Growth in Emerging Markets Fuels Lotus Momentum - Ed Brill - IBM - Lotus

Link to Marketwire - IBM Growth in Emerging Markets Fuels Lotus Momentum

Ed Brill is blogging about the IBM/Lotus growth as well. I think as Lotus people we have all known for years that this was going on and it was only a matter of time before the rest of the world would catch up. This is movment in the proper direction. Lotus is dead, long live Lotus!

I think this is key and should have Microsoft running around scared - “Lotus Symphony has been downloaded by over 1.3 million individuals and businesses”

Lotus Notes 8 is a one stop shop for all things in the modern office. You don’t need anything else on your desktop/laptop anymore.

Sync your Mac & your iPhone all with Lotus Notes - PocketMac

So you are a Mac user, and for that you’re smart, then you are being told to use Lotus Notes and as a Mac user that makes you crazy for all the right reasons. You can’t use Spotlight to search and I again know your pain. But the problem is you’re still on a Mac, you have Lotus Notes and your trusty iPhone is lost since you can’t sync the iPhone to anything in Lotus Notes, until now!

You need PocketMac GoBetween for Lotus Notes

You can also sync a few other devices other than your iPhone. So you are not limited to just the iPhone, there is a very heavy list of what you can sync with.