Much leading
by Volker Weber
IBM publishes a blog post naming Inhi Cho Suh as the author. It celebrates an IDC finding that positions IBM as the leading enterprise social software vendor.
I can't help thinking that the community is waiting for a different blog post, addressing the Notes/Domino situation.
Comments
Yes, the Notes/Domino situation needs to be adressed now!
Today i wrote an email to our IBM representative. I'm curious what he will answer.
But from the current information one must assume that there will be only Verse (and Domino as mail platform only) after the end of support for 9.0.x in 2021.
My eyes did roll up as I read the blog post.
There is an unfortunate tendency in the US to abuse the superlative. And it weakens one's expressive power because it's inflationary.
If everything is awesome, then nothing is.
If you have a paradigm shift every year, then they're commonplace, a banality.
But IBM brings that to a whole new level. Leading this, social that, Exceptional that (my favourite: Exceptional Web Experience, when IBM's website is a godforsaken labyrinth of broken links).
The picture says it all!
As far as i know in 2011 IBM makes over a Billion Dollar with IBM Notes/Domino alone. Now they are very happy that the are the leader in the social market with 227 million Dollar. What a great success for the management. The management of IBM reminds me of Stephen Elop announcing that Symbian is a burning platform 2 years before he can deliver a working windows phone device. Everyone knows what happens to Nokia after this. I think that should be rule #1 for successfull IT companies. Do not kill the cow which gives you milk before you have a new cow which can deliver the same amount of milk.
I recommend "The Innovator's Dilemma" by Clayton M. Christensen.
Volker, I'm sure that IBM's managers are familiar with "The Innovator's Dilemma". Do you think they are currently running their Collaboration Solutions business by the book?
Of course they know the book. As far as management of ICS is concerned I have come to believe that the former GM was disconnected from pretty much everything that was going on in the market, whereas current management seems to know exactly what is happening. The problem is that it is very difficult to change course with the stuff you inherited. Software development takes time. Toscana is already two years in the making for instance. Whatever you start building today will probably not ship in your time. The only way to speed up is partnering with others. You have seen that with Cisco and Box. I am curious what else is in the pipeline.
It seems to me that they have been running the Notes/Domino business as legacy, without a new disruptive product on the horizon that could potentially replace the existing product category (no, IBM Connections is not that kind of product). So, if there's no innovation, it's not that kind of a dilemma.
Wait - I've just noticed - That's Comic Sans, right? I'm sure this is intentional typographical meta-humour.
Andrew, it's a proper doge meme. Look it up. It's a 2013 thing. Why did I choose 2013? I think that's when IBM lost it.
Ha! Didn't know that. Cheers.
