Hey IBM... how about running Salestalks on a Pacific time zone once in a while?

I have a customer with c.300 Notes seats who has specifically asked me to get him information on Web Content Management. With perfect timing I received an IBM News update advising me that there will be a Lotus SalesTalk on this topic and then I realize the call is scheduled for 1:00am Australian time.

10. Lotus: Lotus SalesTalk: Put information to work at customer sites with Lotus Web Content Management
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Customers and prospects are increasingly looking for ways to reduce costs, maximise value, increase ROI, and enable top-line growth. This call provides valuable information that can help you talk with your customers about the solid ROI they'll see with Lotus Web Content Management.

Date: Tuesday, April 20, 2010
Time: 11:00 a.m. EDT (90 minutes)

We all know that IBM has historically had the majority of its software market on the North American continent and in Europe, but the markets in Asia have a significant proportion of the worlds population and a much higher growth rate than the USA. I concede that Australia and New Zealand have only 3% of the world IT market but what about India, China, Korea, Japan etc etc.

Lotus Knows that Asia wants to be in on the action also.
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Whoa there! Say that again please...

The Registar's review of Lotussphere had an interesting quote from an un-named IBM spokesperson.

In another of IBM's Lotusphere announcements, the company claimed: "From 3Q 2008 to 3Q 2009, IBM's social collaboration software install base grew by 34 per cent."

But by simply checking back to it's third-quarter earnings report, the company said that tevenues from Lotus software - "which allows collaborating and messaging by clients in real-time communications and knowledge management" - dropped 9 per cent over that same period.

Has IBM been giving the software away for free? When asked to explain how Lotus revenue shrunk while its user base grew by double-digits, IBM said the 34 per cent growth number was actually only counting Lotus Connections and Quickr software - which accounts for less than 20 per cent of the overall breadth of the Lotus portfolio.

"It's about the total size of the pie," the same IBM spokesman claimed. "The IBM collaboration segment overall is either holding or gaining market share in each of its submarkets against the competition. The problem is the whole pie is shrinking. Microsoft is losing more seats than IBM is."

OK, I understand the logic of what is being said here regarding market segments (sales of Connections are good but sales of Notes are bad), but what does this 'pie is shrinking' comment refer to? Notes seats might be moving to LotusLive but isn't that all considered as part of the same email pie?

Anyone got any ideas on this one?
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HP & Microsoft: So what exactly are they selling here?

"The enemy of my enemy is my friend" is a proverb that does much to explain the periodic rejuvenation of the HP/Microsoft alliance. Although IBM pulled out of the PC market a while ago they are still a fearsome competitor to HP for services, and Microsoft has never really forgiven IBM for continuing to sell Lotus Notes/Domino.

Every couple of years the Microsoft/HP alliance comes up with a new joint offering to push into the marketplace. That's fine by me since the competition from HPM keeps Big Blue from getting too complacent about its own offerings. However I must admit I'm a little dubious about one part of the latest HP&M offering.

"Today when a customer buys hardware and software and marry it up in their IT centers, they go about the integration process themselves. [Instead,] software will be installed and optimized for throughput and performance and matched to the infrastructure underneath it and have management solutions ready to go," said Scott Farrand, vice president, enterprise storage and server software, technology solutions group, HP.

That might work if all of the customer organizations run on the 'standard' HP architecture and is tuned according to Microsoft 'Best Practice', but what if they run a mixed vendor environment or have good reason to adopt other architectures? My bet is that 100% of organizations investing in these HPM products will need to go through a reconfiguration phase for these new products to slot them into their own multi-vendor vision of the future.

So what is the benefit of HPM selling an 'optimized' hardware/software package if it all has to be re-optimized once it arrives on the customer's premises? That brings the highly profitable Services portfolio into the mix and while I certainly don't have a problem with anything that builds the services market, it does cancel out the perceived value in what HPM are selling as a pre-optimized package.

Still, I suppose it will do for another few years until the HPM machine decide to reinvigorate their alliance with a new set of offerings.
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Where do you draw the line ?

Today I received the following email from an IT supplier (not an IBM Business Partner) in another country:

"Dear Mr.Graham,
Pls. clarify my below questions on Lotus Foundation
1. Can Lotus foundation server keep/store all the incoming & out going mails of the users on server HDD/storage?
2. Is it possible to centralize/store all the contact(addressbook) details of customers/partners?
3. Do we need a dedicated IP for foundation server?
4. Can we install Lotus foundation server/clients on Windows Server 2008?
5. Is Lotus server appliance is a HW box with preinstalled software? If yes, what is the aprox. Cost?
Waiting for your reply.

Best Regards,
..."

I'm sure that most people with a specialized blog get a similar style of questions from time to time. For my part, I'm usually quite willing to help other Business Partners where I can and I gratefully acknowledge that I have received more than my fair share of support from the Yellow Blood community over the last two decades.

But where do you draw the line? These questions show a person who doesn't seem to understand the concept of a Lotus Foundations Server and from reading between the lines in their email I deduce they are considering selling a Foundations Server to a customer.

I know that IBM has a strong presence in this person's country and I have told the writer of the email to contact their local IBM rep for the answers. I don't mind the compliment that they contacted (Googled?) me first, but I need to draw the line somewhere or I'll never get any work done.

What policy do you have on responding to these kind of emails?
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How to succeed in selling Lotus services ...

I added this comment to a Linked-In group earlier this morning but I figured it was a valid blog post in it's own right... Merry Christmas to all my readers.

Comments about Lotus lack of marketing and mistakes with IBM Workplace and losing market share etc are soooooo last year. Get over it and get into the future! If you are going to stay with Notes (like me) then get your finger out and DO something about expanding the market for Domino. There are managers at IBM/Lotus in Australia who can and do help Lotus Business Partners. If you go to them with a great idea then they'll help you. All you have to do is show them a Win-Win scenario and they'll come to the Party. I have two ZERO-COST (apart from phone calls) marketing programs running with IBM right now and the results are fantastic - two new paying clients this month and two similar client appointments lined up for January plus a public marketing event scheduled for February.

If you are not based in Sydney then I'm happy to give you some ideas that have worked for me with IBM/Lotus. Contact me on 0435 094 694 or via email on 'gdodge - bcd - net - au'. I presume you can fill in the blanks :)

Microsoft Business Partners need not apply. Nothing personal, but I want to work with people who don't take a bet on every horse in the race. If you've got the cojones to stay Yellow then I'll show you the money.

BTW... I guess the same marketing techniques would work in other geographies so I'm happy to pass these tips onto non-Australian Business Partners. I can't promise that your Lotus sales office will respond as positively as Lotus Australia has done.
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How to roast an IBM executive (with tomato sauce)

It's always fun when IBM send over a suit from the USA to host a meeting of local Business Partners and to offer him up at a ritual sacrifice of tomato pelting and slow roasting. The event was called 'Business Partner & Lotus Roundtable with Mike Garbett' and Mike (Director of WorldWide Sales for Lotus Collaboration) took most of the input on board with good grace. Unfortunately I had to leave before the red wine was exhausted but I'm sure my fellow BPs finished off my share of the Merlot.

The amazing thing about these events is that the local Partners tell the same thing to EVERY visiting executive from the USA and yet our comments are always met with an open-mouthed 'gosh... no-one ever told me that' response by the newest blue-suited arrival. I sometimes think that IBM tells its execs that Australia is like a little town somewhere in Texas so as long as you talk slowly and smile a lot you'll get on just fine. The reality is that with a population of over 22 million we would fit in as the next largest state of the USA after Texas with about 3 million more people than the state of New York.

More critical than our size if the fact that we have a different corporate infrastructure than the USA. Most of our larger employers have their HQ overseas and therefore we have a limited ability to influence strategic purchasing decisions. We also see the lions share of Australian licencing revenue being creamed off by overseas Business Partners who have cozied up to the Head Office buyers in Main Street USA, but that's life.

However what IBM could do is to make their own products more available to the Australian market. I'll quote from my own blog post about the reality of SMB in Australia with comparable USA figures in square brackets:

* Large firms: ......200+ staff .......5,876 .... (0.3%) .... [0.28%]
* Mediumsized firms: 20-199 staff ....78,304 .... (3.9%) .... [0.79%]
* Small firms: ......5-19 staff .....228,313 ... (11.3%) .... [4.75%]
* Micro-enterprises: 0-4 staff ....1,699,277 ... (84.5%) ... [94.18%]

So if most of the opportunity in Australia is in the sub-200 user space then why is there a lower limit of 200 users for Lotus Live? IBM is just taking its own products off the radar for all but 6,000 businesses in Australia. Mike got that message loud and clear yesterday and I'm repeating it here for the IBM execs that haven't yet been roasted at an Australian Business Partner Barbeque.

I saw Mike taking copious notes at the meeting but only time will tell whether the next exec to visit Australia has bothered to read those notes.
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I lost a Lotus Foundations sale yesterday :(

A few weeks ago I cold-called into an opportunity where the client was looking to throw out their Notes R6.5 mail system in favor of MS Exchange. I rapidly pitched Lotus Foundations against MS Exchange but lost the deal mainly because the customer was only using Notes for mail and Exchange was seen as an adequate substitute. There was also the issue that their regular trusted IT provider was pitching Exchange while I was the new boy on the block.

So what did I learn from this?

• Lotus Foundations needs more airtime. The client hadn't heard of it and was wary about moving their key SMB architecture to an unknown OS.
• Lotus Notes is still perceived as "just email" in some companies. In this case MS Exchange was seen as an equal competitor to Lotus Notes/Domino and talking about the free application databases available at OpenNTF just didn't push this clients "tell me more" button.
• SMB relies heavily on their key IT supplier and if you're already selling hardware and network services into a company then you have pole position for helping them pick an 'email solution'. OK, that observation isn't rocket science, but while multiple IT suppliers are acceptable for larger companies, the average SMB might accept higher prices and an inferior product as a fair trade for maintaining a single 'go-to' guy for all of their IT problems.
  

This brings me back to my previous post about the role of the IT consulting company. Would I be a better IT provider to this client by offering them the MS Exchange option? My guess is that I'd probably still have lost this sale to the incumbent IT provider but, more importantly, could I have honestly recommended MS Exchange over Lotus Notes/Domino and still consider myself as a Partner to IBM/Lotus?

I don't think so.


BTW I agree that it makes business sense for an IT provider to embed themselves into a client and become an integral part of that client's decision making process. There is obviously a better opportunity to professionally guide the client to choose your IT services over those of your competitor, and I don't have a problem with that scenario because I make no pretense of representing my competitor for professional services in that customer. However I don't see how an IT Provider can claim to represent IBM/Lotus if they don't seek out every opportunity to sell IBM/Lotus products ESPECIALLY when the customer will be equally well served by Lotus Domino or MS Exchange.
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