The CMSWatch Emperor has no Clothes

Carl Tyler set the cats among the pigeons when he blogged about CMSWatch's article on 'The Difference between SharePoint and Lotus Notes'. The original CMS post had stated

" ... the fact that IBM is slowly phasing out Domino in favor of newer platforms ... "

and they were quickly smothered by a plethora of Yellowverse comments deriding their lack of knowledge. CMSWatch quickly backpedalled and admitted that they just 'mis-spoke', however it was interesting that it wasn't the original author who issued the retraction and apology (providing you accept that using the weasel word 'mis-spoke' is actually an apology).

So do you think those antics are good enough for a professional advisory service? Most of us get paid nothing for our blogs and that's a fair wage. Now and again one of us generates something of real value (Declan's X-Pages tutorials come to mind as does every second or third post from Nathan Freeman) but the majority of PlanetLotus feeds are just the day-to-day technical soap operas of a bunch of us IT folk - and that's fine by me.

However these CMSWatch people expect you to pay for their opinions. They will sell you an intranet site licence for all of their reports for a cool $16,000 per year or only $950 if you just want to read the Basic Sharepoint Report. But how the heck can their Sharepoint report be of any value when they obviously know so little about the main competitor to Sharepoint?

The list of people featured on their webpage who recommend the Sharepoint report made for interesting reading:

• Barb Mosher, (Senior Editor, CMSWire.com ) ... would she be the person who reviews their work for publication under the CMSxxx brand? If so, then her comments do not constitute an independent review.
• Hugh McKellar, (Editor, KMWorld Magazine ) ... who had just held a joint webinar with CMSWorld about Sharepoint so there is an existing commercial relationship with that reviewer.
• Two quotes each from Michael Sampson ( President, The Michael Sampson Company Ltd) and Paul Culmsee, (IT Consultant, Clever Workaround) ... doubtless they are highly skilled people but their respective websites show that both of them are one-man band consulting outfits who sell Sharepoint consulting services, so once again we don't see evidence of independent review.

There were two other endorsements that I didn't check beyond the ten second scrutiny I gave to the people listed above, but when you combine their demonstrated lack of knowledge about Notes/Domino with the thinness of the Sharepoint Report reviewer's credentials then IMHO CMSWatch have a looooooooooong way to go before they can be taken seriously as 'impartial reviewers' in the collaboration space. These guys seem like Sharepoint Fellow-Travellers who just jumped aboard the 'Let's-bash-Notes' wagon before checking their facts. The problem is, people are probably buying and reading and believing their stuff these guys write.

'mis-spoke' ... what a great word!
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Foundations: Revisiting a Previous Post

DISCLAIMER: I've never met Bob Baehr nor do I have shares in his company. The only financial relationship we have is a promise to buy each other a beer if I ever get back to Lotussphere (but with a 4 yo son and a daughter due in November that dream is still a few years away)

I blogged about Bob Baehr's Advanced Web Configuration for Foundations! in a previous post but I need to talk about it again. At the risk of stating the obvious, I do a lot of thinking about Lotus Foundations Server and I really think that Bob's product has permanently changed the playing field for that product. I think it's great that Lotus includes Apache Web Server in the Foundations product but I have no desire to learn that product. There's only so many hours in the day for soaking up new technologies and Apache Web Server is way down on my list somewhere between learning ADA and conquering the Zune API.

So although I had previously accepted that I would never fully exploit the Apache web interface of Foundations I now find myself using Domino Designer to quickly and easily code multiple web sites for my Foundations server. If you use Lotus Foundations Server then go visit Bob's web site and have a look at what he has done with making Foundations support Notes databases as web sites.

Here's a second round of applause for a great product.
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The missing piece of the Lotus Foundations puzzle

I suck at coding in HTML.

Sure I can do it, but with about the same efficiency as I have when typing on a Dvorak keyboard. It's not that I don't understand what HTML does but it uses this weird language that bears no resemblance to my native tongue of Forms, Fields and @functions.

So when I set up Lotus Foundations Server to run my office I left the Home Page alone for a couple of months until I finally forced myself to change it from the default and add some blurb about why I was better than all of the other Lotus Business Partners in Sydney. It took me about a day to code everything I wanted and I decided that I wasn't going to revisit that Page unless I moved offices and needed to update my company details.

Then a couple of weeks ago Bob Baehr pinged me with news about his new baby - Advanced Web Configuration for Foundations - and told me that he could make my Foundations Server work like a proper Domino Web server.

If you've worked with Foundations you'd know that by default your domain name points at your Apache Web server and shows a default Login page. It's a functional but somewhat uninspiring screen and it has no interface with your Domino environment. You can create a URL to a Notes database on your server eg: http://www.abc.com.au/data/myhomepage.nsf?Opendatabase , but that's rather ugly and I don't think many customers could be bothered to do that much typing. They'd much rather just type in http://www.abc.com.au and rely on your server to send them to your Notes-based Home Page.

Advanced Web Configuration for Foundations promises to let them do just that.

The product comes as a zipped 800k .pkg file that drops into your server's autoinstall folder. Although the software manual is fifteen pages long the installation process is so simple that I think Bob could have listed the instructions on a single page. Sure enough, the software installation process was over before I knew it. Click here, tick there, reboot the server and five minutes later my domain name was reading from a Notes database.

A regular native true-blue ODS-rated Form-View-and-Agent-enabled Notes database.

That's more than exciting - it's a whole d@rned revolution in the Lotus Foundations server space because now I don't need to dick around with text-based HTML. I can dust off my old NotesPortal.nsf and provide links for my visitors to get through to all of my other public access web-enabled databases. Lotus Foundations Server is now a viable upgrade path from a traditional Domino server for any SMB customer with a home-grown Domino web site.

You can check out Advanced Web Configuration for Foundations at http://www.bobbaehr.com

The downside is that I can't run my Apache server any more but on reflection I don't really see that as a downside. The standard Foundations Webconfig access screen still runs and that's all I need.

Now excuse me while I go and add another link to my Home Page using a Notes interface - the way nature intended it.
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Foundations: Letting the Tiger out of the Box

Did you ever see the cartoon with a man sitting precariously on an energetically bouncing crate with one hand holding onto the wall for balance while the other is grasping a telephone into which he is shouting... "OK, I've got the Tiger into the crate. What do I do now?"

I often think that's a good metaphor for IBM/Lotus and Lotus Foundations Server. IBM has purchased, re-engineered and repackaged Foundations and released it into the market but they are still struggling to find a way to position it within the regular Lotus product line. The big problem is stopping it from cannabalising the standard Domino product line. After all, if you can get all of the features of a regular Domino server integrated with its own firewall, anti-spam, anti-virus, file and print management... yada yada yada ... for less than the cost of that regular Domino server then why wouldn't you go with it? What's to stop the entire installed base of Domino customers from migrating across to LFS?

The strategists at IBM/Lotus wouldn't really have a problem with that scenario. For a start, there's no upgrade path so everyone needs to purchase new LFS software licences and the kicker is that the Windows Server licence for all of those existing Domino servers wouldn't be renewed. More money for IBM/Lotus and less money for Microsoft. I don't think the Yellowverse has a problem with that. My guess is that IBM/Lotus are struggling to develop a sensible pricing scheme that scales from a $300 SMB server all the way up to the $30,000 Domino Utility server, and until they do, they are enforcing technical and licencing constraints with the basic Foundations product to prevent it from running as a fully fledged corporate Domino server.

I certainly don't endorse bypassing the IBM/Lotus licencing restrictions on LFS but I'm all in favor of tweaking the product to make it run more smoothly for the customers. This week I'll be looking at Bob Baehr's LOTUS.PRO Advanced Web Configuration for Foundations. If it does what it says it does then I'll certainly be recommending it to my customers.


Damn it Bob... you've gone and started me blogging again even after I swore off that activity as a waste of my billable time.
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Lotus Foundations in the Australian Press again.

ZDNet Australia has published a review of Lotus Foundations Server performed by Enex TestLab.

Foundations should not be considered just for the IT challenged. Foundations is a great solution for a wide range of businesses because it takes away the need for an on-site IT guru; not every business is an IT firm. This software is about minimising management overheads so staff can get on with core business activities.
...
Its pricing is also a pleasant surprise: the server software licence is only AU$368.91, this includes an operating system and a full suite of security and management programs; and client licences are AU$240.03 per user. The low server licence fee makes this system particularly attractive for use in small deployments with only a dozen or two dozen clients where the price of server overheads make a real difference per user.

The only thing I would have changed in their review would be to add a paragraph at the bottom telling everyone how to contact me when they want to place an order :)
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eProductivity v. Domino Web Access - A tough choice

I'm putting my review of eProductivity on hold because I've run up against a technical anomoly. I run a Domino 8.5 mail client and use Domino Web Access for mail at least a half dozen times a week. At present the eProductivity template doesn't support DWA and I need to make a choice between the tools.

DWA wins out because I need to keep my business going. When eProductivity does support DWA then I'll install the new template and resume my review. It's a real teeth-grinding shame because I could see how eProductivity was ... well... making me more productive.

Eric, you're invited to post a response here to comment on your plans and schedule for eProductivity and DWA.
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eProductivity for Lotus Foundations - Post 2

The install of eProductivity was fairly painless but the next step was less so. Now that I have modified my mail file to support eProductivity I need to reclassify the data that's already there. Fortunately I don't keep every email I get but until now I've never had a fixed set of criteria for determining which emails I discard. It all depends on my mood at the time.

Now I haven't read David Allen's book but from glancing through other people's blogs about eProductivity I've picked up three principles for dealing with information:

• Write it Down: Information needs to be effectively stored if I want it to be available later. This means make an entry in my EPD ("eProductivity database" - previously known as my mail file).
  
  
• The Two-Minute Rule: If an item (email, task, idea, whatever) can be completed in less than two minutes then do it now. If not, then see Rule One.
  
  
• Dispose, Delegate or Defer: Pick in of these options for each new item in my EPD. In the past I've been heavily reliant on a fourth 'D' word - "Delay". BTW the snailmail in-tray on my desk is about 15cm high (6 inches for you Imperial die-hards) and there are documents in there dating back to mid-2008. I probably need to Dispose, Delegate or Defer all of that also.
  

The new features in my EPD include the ability to convert each incoming (and outgoing) email into a new Project or a new Action within an existing project. That's quite handy because it makes me think whether I need to keep that email. I'm reasonably up-to-date with filing my email In-Box but I still have occasional meltdowns about what folder I should be using to file a particular email. eProductivity allows me to file things where I like but still track them by Project.

After a frustrating twenty minutes of failing to process my mail effectively I had a light bulb moment and realized that I hadn't created a strategic approach to my mail. Let me emphasize the point that this frustration was not the fault of eProductivity - it was my own failing of not having a defined process to deal with email. It's sort of like watching my three year old son sweeping a room. There's lots of activity and the mess sometimes accumulates into little piles (more by good luck than good management) but there is no predefined process to move the dirt from the floor into the final repository. In the past I've been very good at getting email out of my InBox but now I've recognized my system of filing email wasn't tailored to support my business objectives. That Aha! moment alone was worth the effort of installing eProductivity.

So today I'm stepping back from the coal face so I can look at my email from 30,000 feet and ask myself a few questions.

• What Projects do I want to be working on? Have I been letting the quantity of incoming email for each project determine my work priorities for the day? Hey! Who's in charge here? Me, or the people sending me email?
  
• How do I determine which emails I keep?
• How do I determine which emails are assigned to which Projects? Maybe I need to slice and dice my projects under different categories.

Can the Old Dog learn New Tricks?
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eProductivity for Lotus Foundations - Post 1

Like most of the citizens of PlanetLotus I've seen the posts about eProductivity around and even clicked through a few of them when the fancy took me. So why did I take up Eric's offer to blog about it?

Firstly, because I can see a synergy between Lotus Foundations Server and a Personal Productivity tool (be it eProductivity or otherwise). A large segment of the target market for Lotus Foundations Server will be a SMB directed by a single leading individual and it makes all kinds of sense to help that leader get as much as possible out of their day. Gaining an additional 20 minutes a day productivity out of a janitor might save a SMB ten dollars per day in overtime but generating the same productivity boost for the CEO might add another 5% to the bottom line. I'd like to show that kind of benefit to my customers.

Secondly, because my company (Binary Concepts), is a SMB and I'd sure like to add another 5% to my bottom line.

Third, because in the past I've tended to see these sorts of tools as a commercialized version of one man's desktop. eProductivity is the first personal organization tool I've heard of that is based on a productivity methodology and I want to see how it's different to all of the other PIMs, notepads and glorified calendars I've worked with previously.

The web site for eProductivity lists five activities leading up to installing the software. Now I hate watching advertising as much as the next guy but if I'm going to give a fair evaluation of the product then it's only fair that I RTFM first. Here are the five steps:

1. Listen to a 3-minute testimonial from David Allen.... Well, its actually four and a half minutes, and it expands on the three points listed on the David Allen page.

• eProductivity lets me quickly get things into Notes, into the system I can trust.
• eProductivity, gives me the ability to have both perspective and control,
• eProductivity gives me pretty much every tool that I need inside of Lotus Notes;

You can probably skip it.

2. View some screen shots.... A dozen or so screen shots showing different parts of the application. Move along... nothing earth-shattering to see here folks.

3. Watch the video tour and explore eProductivity.... This is 45 minutes long and is absolutely essential. The video tutorial explains the relationship between the different components of eProductivity.

4. Experience eProductivity: download an interactive demo.... I'll pass on this one. I want to get straight to ...

5. Try it! Use eProductivity for 21 days at no cost.... OK then! Let's start downloading!

The download and installation process was simple enough - basically you are replacing your mailfile template. I dutifully stepped through the documented process but found that the instruction videos all had a common feature ie descriptive text of "Video coming soon..." It was simple enough for an experienced administrator to download and install the template but perhaps it would be better to remove all references to the videos until they are available. I'd say it's a two hour process to watch the video then download and install the template.

The next step is to categorize my mail file into Actions and Projects. Stay tuned.
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PC World's review of the Lotus Foundations Applicance

PCWorld wrote a good article in response to the IBM announcement of the Lotus Foundations appliance. A couple of the points they made could benefit from further clarification:

• The Foundations software runs on a 100-megabyte Linux kernel that starts from a solid-state chip - Yes, that's the way it works for the appliance, but the same OS is available as a software only solution for installation on third party hardware.
  
  
• Also, while IBM's announcement heavily stresses the appliance's reliability, it does depend on a high-speed Internet connection, Speyer said. "All the management and software downloading is happening remotely over the Internet." - Yes, you do need internet access for your initial software activation (a one-time, two minute exercise) and for downloading software patches from time to time but that only needs a standard connection speed, especially if you download the patches at night. Server management is done through a browser but that is normally routed across your internal network. You can also do server management across the internet if required but the bandwidth load is trivial.
  

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Shootout between MS Exchange 2007 and IBM Domino 8

ITComparison.com have published the results of a comparison between MS Exchange 2007 and IBM Domino 8. This comparison was last updated a month ago. Either I missed the Lotus community blogging about it or the entire Lotus community missed blogging about it. Either way, Good News can always stand a second reading :)

Here are some of the highlights:

• IBM Lotus Domino has implemented replication for ages to be one of the most reliable and efficient replication methods available.
• MS Exchange 2007 is the first Exchange version to support replication. The replication was not reliable in the RTM release and got a bit better with SP1 but still not the best. In addition, Exchange 2007 replication is not efficient and requires a large amount of dedicated bandwidth which can be expensive.
  
• IBM has kept again the Install & Forget approach. After Domino has been installed you only need to visit the box if you need to add or enable a feature. It does not mean administrators will lose their job, but will have an easier life.
• Microsoft as usual has kept their product maintenance quite time-consuming doing updates for exchange, operating system fixing failures and recovering data stores. It seems they are trying to help administrators look busy to keep their jobs.
  
• IBM has release Lotus Domino 8 as a solid product fully tested and ready for production, but was a bit late to market.
• Microsoft as usual early to market with half raw product at the RTM version of Exchange 2007 with many bugs and features missing few examples:
• - Public folders Management GUI
• - Replication was not working unless implemented directly by Microsoft with some secret hotfixes.
• - Single Copy Cluster was not working unless installed with certain hotfixes in certain orders which was not mentioned any where on Microsoft website and not applying the fixes will make the cluster resources jump from a node to the other.
• - Note: these were few of the issues Microsoft fixed with SP1, but even SP1 had its own issues that Microsoft admit in the release note of SP1 and the installation of SP1 has not been smooth for many customers.


• Exchange 2007 get to be cheaper only if you calculate the initial licenses for non redundant setup. In all the other calculation and TCO Exchange 2007 will be in a loss situation. Exchange 2007 require newer 64-bit hardware and more servers (at least 6 server in case of redundancy) where Lotus Domino can reach full redundancy with two servers only, this is due to the new roles Exchange 2007 came up with. More servers means more licenses and clustering with Exchange require windows enterprise licenses which not required with Lotus Domino. All this give Domino an initial setup advantage when you look at the full setup cost. In addition, if your setup require features like forums, portal, and instant messaging you will have to pay for an extra three separate products with Exchange where all of these are integrated into Domino server for free. All that Make Domino the TCO winner.

I thought this crowd was an IBM front until I read some of the other comparisons these guys have done:

• VMware VI3 VS MS Virtual Server 2005 R2
• VMware VI3 VS Citrix Xen Enterprise
• MS Virtual Server 2005 R2 VS Citrix Xen Enterprise
• Microsoft Windows Hyper-V (WSV) VS VMware Virtual Infrastructure 3.5
• HP Blades vs IBM Blades
• Double Take vs XOsoft WANSyncHA
• Mac OSX Tiger/Leopard VS Microsoft Windows Vista
• Ubuntu VS Microsoft Windows Vista
• Mac OSX Tiger/Leopard VS Ubuntu

Now I'm just waiting for the Lotus Foundations v. Essential Business Server shootout to appear.
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Foundations is sorta like... ummm... software

Have you read how PC Authority describes Lotus Foundations?

"Foundations is a sort of mish-mash of Lotus Notes, Domino mail, file management, firewall, directory services, recovery and backup, anti virus and anti spam programs and support for Microsoft Outlook."

And you guys call yourselves an authority ?
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