When Technical Magazines Fuel FUD

A few of weeks ago, I wrote about an article that Stephen Swoyer wrote about spreadsheet controls. In that piece, Mr. Swoyer took an unintentional bash at Lotus Notes/Domino as a tool to support it governance and compliance and he later let me publish his mea culpa on this site. Well it seems that Mr. Swoyer is once again at the center of the Lotus community eye over an article in Application Development Trends (ADT) Magazine. In this piece entitled "IBM crosses signals: Domino or Workplace?" and dated February 1, 2005, anybody who just returned from Lotusphere 2005 could do nothing but scratch their heads and ask if the writer was on the same plane of existence last week. Tom Duff alerted me to this article and I want to look at it in more detail, along with some caveats.
First Things First

First, ADT Magazine is published by 101Communications, the same company that published the other article Mr. Swoyer wrote for the IT Compliance Institute. I am not sure if this is a pattern, but I will be watching this closely in the future. Second, Mr. Swoyer told me by e-mail today that the article was submitted on November 1, so it is not exactly timely. Since this is a print publication, I understand this a little better. I do not have to like it and think the writer and fact checker should have done more work before publishing this article with a post-Lotusphere date of February 1.  I am really not sure whether to blame the author, the editor, the publication, or all of the above.

Controversy Sells Publications

It is just the way it is. Nobody writes about boring subjects because lack of drama is, well, boring. In his e-mail to me, Mr. Swoyer told me that "during
a question and answer session with IBM execs, analysts, and journos, I counted no less than three separate questions about this issue, which
shows that -- among the chattering classes, anyway -- it's still unresolved. (Given the fact that many chatterers thrive on fomenting FUD, that's perhaps not surprising.)" He will get no argument from me on this count. If he had been in Orlando covering Lotusphere instead of doing it remotely, he may have come away with a better understanding.

So What Is Wrong With The Article

Let's start by saying that I have never had any great love for Workplace. I did not like the underlying technology and yes, the message *WAS* clearly muddled. In fact, I sat in business partner sessions with IBM and told them as much when they were trying to sell us on workplace, But that was then and this is now.

Rumors about the impending demise of IBM’s Lotus Notes/Domino platform are nothing new.  Well that all depends on who you talk to. If it is Sara Radicati or Microsoft talking, maybe. But if it is one of the 118 million users worldwide, there is a very different answer. IBM, in my opinion, put the punctuation mark on the subject last week.

At first, IBM was careful to position Workplace as an offering for shops without Notes and Domino—or any other messaging platform, for that matter. Over the last 12 months, however, IBM has disclosed more ambitious plans for Workplace.

The author fails to make the distinction between Workplace Messaging and Workplace. and the difference is huge!

It’s not surprising, then, that some longtime Notes/Domino developers take a decidedly pessimistic view of that platform’s future. 'As far as I can tell from the buzz, Domino is on the way to its grave within the next few years, and I will be forced to find an alternative,' says Robert LaRock, a programmer with Standard Abrasives.

What buzz was this? Is this what anybody, even Gartner, heard last week?

'None of my clients has made the migration, nor are they intending to,' says Patricia Egen, a principal with Notes and Domino consultancy Patricia Egen Consulting. 'They are too confused—as we all are—by the IBM plan, and until they have a more comfortable opinion of what’s actually in the works, they are not choosing to move.'

Nevertheless, IBM believes many customers will want to do just that. What possible incentive, short of threatening to pull the plug on Domino and Notes, could IBM give existing customers to convince them to make the move to Workplace?

I do not know if Patricia was at Lotusphere or not, but there is no migration being forced. It just is not the plan from what we can tell. In a conversation with Tom Duff, he said very simply,

"He's still not getting it.  No one is "moving" to workplace.  Workplace becomes the Notes front end client with the Workplace Rich Client.  You still use the Domino server and Designer to build traditional Notes apps.  You can then start using Workplace Designer to build J2EE apps.  There's no "moving" involved."

The article goes on:

"LaRock doubts he and his team of Domino developers could duplicate their work with as little effort in a Workplace environment. 'Our custom applications revolve around automating various workflows and integrating them with Domino’s ability to easily present applications using Notes clients and Web browsers,' he confirms. 'We make extensive use of Domino’s ability to create workflow, notification and tracking applications. The primary appeal is the ease and speed that this can be done using Domino.' "

Again, the strategy is clear. There is or will be no need to do this or anything like it. Trust me, I do not want to sit down and learn to do J2EE unless I absolutely have to, and IBM has made it clear that although it would be nice if I did. it is not required.

For this reason, many longtime Notes and Domino programmers, including several who have developed solutions for Workplace, say IBM’s next-generation messaging platform has a long way to go before it’s as powerful and easy to use as Notes and Domino. 'It’s probably around what Notes R1 has in [terms of] capabilities. The programmability is just not there yet and won’t be for years. At this point, it’s really usable only if you want to use the Lotus applications bundled with it,' comments Ken Yee, a principal with custom Notes and Domino development house Key Solutions.

Not exactly the way I would want to welcome Ken to the Blogoshere, but you need to see the Workplace Designer tools shown last week. Very, very interesting to say the least.

But how will they continue to run? In this respect, IBM sees Workplace as a long-term replacement for Notes and Domino. This isn’t to say that Notes or Domino is going away, just that they’re being moved–to the periphery.

Anyone want to bite on this one?

FUD Is Everywhere So Deal With It

Well guess what, no user or company has to deal with it. There are no editorial deadlines in our world and we need to call it as we see it. I have absolutely no problem with written pieces critical of any technology a long as the information is current and accurate. In no way was this piece current or accurate. In fairness, the people quoted, and the rest of us, did not have any really warm fuzzy until we got to Orlando last week. So some slack might be cut there. But let;s move to end the FUD and move ahead.