With Dan Lyon's FUD, Who Needs Microsoft?

Way back in 1990, I went to Holy Trinity Catholic Church in Georgetown for Sunday Mass. It was my first time going to this controversial Jesuit parish, and I was blown away. Father Walter Burghardt, a noted and published homilist, was expressing his anger at something, and said that the words he wanted to use would not qualify as pulpit language, so he did not. I though of this last night and chuckled as I read Daniel Lyons latest writing about the IBM Open Client and Lotus Notes. All kinds of words came to mind, but would not be appropriate blog language. Imagine if someone were to write that Mr. Lyons is a zealous idiot, that he would not know good software if it came up and bit him in the arse, or such things like that? Now I would never myself choose to write words like that. But I am not unbiased. Last year Mr. Lyons chose to attack me and this blog by reference, and Ed Brill's blog directly, in the now infamous "Attack of the Blogs" article, and he chose not to read the answers I gave to his interview questions at that time. So perhaps it is fitting that some of his points need to be addressed.

"The Lotus stuff remains closed-source. But the Open Client runs on top of a program called Eclipse, which is open-source."

No, the use of Eclipse and movement of Lotus Notes to the Eclipse platform is about the embracing of open-standards. It has nothing to do with open source. He needs to learn and understand the difference.

"Lotus Notes is far and away the most horrible software on the planet."

Sure Lotus Notes has it warts and kinks, as does all software. But what benchmark is he using to say "most horrible"? If it is the "most horrible", why does it have over 100 Million users, and why has revenue risen over 30% over the same period last year?

"People hate Notes. As in, they want to change jobs just so they can stop using it."

Really? Where are the numbers to back up this statement? And what people are these? It is definitely not the system administrator I worked with recently who reluctantly switched to Lotus Notes and said he will never go back because of the much better ease of administration. Oh, but this example would not fit the Lyons agenda, so I guess it is not relevant.

"On top of that, once customers start using Notes, it's really hard for them to switch. So they're stuck with it unless they want to endure a really painful migration to a different e-mail system."

If they are only switching e-mail systems, it is not difficult to switch. The difficulty is on the Microsoft side of the house, which requires a rip and replace every time an organization needs to upgrade. But again, this fact would not fit the Lyons agenda.

"But come on. Is there anyone left in the world who really believes Linux is cheaper than Windows? (Red Hat on the server actually costs more.)"

It is not about cost, it is about choice and expanding into new markets. I do not expect any organization to make wholesale changes to Linux. What I do expect is that organizations that do run Linux will have more choices.

"As much as you may hate Windows, the reason Windows became popular in the first place was because it saved the world from IBM's attempt to monopolize the desktop with OS/2 and Presentation Manager."

Hmm, save the desktop save the world? I do not think so. Did not Microsoft get declared to have an unfair monopoly based on their practices. Oops, I forgot, this would be an inconvenient truth for the Lyons agenda.

"But maybe you really believe that IBM has changed, and that it really wants to save you money and make you free and empower you with loads of choice and help you simplify your life. In which case, this no-list-price, non-open "Open Client" installed by consultants and delivered by three vendors working at cross-purposes may be just the thing for you."

Bottom line is, all business are out there to make money, just like Forbes Magazine. No one has ever accused Steve Forbes of being an altruist. So if you read the Lyons article, make sure you treat it for what it is: the continued anti-IBM, anti-Lotus ramblings of a single man. I know that organizations do not make decisions based on one article like this, but it does sit in the back of executives' minds. So do more homework and look at the underlying technologies and look at what business value a platform will bring to your organization. Then you can make a rational business decision.