Elsmore.net :: Microsoft WPC Day 1 Wrapup

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Just a quickie before I head to bed. Some interesting facts:

The MS Notes->Exchange value proposition is, well, pretty much non-existent, on its' own at least.
Biggest lie so far? 'We have countries that are now completely Notes-free'
MS have a BIG problem getting shelfware deployed to customers. So much so that MS reps are rewarded on deployment figures more than license sales
Office 2010 has some VERY cool stuff in it. Really. When the video is public, I'll blog the Office/Sharepoint/Office On-line/OCS demo video. In terms of document collaboration, it far exceeds anything anyone else has in the marketplace. Of course, you need the complete platform - but it's impressive stuff.

So, 50/50 good and bad. Oh, and MS Ireland throw a good bash (much free steak and wine). And my toe still hurts, though our friendly neighbourhood nurse thinks it might just be deep bruising and/or a spiral fracture. I'm trying to debate whether or not to bother seeing a local doc and getting Lloyds banking travel insurance to pay for it.

<Update> There are a bunch of Office 2010 videos here. The important parts, however, only work with OCS and Sharepoint. Apparently, a tech preview copy of 2010 is coming my way. So, I'll let you know what comes up. </update>

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Comments

1 - "Biggest lie so far? 'We have countries that are now completely Notes-free' "

How does MS get away with lies like this year upon year and still retain any credibility?

Unless they are thinking about a country like Cuba, where IBM export restrictions apply, I have no idea what they are talking about.

Posted by Ed Brill At 05:45:50 On 14/07/2009 | - Website - |

2 - Can you explain to me how that statement is a lie? Seems plausible.

Posted by William Lefkovics At 06:13:45 On 14/07/2009 | - Website - |

3 - Re the Notes-free country statement, Pretty ballsy statement - and kind of dumb. Hard to prove and probably easy to disprove. Who said it?

Maybe they meant Notes-free as in they don't pay for it? Probably lots of countries qualify for that distinction :).

Have fun!

Posted by Brian Benz At 08:47:30 On 14/07/2009 | - Website - |

4 - @2 Bill, I run the Notes business. I know how many active customers I have and in which countries.

Put another way -- coming from MICROSOFT, how would they know if a country is Notes free? Do they have access to my customer data? Do they have it mapped by country? Even if they have supposedly "won" every single Notes customer known to MS in a COUNTRY (which, given our growing Notes revenues for the last four years seems highly implausible), they STILL wouldn't "know" since they do not have access to IBM systems. So it's a great throwaway statement but it's bogus. What makes you think it is plausible?

Posted by Ed Brill At 12:51:49 On 14/07/2009 | - Website - |

5 - Ed, there are lots of Notes licenses being used here (you know where), the question is were any of those actually sold here? In a multinational like the one I work for nothing is decided here, so were the licenses really sold here? M$ sells to national companies here, does Lotus?
Maybe that's what they mean.

I'm not questioning your numbers, I wish knew them. :)

Posted by Vitor Pereira At 16:09:11 On 14/07/2009 | - Website - |

6 - Maybe it is better that we don't know them so we can still deny that something is going wrong.

Posted by Henning Heinz At 19:30:01 On 14/07/2009 | - Website - |

7 - If you are looking for a Nation "notes free", let me introduce you to Italy. Here notes market is falling days by days, leaving the place to MS collaboration suite (Exchange and Sharepoint), and new acquisitons are strongly blocked by the bugous Lotus Notes version 8.x. Only Banks go on with notes (but version 5, 6 or 7); the other are migrating and IBM is not doing anything good to stop this!

Posted by Mario At 20:40:01 On 27/08/2009 | - Website - |