The Whole Lotus Enchilada
Posted by therightnotes on April 3, 2007
We currently run Lotus Notes/Domino, Sametime and Quickplace in our environment. We do not run Websphere, but we don’t have any other portal software either. We are in the middle of a project to switch our email to Outlook/Exchange. We have been told that “as long as we have workflow, we’ll have Notes/Domino” (with the implication that we’ll always have the product). OTOH, Quickplace (soon to be Quickr) has been under pressure both from Sharepoint and E-Room, and there are rumours that we are going to be moving from Sametime to the Microsoft instant messenger product.
Here is my question: from a developer perspective, how much should I worry about losing Sametime from the product lineup? I’ve done some Quickplace work, so I worry a bit about losing that. If I thought Microsoft had a viable workflow option for Notes, I would also be worried about that. But while I know that Sametime is (particularly now) an extensible platform, the fact is that I (and my fellow developers) don’t do any Sametime development. Part of me says that it is just a tool that happens to be from Lotus (like our document managment system is just a tool that happens to be from Interwoven). Another part of me says that anytime Lotus is removed from our environment that my job as it currently stands is one step closer to vanishing. I have every reason to believe my company would retrain me, but that is beside the point I’m wondering about.
So, what do any of you think? In my situation, would you consider the loss of Sametime to be a threat?
Keith Strickland said
I would think the odds of your job being in jeopardy are low as I’ve been in this situation before. The fact of the matter is, to convert Lotus Applications to another product is very expensive. I’ve seen relatively small applications being converted to Oracle with a .net frontend cost several million dollars to develop until it was finally abandoned and left on Lotus Domino. While management is probably coming to a “If it doesn’t say Microsoft in front of the product name we don’t want it” attitude, the big hits to the pocket book to move applications off of Lotus is a big deterrent to doing so. So, if the apps aren’t moved off Lotus the business still needs people to support those apps.
Just my $0.02
Keith
therightnotes said
Keith, thanks for your comments. I tend to agree with you about my job in general. I still am not certain how I feel about losing sametime in the organization. I like the product–though I have to admit 7.5 is slow–but I don’t know that I should feel tied to it just because it happens to be from Lotus.
Andy said
Hmm. We have went through the same and converted to Outlook leaving Notes as a document repository. Management are very very keen to get rid of Notes – and for good reasons in my opinion. The interface is terrible and as people move into the company we do not invest time in training them how to use something from 1990. An application that you have to train people to use is not a good application. Our Notes people are being trained in J2EE/web 2.0 type environments. One by one Notes applications are moved to other environments (J2EE). I think the best thing that could happen is for Quickr to be adopted – it looks good and will allow “Java world” to coexist. Whether it saves your job I don’t know but it gives you an upgrade path.