What IBM Needs to Do to Retain its Lotus Notes Customers

I wish I knew what is going at the IBM head quarters in regards to this topic.

I got a bit disappointed when I saw a news post “Steinhoff drops Lotus Notes …”  confirming that 1,050 Lotus Notes seats will be replaced by Microsoft’s BOPS and not by LotusLive Cloud  solution. When I see news like that I a good number of questions comes to my mind. How come I have seen more news during the past 12 months about Notes seats being replaced by IBM competition instead of  Notes replacing its competition? Is it an irreversible trend or just a temporary market fluctuation? Doesn’t IBM really care about Lotus Notes customer base or it’s just my pessimistic point of view lately?

I am an optimist and I still hope that Lotus Notes will be able to sustain the tough Lotus Notes competition time and eventually will start recovering its lost customer base.

Is it just a wishful thinking or perhaps a first sign of a sinuous delusional disorder?
Perhaps I just spent so much time with Notes starting with version 2.0 in 1992 and can not agree that the days of Lotus Notes are counted.

I see Lotus Notes as by far the more superior e-mail platform simply because it’s not just an e-mail platform. Lotus Notes is a collaborative environment with the robust non-relational database to support rapid application development for Lotus Notes and the web client. And I think, this is where a majority of the world is in complete disconnect what Lotus Notes platform is about. And this is where IBM might want to come in to educate not only existing customers but most definitely customers that are on the opposite side of the road.

With LotusLive Cloud offerings which include LotusLive Engage, LotusLive iNotes, LotusLive Notes and soon to be available LotusLive Domino/Notes hosting we hopefully will be able to witness the great Notes come back.

6 Replies to “What IBM Needs to Do to Retain its Lotus Notes Customers”

  1. Lotus Notes should do something or will become the next Nokia. Nokia did not believe in Symbian or Meego. IBM could lost faith in Lotus. Why not a quickr based on a local .nsf? Make teamroom conflicts like versions. Upgrade all databases like the Mail8.5. etc etc

  2. I think it may be caused by IBM bonus/incentive schemes for account managers. They get rewarded too much for selling new licenses compared to keeping existing customers.
    At the same time this why the education sector does not get enough attention as it does not bring enough revenue for an IBM account manager. Result, students are exposed too much to MS stuff.
    Just my 2cts though.

    1. Thank you for your comments, Tom! I can not agree with you more on both of your thoughts. It starts from a school where Notes and other IBM products are totally overtaken by MS. It should start right there then the decisions made in the future might become more IBM favorable.

  3. I would like to see IBM include the Xpages library into the installation of the Domino server, make it clear what its doing, and include/bundle updated Web 2.0 look/feel templates (i.e. Xpage enabled) so that companies can be wowed out of the box. To make a further value proposition, Quikr should be included with the product and it should be made clear on how it could be configured as a far tighter solution than Sharepoint.

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