Feeling nostalgic? Have space on your shelf for “just one more software program?” Perhaps this will do the trick, but act fast before it goes in the garbage.
Tag: lotus notes
30 April 2015: End of Support for IBM Notes/Domino 8.0.x
IBM has announced the end of support for IBM Notes/Domino 8.0.x. To that end, they are providing a webcast to provide customers with upgrade information and “Upgrade Bridge” support.
Webcast information:
- Topic: Webcast: Do you have IBM Notes/Domino 8.0.x? Support ends April 30; Come learn upgrade considerations and special “Upgrade Bridge” support offer.
- Date: Tuesday, February 17, 2015
- Time: 11:00 AM EST for 60 minutes
- Webcast URL
- Webcast Password: webcast
For a list of world-wide phone numbers, the phone passcode, and an iCalendar (.ics) file for this session, click here.
Open Mic Webcast: External elements that can negatively impact your IBM Domino server
A new Open Mic Webcast on 23 October at 11AM EST.
Join IBM’s Monica Senior, along with several other members of the IBM Domino team as they discuss External elements that can negatively impact your IBM Domino server
During this webcast, we will cover five external elements that can cause your IBM Domino server to crash, prevent the server from starting, and/or affect the server’s performance. These external elements include but are not limited to operating system configurations and applications that are seemingly harmless, but we will cover how their settings negatively impacted IBM Domino servers.
After a presentation attendees will be given an opportunity to ask questions. Throughout the event, attendees will also be encouraged to comment or ask questions through our SmartCloud meeting web chat. Join us for this interactive, educational, lively session.
Follow highlights from these Open Mics live on Twitter using #ICSOpenMic or following us on Twitter @IBM_ICSsupport.
Let’s see if we can guess the “five external elements.” I’ll start:
- DNS
- Network
- Users
- Halon
- Alcohol (as consumed by either/both the Administrator or the Developer).,
Whirlpool Corporation: Goodbye IBM Notes
Google Apps scored some enterprise street cred on Monday by announcing a huge customer: Whirlpool.
Whirlpool has 68,000 employees and 66 facilities around the world who will standardize on Apps, Google’s cloud email and office productivity suite. Whirlpool did not ditch Microsoft Exchange or Office for Google. It was using IBM’s Lotus Notes, its CIO Michael Heim told the Wall Street Journal.
This news item is very short on details, unless you are interested in the Google versus Microsoft battle. In fact, all of the articles that I could find on this topic only talk about Google and Microsoft. It makes you wonder if IBM even has some sort of cloud service. If it does (and it really does have a cloud service – why don’t you Google it?), it is never mentioned in these types of articles.
Sixty-eight thousand employees is rather significant, meanwhile in Armonk, NY, IBM says that IBM Lotus/Domino is a growing product. It’s really hard to define “growing” as the contribution of IBM Lotus/Domino is rolled into several other products in their portfolio. I’m sure IBM has lined up a company to take Whirlpool’s place, and then some, in order to continue the growth in IBM Lotus/Domino.
As an aside, there once was a great company in North Canton, Ohio, by the name of Hoover. I’m sure you have heard it. Hoover was sold to Whirlpool. But before that, I was fortunate to assist them with a cc:Mail to Notes migration. Along with the migration, I made some friends at Hoover. One of which has become a very good friend. For that, I am extremely grateful to Hoover (and, I suppose, IBM/Lotus).
IBM Notes Mail Rules – Working With Limits
A Help Desk case comes into the queue. A user, when attempting to create a new mail rule, is receiving an error. IBM Notes cannot create a new rule because it exceeds the 32K limit. This user isn’t dumb, he knows that there is no way a simple mail rule will exceed a 32K limit. And he’s right.
What he doesn’t know is that the Mail Rules view, however, can exceed that limit.
Especially if that view has over 100 mail rules. Yes, this particular person had more than 100 rules.
This was an easy fix, one that is told to “Mail Rules Power Users” time and time again – combine your rules. For example, if you have several rules that move mail into a particular folder, combine them into one rule using the “OR” statement. Or the “AND” statement. Like this:
Instead of having three separate Rules, I’ve combined three Rules into one. Best of all, I’ve reduced the size of the Mail Rules view accordingly. The unspoken, added benefit is that I can now have more than 100 Rules, as I have Rules that perform several functions at once.
TechNote: Is there a limit to the number of mail rules each user can create?
Salesforce.com: Why Companies are replacing Lotus Notes
One of the beautiful, annoying aspects of the internet is that it never forgets. There are many, many examples of this trueism coming back to bite companies and individuals. So, let’s look at Salesforce.com.
Back in 2009, at Lotusphere, Salesforce was there, in force as I recall, to demonstrate how their offering integrated with LotusLive. Oh, it was a joyful time.
. . . At IBM’s Lotusphere event, salesforce.com will showcase how customers can bring together Salesforce CRM with LotusLive and Lotus Notes, to harness the power and innovation of cloud computing within their enterprises and across their customers.
Salesforce.com has also entered into an agreement with IBM to work together to further enable technology interoperability and joint customer success for businesses that use solutions from both companies.
“The cloud computing model offers customers a low-cost, low-risk way to manage their IT infrastructure,” said Polly Sumner, President, Platform, Alliances and Services, salesforce.com. “Bringing together Salesforce CRM and LotusLive can help customers further leverage cloud computing to streamline their communication and collaboration processes.”
Wow, kittens AND unicorns. It was beautiful.
Here we are, at the end of 2012. How’s that relationship between IBM and Salesforce working out?
Well, the reality is that Notes penetrated companies pretty darn well back in the 90’s (like a Nirvana song permeated the radio waves), and the departmental applications sprouted and filled all the holes that IT often couldn’t get to. Love it or hate it, Notes became a mainstay platform of the enterprise. In a recent survey we did of our Dreamforce 2012 attendees, we found that 73% did indeed still use Lotus Notes. And that 70.3% were considering replacing Lotus Notes, the majority within the year.
No hard numbers, as in “number of respondants,” but that doesn’t really matter. Of Salesforce’s customers at Dreamforce, 73% of their customers use Lotus IBM Notes and Domino. Of those respondants, as I read it, 70.3% of the 73% are looking to replace it.
[Blog intermission] I am rather shocked that there were that many IBM Notes and Domino customers attending. Consider that IBM probably has less than 50% of the total messaging market, and that of that number, 73% were at Dreamforce. I would venture to say that only other place on Earth, where more than 73% of the audience is IBM Notes and Domino customers is at Connect. Or one of the many User Group conferences held around the world.
What the heck happened from 2009 until now that soured the once exceptional relationship between IBM and Salesforce? Remember, it was all kittens, sunshine, and unicorns back in 2009.
If you read the comments to the Salesforce post, and I highly recommend that you do, Ed Brill chimes in. But then, so does Steve Wood, VP of Platform for Salesforce:
Let me start by making a bold statement: we like Lotus Notes! We also have a huge respect for Lotus Notes developers. It has been a transformational platform for many businesses. It illustrated how empowering the business to “do more” with software can result in amazing things. However, it’s old. And I think I could probably get you to agree that IBM has under-invested. It’s client/server (more on xpages later), users find the product to be pretty clunky from a UI perspective, workflow has to be coded, and it doesn’t REALLY have reporting (it has views). It’s just kind of… well… old and tired. All of this stuff means that Lotus Notes users and developers are looking for a new player – we hear that from surveying just those people. They like Lotus and what it does, but they feel trapped in an aging and underinvested platform – that’s where we see our opportunity (and we’re investing heavily).
I wonder if Salesforce will be at Connect?
Link: Salesforce.com Demonstrates Cloud Computing Solutions at IBM Lotusphere 2009
Link: Here’s Why Companies are Replacing Lotus Notes (And You Should Too)
Gregg Eldred 